Lost on a Country Road (Who knew SoCal still had remote country roads!)

After work on Friday, the traffic was at worse than a crawl on the freeway, so I decided to try a back way home. There's a windy, hilly road that goes through the foothills and drops down into Murrieta bypassing rushhour traffic, but the drive is a bit longer. With traffic not moving, I decided I had nothing to lose.

I have a history of getting motion sickness, sometimes even when I'm driving, but if the drive isn't too long, I can deal with it, and this drive should have been about an hour. Definitely a better option than sitting in stop and go (more stop than go) traffic on the freeway for over an hour. According to the map, the route looked pretty easy, but of course, I missed a turn somewhere and ended up driving way out of my way on tight curves and roller coaster hills. When I finally stopped to check my iPhone map, I was car sick and not at all on the right road. But the drive was beautiful! I was so wrapped up in the scenery, that I didn't even mind being lost.

Most of my drive to and from work is through populated areas or on busy roads, so it was a nice surprise to find a country road bordered by farms, long white fences, and a canopy of trees. The drive took me over two hours (instead of one), in part from being lost, another part from driving slow because of being carsick, and finally because I was spending so much time taking in the view. Gravel driveways would wind away from the road and up into the hills, and at each one I would slow down and crane my neck trying to see up them. Unfortunately, this constant looking at the scenery exacerbated the motion sickness (anyone who gets carsick knows the best thing to do is to stare straight ahead or at the horizon because the land rushing by on the sides of the vehicle just adds to the agony - but I couldn't help myself!)

 It was a long drive home, but it felt like I discovered hidden treasure to find this remote countryside tucked away between the huge cities I work and live in. It renewed my hope that SoCal is not completely being taken over by people - which I do sometimes feel when there are houses, cars, and people for as far as I can see in every direction. Next time it seems that the world I live in has  too many people in it, I'm going to get lost on country roads on my way home again...