Liz Baumann

My Public Diary

The Call of the Wild West January 9th, 2011

This past holiday I drove from Colorado to California to spend time with cousins in Big Bear and friends west of L.A.

I’ve missed going on long drives. I used to do them a lot when I lived in the southeastern US, when I would spend most of my vacations returning to the midwest to visit friends and family. When I moved to California in 2001, I stopped doing that because it just seemed too far to get back. But now that I am in Colorado, both California and the midwest take a more manageable number of hours to drive to. And I really enjoyed this trip, with the varied scenery, interesting weather, music cranked just a bit louder that my speakers can handle, feeling of independence, time to think, etc.

One thing that’s changed though since I lived back east is that I feel a little guilty about the environment now with my 20 mpg pickup… but I’ll try to make up for it in summer by biking more. Would flying out there have been worse? I don’t know – but certainly more costly and probably not much quicker since I would have had to rent a car in Las Vegas or L.A. anyway to make it to Big Bear… where there was plenty of snow and my 4WD came in real handy.

Here are some photos from the drive – the best I could do with my iPhone and Canon PowerShot, hurtling at 70+ mph down the interstates and highways of the wild and wonderful western US (is that as bad as texting behind the wheel? shame on me).

More photos from my trip on Flickr:
Big Bear, L.A. and Big Bear again
Snowboarding at Powderhorn (Coloraaado) on the way back
Full set from the drive (the ones here plus a few more)