When I was a kid we often drove in the night when we were going to California. In the early days, we didn’t have air conditioning and it made the ride more pleasant to drive through the desert by moonlight.

It was also easier on the car’s engine. In those days, cars overheated more often than they do now. On the “Baker grade” mountain slope, outside of Baker California, it was common to see 15 or 20 cars off to the side of the road with their hoods up.

We took a road trip to California last week and decided to re-enact a drive through the night like the good ol’ days. We seem to do this every two or three years.

You might remember a story I’ve told from another night driving trip to California. I got stopped in the middle of the night by a cop in Austin, Nevada, on our way to San Francisco. I dodged getting a speeding ticket by reason of the officer’s extreme interest in my recent laser eye surgery. I mentioned the surgery because he asked if I was wearing my corrective lenses called for on my driver’s license.

He was full of questions because he was considering the surgery. I was happy to answer the questions. I became his best friend for a half hour out there on the “Loneliest Highway in America.” Not getting the ticket was valuable time spent.

On this recent trip last week, we didn’t leave Sanpete until 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday night. Our destination was Santa Barbara where my wife had some business to do on Friday. The driving went well. Diane snoozed off and on and had dreams that we were running off the road. I put in a book on CD and listened to a murder mystery.

Somewhere south of Las Vegas, I started losing track of the story and began hallucinating. I was seeing things on the side of the road that weren’t there. Diane’s dreams of road runoffs were becoming reality possibilities. Being older and perhaps a little wiser than I used to be, we stopped in Primm and found a $35 bed across the highway from Whiskey Petes.

I could have kept driving, but why? It was 4 a.m. and I had proved my point. I still could drive all night. Don’t sign me up for an over the road trucking job though.

Santa Barbara was nice. Nice and cool. We were glad to have jackets as the highs were in the 60s a couple of the days.

When we walked around the harbor in the evening, you would have thought you were in Sanpete in April instead of California in July. I thought of the remark often attributed to Mark Twain: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

While my wife took care of her business on Friday, I went to the old Spanish mission. Santa Barbara’s mission is called “Queen of the Missions.” The flowers were gorgeous. The Jacaranda trees were in full purple-blue blossom. The roses were in full flush. The fountains were bubbling. The atmosphere there almost made me want to become a Franciscan monk. Almost.

Before coming back home to Sanpete, we stopped in Pasadena at the Norton Simon museum. It’s a large art museum and it has many paintings of the old masters and impressionists in its collection. My wife was especially interested to see the impressionist paintings by Renoir, Degas, van Gogh, Cezanne, etc.

One of the things I learned at the museum which impressed me was that Norton Simon didn’t develop an interest in art until quite late in life. After having had extraordinary success in the business world (Hunt Foods, McCall’s Publishing, Canada Dry, Max Factor, Avis Car Rentals), he visited the Louvre in Paris. An appreciation for the concept of “beauty” sprang up in him and set him on the path of accumulating a renowned collection of art in a short period of time.

The lesson to me is that no matter what our age and stage in life, it’s not too late to develop new interests, new hobbies, or new attitudes. For example, Louis L’Amour was well over forty before he wrote his first book. (I’ll be well over a higher number than that before I write my first book)

One other lesson I was reminded of on the trip was that my skin doesn’t care if it’s 4pm on the beach. It’s going to burn anyway. Fortunately, my burn was minor and more of an annoyance than a medical emergency. You’ll notice that I said I was reminded of this “lesson.” I have yet to learn it.

It was good to get back to Sanpete. It’s always good to go, but it’s always good to get back too. It’s the time of year for “road trips.” Sanpeters should consider a little vacation somewhere this summer. I can tell you that gas was cheaper other places than it is here. We paid $2.79 a gallon in Las Vegas.

You might want to consider driving through the night somewhere. My only advice is that when you start hallucinating – find a bed! — Merrill