Driving Myself in Circles

Because of where I live, I do a lot of driving through the desert.

Most of my driving, I'd say, is done between 50-60 MPH (80-90KPH) because, well, as you can see from the photo, why not? The roads are mostly straight, mostly level, and there isn't very much in the way of obstacles.

The speed I drive is determined by two things: what mood I'm in and how windy it is. Lots of time I just cruise along, taking in the desert, and enjoying the views of the surrounding mountains and whatnot. At night, when it's dark, I can't see anything except half a football field ahead and the occasional light on a property, but I still drive the same speed.

If it's windy, as it often is in the desert, I sometimes can't drive as fast as I want because my Jeep has the aerodynamics of a brick. Heading into the wind feels like hauling a full trailer, and I just do the best I can.

I mention this because it's not a rare thing for me to be passed by someone when I'm driving into town or taking a trip across the desert, most often during the early morning or evening by someone who I imagine to be going or coming from work.

But not always.

I tell myself that a lot of the passenger cars that zip around me, safely or not, are tourists whose only desire is to get the hell out of the desert as quickly as they can. I can understand that. The desert isn't for everyone, and it's nothing but something to endure for most of the people who want to either leave or get to the coastal cities from the rest of America.

The Mojave desert, where I live, is a big place, and it can take hours to get through it, and it's not the only desert in the southwest. You can get from Los Angeles to the forested mountains of northern Arizona in a day, but then its more deserts all the way through the rest of Arizona, New Mexico, and into Texas.

So, yeah, a lot of people just want to get the desert over and done with. I don't mind it a bit if they want to pass me, and I don't mind it, either, if it's a local person in a pickup who can't stand the thought of having his masculinity challenged by driving slower than he wants and sees my slow Jeep as a challenge he can't just ignore.

Many of the people who live in the area around where I live have to travel forty miles or so to work and back every day, and they have no time for sightseeing or enjoying the desert. I, on the other hand, have all the time in the world and all the expanse of the desert to spend it in.

The only thing that bugs me, and that's only sometimes, are the radio stations I can receive. There's a local station (one) that plays popular music because, well, the lowest common denominator means something, and that one comes in just fine. I guess there may be others that play some version of country, but I never listen to those because I like country music even less than pop.

There's a Las Vegas station I can pick up that plays oldies, but mostly songs I didn't like all that much back when they were popular. When I'm in the right place, I can pick up a local NPR station, and that's great for listening to jazz on nighttime drives through the black desert and non-local news during the daytime hours.

And, there's an AM station that is ... different.

Late at night, the AM station has a conspiracy theory program that is, in a word, astounding. In the early morning there's a couple gay guys who are funny, and later on, of course, they play Rush Limbaugh and a bunch of Limbaugh wannabes.

I don't listen to any of those.

My Jeep's radio also plays CDs, so I've made some of those, but they invariably start skipping as soon as I leave the paved streets, which I do pretty often. Sometimes they get scratched, so my CDs have an expected life that can be measured in hours and I get used to missing parts of songs. Jose is too old to have a USB or media port, but I don't have any iPod or iAnything for music, anyway.

So I do a lot of driving, a lot of it in silence, and it's all part of the desert life. When  you're miles from anywhere, you get used to driving, and it helps to have a dog along for the ride.