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My Way is the Highway

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The most important lesson I learned while in San Francisco for a work conference was that when the rental car salesman offers to upgrade you from the cheap compact car that you had pre-booked to a Mustang convertible for just 60 bucks, you say yes. While my pre-conference backpacking trip along the wild and crystalline waters of the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park was surely a highlight of my trip to California, it was the journey to and from the trailhead in my trusty ‘Stang that is most etched in my memory. Ever since I had my first car, a piece of shit Saturn station wagon that crapped out after only 40,000 miles, I’ve been obsessed with the intoxicating feeling of absolute freedom and adventure that a full tank of gas and an open mind can provide. After finishing grad school and taking a year off to road trip throughout the American West and British Columbia, I thought that I had experienced pretty much everything that the open road had to offer. But as I bombed down 395 with the evening sun glistening off Mono Lake and the sweet smell of sage washing over me, topping 100 with the first 55 seconds of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” blasting on loop and flipping the bird to every “speed monitored by aircraft” sign that I blew by, I realized that even after all the past trips and miles, the road still had undiscovered secrets to offer. That no matter how many places you’ve been and blank spaces on the map you’ve explored, the open road will always lead you to exactly where you need to be. As I approached my campsite for the night and the sky began to fade from blue to orange to purple, I chuckled as I thought to myself about how the idiom “my way or the highway” is all wrong. There is no choice to be made, after all, because as long as I’m able to climb into a car and press my forefoot on the accelerator, my way IS the highway.

Copyright
Joseph Priola
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1920x1280 / 1.7MB
Keywords
Contained in galleries
American West
The most important lesson I learned while in San Francisco for a work conference was that when the rental car salesman offers to upgrade you from the cheap compact car that you had pre-booked to a Mustang convertible for just 60 bucks, you say yes. While my pre-conference backpacking trip along the wild and crystalline waters of the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park was surely a highlight of my trip to California, it was the journey to and from the trailhead in my trusty ‘Stang that is most etched in my memory. Ever since I had my first car, a piece of shit Saturn station wagon that crapped out after only 40,000 miles, I’ve been obsessed with the intoxicating feeling of absolute freedom and adventure that a full tank of gas and an open mind can provide. After finishing grad school and taking a year off to road trip throughout the American West and British Columbia, I thought that I had experienced pretty much everything that the open road had to offer. But as I bombed down 395 with the evening sun glistening off Mono Lake and the sweet smell of sage washing over me, topping 100 with the first 55 seconds of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” blasting on loop and flipping the bird to every “speed monitored by aircraft” sign that I blew by, I realized that even after all the past trips and miles, the road still had undiscovered secrets to offer. That no matter how many places you’ve been and blank spaces on the map you’ve explored, the open road will always lead you to exactly where you need to be. As I approached my campsite for the night and the sky began to fade from blue to orange to purple, I chuckled as I thought to myself about how the idiom “my way or the highway” is all wrong. There is no choice to be made, after all, because as long as I’m able to climb into a car and press my forefoot on the accelerator, my way IS the highway.
Joey Priola Wilderness Photography