Common scents
Investigating miles visually is great but there are other ways to enjoy new places. Getting out on the road in good weather with the windows open is a delight. It also leads to new experiences for the senses, specifically a sense of smell.
On the way to Salton Sea early in the journey, the lack of artificial lighting on the road made a sense of smell more acute. The night looked spectacular in it’s unpolluted starlit glory. We could see the milky way and it’s nice to be able to identify the galaxy address of the planet you live on. The darkness also offered, passing smells of cow shit, hay and rain that never seemed to arrive. It was an interesting experience to indulge a sense in this way.
Further along toward the cities, I smelled a Skunk for the first time. (I guess this still fits into the WB Looney Tunes theme of the whole run). I can now see why people call their drug of choice by the same name. I really didn’t believe that the two would actually have the same scent notes but they do. Also, skunks don’t smell half as bad as I was expecting. Though naturally I’d rather not be wearing that particular perfume.
One of the really cloying smells of the road arrived as we passed through oil fields. Lonely pastures were dotted with small pumps, perpetually nodding with only a tank for company. The smell is powerful and acrid and seems to describe all of the monetary and political associations with the product.
A sense of smell has the power to immediately transport me to another place in time. The pine trees of Yosemite took me home to my grandmother’s house. With that sweet pine in the air I could remember so clearly the soft pine needles under my shoes at the back of her garden.
An even stronger evocation of home arrived on the road between Salinas and San Francisco; end of the new world along the Pacific. Sweetest pine and ocean salt air mixed with Eucalyptus – any Australian can be homesick on those two alone. Hot air to accompany a gum tree on the breeze, well you might as well be in the hills of Melbourne. It’s one of my favourite smells and so delicious, I’m a little disappointed there’s not many things to eat with that combination.
It’s obvious to point out that the United States has a lot to offer when it comes to landscapes and climates, but sometimes it’s fun to remember that you have more than one way of “seeing” it all.
JK – Smells like the sound of a piano falling 5000 feet
