photo: © Ben Seelt
Here is another way to travel: in California, rent what they call a ‘full-size car.’ In my case, it was a Lincoln station wagon with an 8-cylinder engine. It costs a bit, but you get something in return. Then buy two sleeping bags, spread them out in the back for nights when there is nothing nearby, stock up on water and especially gasoline, and off you go.
There is no more comfortable country to travel through than the States. It is beautiful, and there is a lot of it—soon too much for a first-time visitor. By the third day, as I stand beside a magnificent gorge, my partner says, ‘Just photograph it; I’ll look at it at home.’ We drive the ‘usual’ loop: San Francisco, through the Sierra Nevada, Death Valley, Utah, the Grand Canyon, Arizona, L.A., and back again.
The gorge in question is Yosemite. We arrive among its magnificent mountains from California’s balmy wine country. It is cool here. It gets much colder when, farther on, we drive through a narrow passage with two-meter-high walls of snow on either side. We had not exactly planned for that in our shorts.
California
Everything passes in this life, and toward evening we drive into Death Valley, several kilometers lower and 60 degrees warmer. The mighty Lincoln’s air conditioning cannot cope. The car boils over, and so do we. Through the shimmering heat, a cowboy town appears as if lifted from a movie. ‘Do you have a room?’ I ask the hat hanging over the fence marked motel. ‘If you have 50 dollars,’ the hat replies. The air conditioner in the room roars and rattles. We do not care, as long as it cools us down.
Then my nose starts running. I mean water pours out of it—not drops, but more like a mountain stream. My eyes are swollen shut, and I feel like a wet rag. Colds have many faces. Without being asked, the hat sets down two glasses: a small one containing something alcoholic and a tumbler filled with vinegar.
I am instructed to drink them in reverse order, each in a single gulp, and I comply because I am at the end of my tether. After a long night spent waking to the rattling air conditioner, my runny nose, and the searing heat, I feel much better the next morning.
Only then does Death Valley truly begin. A sulfur-yellow landscape of moon and hell passes us by—I cannot make it sound any less extreme. It is 58 degrees, and I do not dare leave the car. After hours, the radio begins receiving signals again. ‘Free champagne when you book with us.’ Las Vegas, then, slowly appearing on the horizon. That sounds good to us, and we immediately understand how Las Vegas came to be.
