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Late in the summer of 2006 I discovered that ideal conditions for a road trip consist of three friends, one mechanically unreliable car, a journey of nearly two thousand miles through civilization and wilderness, and a certain lack of forethought about where to go and what to see. For roughly five days my good friends Chris, Curtis, and I drove through the Western United States, from the arid hills of the Mojave Desert to the windswept plains of North Dakota. Along the way we encountered all manner of extremes: heat and chill, sin and Puritanism, privation and excess, progress and doldrums. But we survived, safe and sound with many wacky tales to tell.

Chris and Curtis, with whom I attended North Dakota State University in Fargo, had become curious about my home state of California and the town near which I lived, Apple Valley. At every opportunity I would regale them with tales of furnace-like heat, spiky plants, poisonous fauna, smog-filled air and an unfriendly populace. Having precious little to do that summer except work, and eager to show off the place I kept complaining about, I told them that they were welcome to come and visit me and see the place I loved to hate.

And that was how I found myself leaning against the wall in the baggage claim terminal at Los Angeles International Airport at midnight, two weeks before the start of the fall semester. Chris and Curtis had caught a red-eye from Hector International Airport in Fargo to LAX, and I was there waiting to pick them up. An unfriendly-looking bunch of people were loitering about the place, but that was about par for the course in LA. Despite having been up all night and the day before, I was wide awake and excited. I could scarcely believe that what I had suggested so airily the previous semester was actually coming true. This was going to be a fortnight to remember.

Just past midnight the both of them came striding along with the rest of their flight's passengers, duffel bags slung over their shoulders and coats hanging over their arms. Our enthusiasm grew by degrees as we greeted each other, collected the checked baggage and made our way out of the sliding glass doors into the muggy night to my green '96 Ford Taurus. For all 60 miles of the way back home (which, at this hour of the night, was nearly devoid of traffic) we caught up with each other's summers and discussed religion and philosophy. We survived the witching-hour drive up bumpy dirt roads to my house in the foothills of the San Bernardino

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