Thanks. That makes sense. Last Thursday morning I was out with my dog going past the Marina Walmart. Gordon came across Reservation Road. He's from Grant's Pass. His wife is hungry. They spent last night in the bushes and he felt it was disgusting. She's on the bus bench with a clean suitcase and a toy sized dog. I don't have any cash. His family is tapped. They're waiting for the Airbus to get to San Jose. I'd give him the twenty in my wallet. Except I don't carry when I'm out with a dog. Gordon tells me he's not a bum. I know he isn't. The story is so dull it has to be true and his hands feel like they've been chainsawing when we shake. Many blessings as he walks back to the bus bench. I head home, through some food and dog treats in a bag. The bag in my backpack. Me on my bicycle and I'm back in twenty minutes. Gordon and his wife and her suitcase and the toy dog are gone. The bus bench is empty. I figure maybe their at the transportation hub. Peddle over. Nope. I change out my twenty for 19 dollar coins and four quarters. I've started keeping some Sacagawea and Susan B. in my pocket. And some in my backpack. I Google Airbus. It's mostly about planes. But there's a link to the Monterey Airbus. $30 from Monterey to San Jose airport. Still a long way to Grant's Pass. But a little closer.

$60 in gas would have got them closer. I started thinking about how hard it is to get away from California back in January. I was heading back to Auburn from Mojave. I got a brake related warning light on I8 in Arizona and pulled into an Advanced Autoparts to get an OBD code. It's close to 10pm The store's reader doesn't do brake codes. But one of the guys has his in his car. He's from...I don't remember...but not a California city I'd go out of my way to visit. He tells me had to get out. Bad environment. His car is something small. Twenty + years old. And was cheap when it was new. Tuscon is a long way across a lot of Mojave and basins and ranges from where he left. Far enough that he doesn't go back to visit mom. He didn't half to check my code. He gets bored with nothing to do. ADHD diagnosis. I get the sense his coworker feels there's more dignity in boredom. Probably helps him cope with the other guy's ADHD on the dark winter nights. He's read the codes. I express my gratitude and crash for the night in the Walmart parking lot...staying at the W.

Sometime in the next 600 miles I realize how far California mostly is from everyplace except somewhere else in California. Six hundred miles gets me to Odessa Texas. The last 100 of it smells like motor oil. Lights twinkling in the night like the edge of a city that never comes. Permian Basin full tilt. The hotels have shed houses in their parking lot. The RV parks aren't recreational. Neither are the vehicles. Roughnecks are living in the biggest tent Walmart sells at the state park campground. It's full. I sleep next to an abandoned truck scale along a stretch of US80 now routed on I20. I'd miss it all if I flew. I wouldn't have time to think.

Since June 2017 I've made five road trips in the American west. The most recent was the shortest at 3000 miles over 12 nights. Unless my move to California counts in the van with a little furniture and the two dogs. That was 2400 miles in 72 hours and there are six trips. The longest 9600 miles in 28 days out to the end of the Olympic Peninsula with Victoria across the Straight of Jaun de Fuca.

There are only four significant routes from the great plains to the Pacific (plus a few variations). The Great Northern Railroad route from Minneapolis to Portland now I90. The Union Pacific from Omaha to Oakland ends up being I80. The ATSF through Flagstaff and across the Mojave into Barstow is now I40. It used to be Route 66. And the Southern Pacific is now I10. It's still the only all weather route to the West Coast and was only made possible by the Gasden Purchase despite all that Mexico ceded following the war. Time hasn't changed the geography. The only road over the Sierra Nevada between Barstow (access to LA) and Donner's Pass (access to Oakland) runs through Yosemite National Park over Tioga Pass. Two lanes. No commercial traffic.

Living on the road isn't being homeless and it's elements of poverty are the poverty of choice. But it exposes the challenge that geography. There's no conspiracy behind Amtrak terminating all those east west lines in Los Angeles. Geography is why I40 turns south at Barstow toward LA. Going around the Sierras is viable. Going over them isn't.

In the east distance is lesser, mountains lower, routes more. It impacts our mental maps. Americans think about the West based on the geography of the East. Based on Europe. It isn't. Most of the coast between San Francisco and LA is sparsely inhabited. There's Monterey. All the coast North of San Francisco is. Portland and Seattle and Vancouver are a mountain range inland. They're relatively near the Pacific coast. But not nearly on it.