On Beautiful Sundays
Bleedin' heck, today is gorgeous. I'm going to celebrate by taking a ridiculously long drive. I've already used up a tank of gas this weekend (over 300mi of driving in the past two days!) but with days this gorgeous, who can complain?
I should note one particular detail:
In his article, 400 Miles in a 1981 Corvette, Liberman discusses driving a Corvette to a location from where it would be shipped to Europe:
Suddenly, just north of Santa Barbara the right headlamp popped up. As fate would have it, I had left the lights on. You could almost hear the opening bars from Flight of the Valkyrie. "Come on, come on you little shit," I started screaming at the left lamp. "Pop!" Fifteen long, gut-twisting seconds later it did. Sure, I could have got more illumination sitting on the hood and holding a Zippo, but the lights were up! I was going to make it.
...
Now that I was back to cruising, I had some neurons to spare to contemplate the C3. What a brilliant little car. How did it know to pop those lights then and there? And maybe those neurons were cooked a little, but I realized what was going on. The Corvette knew.
This was it: the poor thing's swan song. It's death rattle. The last chance the tri-decade dog would have to be flogged California style. Sure, they have roads in Euroland. But 'Vettes - especially C3s - were built for the Golden State. Somehow, like a race horse about to be put out to stud, the Corvette knew. This was its victory lap.
[italics added]
I can't get over how beautiful, and how spectacularly underrated, our interstate system is. I have driven over 200 miles of interstate in the last two days. I spent most of Friday and Saturday on them.
Next time you have the opportunity, do yourself a favor: at sundown, get on a west-facing interstate in a car you love. On the far end of the trip, at the darker end of the sunset, treat yourself to one of your favorite restaurants.
It's one heck of a treat.
Right, I'm off to the gym. I'm going to take the scenic route.
I should note one particular detail:
In his article, 400 Miles in a 1981 Corvette, Liberman discusses driving a Corvette to a location from where it would be shipped to Europe:
Suddenly, just north of Santa Barbara the right headlamp popped up. As fate would have it, I had left the lights on. You could almost hear the opening bars from Flight of the Valkyrie. "Come on, come on you little shit," I started screaming at the left lamp. "Pop!" Fifteen long, gut-twisting seconds later it did. Sure, I could have got more illumination sitting on the hood and holding a Zippo, but the lights were up! I was going to make it.
...
Now that I was back to cruising, I had some neurons to spare to contemplate the C3. What a brilliant little car. How did it know to pop those lights then and there? And maybe those neurons were cooked a little, but I realized what was going on. The Corvette knew.
This was it: the poor thing's swan song. It's death rattle. The last chance the tri-decade dog would have to be flogged California style. Sure, they have roads in Euroland. But 'Vettes - especially C3s - were built for the Golden State. Somehow, like a race horse about to be put out to stud, the Corvette knew. This was its victory lap.
[italics added]
I can't get over how beautiful, and how spectacularly underrated, our interstate system is. I have driven over 200 miles of interstate in the last two days. I spent most of Friday and Saturday on them.
Next time you have the opportunity, do yourself a favor: at sundown, get on a west-facing interstate in a car you love. On the far end of the trip, at the darker end of the sunset, treat yourself to one of your favorite restaurants.
It's one heck of a treat.
Right, I'm off to the gym. I'm going to take the scenic route.