What's so great about that valley anyway?

Engaged, as I am, in moving from one end of California to the other, I have spent a lot of time of late driving up and down the freeway. Or to be more specific, the 'Golden State Freeway', Interstate 5. This major artery runs all the way from San Diego to the Oregon border and beyond. The northernmost stretch runs through forests and past big pointy volcanoes and is fantastic. The rest of it, the Tejon Pass apart, is utterly, dreadfully, tedious.

And, worse, it stinks of cowshit.

This is all the fault of the 'Great Valley'. Pancake flat, featureless and hundreds of miles long, the agricultural engine room of California has inspired many a long-distance truck driver to crash off the road in a deep torpor. The whole ensemble just screams 'unstimulating', if one could scream in a way so as to be completely unnoticeable. Even the place names are banal: Patterson, Firebaugh, and, er... no, sorry.

One more time. I have to drive it again next week. 430 stultifying miles. Bloody hell.

Standard intro blurb

I set up a blog. Two years and five posts later, I let the domain expire in a typical non-act of benign neglect. I set up another one. I like to think that this time I will stay true, keep posting, service my notional non-captive audience, but if I had to put money on it...