I still haven't seen Lydia's original posting about
this subject, but I'll tell my story.
Two words:
DO IT.
There is no experience like taking a British roadster
along Highway 1 in the summertime. I would endure all
the discomfort I have ever faced with all my British cars
for the day I got to take my Midget down Highway 1 from
the Napa Valley (by way of the Golden Gate Bridge) to
Cambria. It was even worth the $200 it cost me to have
a new alternator put on there...
Seriously, Highway 1 is why you got the car, whether
you know it or not. The road snakes in and out of
the clouds like a grey asphalt dragon, his back curving
and dipping behind each hillside. The Chinese say you can
never see all of a dragon at once, and so it is with
Highway 1: you'll catch a glimpse of the road on the
far side of a black cliff face, or rolling through
golden hills or dancing back and forth between green
sycamores and blue pines, but you'll never see the
whole thing.
If you don't like the scenery, wait ten minutes and
it will change. One moment, distant mountains, their
heads in the mist, separate the sky from sweeping
fields dotted with lazy cattle, while at your right
hand the crevices from ages of runoff split black cracks
amid the gentle golden slopes between you and the beach.
The next minute you've climbed up, pink and grey rhyolite
a sheer fractal cliff at one side and a long drop,
a heart-stopping fall to your left, the waves only
flecks of white in an eternal blue-gray sphere below
you. Then later, the road swoops and curls through
a forest, sunlight brightening the backs of leaves
and ambient glow illuminating soft redwoods as
the highway dips, curls, dances and climbs as
you follow the dragon's tail, sliding and clawing
and growling along the ancient asphalt path.
Highway 1 is why there are sports cars.
I'll write more practical stuff later.
--Scott "We'd ridden the dragon, || Clung tight to the scales
And skated the spines, || But now we were stopped" Fisher
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