Dispatch: Travel Days 101.2 / by Ashley Tata

Rohnert Park to Visalia. 266 miles.

But - wait. First a diner in Berkeley and reunion with tech friends. All the smiley people. And animated discussion of AR, VR, XR, IRL - all the realities - and what they look like. And what they do and why we’ll keep doing them.

Return to 101. Farmland and stuffland is all from here to there. Irrigate for agro. It’s 107 degrees at the gas station. Green farmland, white big boxland and dry, flammable beige in between. The in between being the primary color. $15 for 3 gallons unleaded. 30¢ for one gallon H2O. The whiff of water wars in the distance.

Keep driving. Must see those big trees. Why? Because they’re big? Don’t question my twisted sense of motivation. Highs of a different kind have motored all sorts of obsessive engulfing driving across this too-big-for one-national-park-land. This is an inheritance. Gotta catch them all.

Sequioa. Kings Highway. Climbing 1000, 2000, 3000. Temperature drops with each 1k feet. At 4k it’s only 100 degrees. 6 - 87. Clear and cool.

These giants. Fists of gods touching down. Golden Gate: we did that. Burj Khalifa - designed and constructed by a human. Build big and be comforted. But this mystery. Beyond control. It denies the setting of our correct proportion. Put it away. 6000 feet.

Sunset. Blood red. Moon rise.

Tomorrow for the trees.