Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“What do you mean you don't have it in my size?” Slash, slash, slash!
For weeks, my friend Robert Swanson and I tried to master this useful trick by practicing
with his mother's kitchen knives, but all we had to show for it were some torn shirts and
ragged wounds across our chests, and after a time we gave it up as both painful and impos-
sible, a decision that even now I rue from time to time.
AsIwassoclosetoLosAngeles,Itoyedwiththeideaofdrivingonin,butIwasputoffby
the smog and the traffic and above all by the thought that in Los Angeles someone might
come up to me and carve a Z in my chest for real. I think it's only right that crazy people
should have their own city, but I cannot for the life of me see why a sane person would
want to go there. Besides, Los Angeles is passe. It has no surprises. My plan was to drive
up through the hidden heart of California, through the fertile San Joaquin Valley. Nobody
ever goes there. There is a simple reason for this, as I was about to discover. It is really
boring.
