The badlands

The last time the little woman and I crossed a desert of any type we were in a sunshine yeller Corvair convertible, black top, black seats, air cooled engine, air cooled passengers. They sure don make em like that no more. It was hot. Steve and I useta take turns rubbing ice on Beth whenever she would pass out from the heat. These here modern cars we got today you hardly break a sweat and then only when you are runnin fer the outhouse, which they have scattered all over the place nowadays. Why, when we were young you had to pretend to want somethin in a store or diner in order to get some plumbin.

Why, since the last time we came thru, they chopped a slot through the Utah Reef. Everyone hadda go round, and we weren't allowed to complain about it neither. We just did it. Now seven minutes... zip... right thru, and then they give you a place to park to marvel at whatcha jest done, and they put a crapper there fer ya too, jest in case.

We haven't bought ice once, and they don't even SELL those canvas sweat bags to cool down your water anymore. I guess they don't work as efficiently with a plastic bottle of fancy store-bought water in em.
Things are so impressive around here that I think that if we drove around the corner and saw Mount Rushmore right there in front of us with those big faces an all, it would just seem kinda lame, what with all the fancy strata we got right here like a rollin movie screen. Every five minutes there is some spectacular view like we'd never seen before.
Back east there's someone I met in a saloon in Redhook by the name of Bart. When he heard that we was plannin to mosey up the left coast of Californication, he warned us about the problem with “too much beauty”. He was explainin how you go around a corner and see one view that is better than you have ever seen before. You go around the next corner and see ANOTHER view that's better than ANY view that you have ever seen before. Another corner, another view. You can't imagine it could get any better and then you take a corner. After awhile you are going around corners and adjusting your radio at the same time.
Well here I am doin my copiloting duties while typing this letter and then every forty to sixty seconds I snatch up the camera and take another picture that nobody will ever look at. I have a super-duper battery charger that recharges my AA batteries in fifteen minutes start to finish. If I didn't have that charger and three sets of batteries I would either have to be stoppin in at every store there is to buy more batteries or not take the pictures, that of course would be more logical, but then I would be whinin that I missed some important shot. Even more than I am now about some funny pictures I missed because the camera takes too long to kick into gear. They jest don make em like they used to. Why when I was young the cameras used to just take a picture – SNAP – and it was over. No waiting, no focusin, twenty four wonderful pictures that you never developed. Throw the film into your junk drawer for safe keepin... and well, that's what we did with em. Other people would develop their rolls, and we got to see their pictures of their stuff, which was probably better than the pictures I took anyway, but I'm digressin agin, whut was a talkin about?, oh yeah, when I was young you useta....