Just east of the Nevada/Utah border, there is a stretch of I-80 that runs in a perfectly straight line for a little over 50 miles. The freeway skirts the southern edge of the famous Bonneville Salt Flats, so the landscape around you is perfectly flat, and when atmospheric conditions are right, the mirages make it appear as if the road is hovering over a pan of perfectly still water. A range of mountains stands in the distance, and clouds tend to line up just in front of it, their shadows drifting across the foothills below in a constantly shifting patchwork of dark and light. Meanwhile, the sky above your car is perfectly clear and endlessly high, the tallest vaulted ceiling in the greatest cathedral in the universe.
The eastbound and westbound lanes are divided by several hundred feet, and traffic spreads out to a comfortable distance apart, making it feel as if you have the road more or less to yourself. Sometimes the only other vehicle in sight is an 18-wheeler so far ahead that it appears to be a man on a horse, or perhaps a camel like that scene in Lawrence of Arabia, a wavering smudge in the heat waves rising from the asphalt. The only other manmade object for miles around is the railroad track that parallels the interstate. There’s just nothing out there… no housing developments or strip malls, no Walmarts or fast-food chains or office parks or high-rise buildings… no oil rigs or cellphone towers… no fences, islands or barriers. No traffic lights or cross-street intersections to force you to brake and come to an unwanted halt. And no ugly billboards to clutter your mind with unsolicited marketing messages, at least not on that 50-mile stretch past the salt flats. It’s a no-bullshit zone where my jaw gradually unclenches and my breathing slows as I barrel along at 80 mph with the wind whistling all around my open convertible cabin.
It’s the best therapy I know.
