I grew up with TV. A real latchkey kid, and I had to stay inside since it wasn’t safe to play outside where I lived. So the constant bombardment of American TV gave a skewed view of what life is.

Real life corrects you. Both in an informative and in a Delbert Grady from The Shining kinda way.

Still, there was the one thing I knew it was feasible: a road trip with friends. It took a while, but finally managed to convince enough people to rent a car and drive, through forests, near the coast, grooving to music, eating junk. It was a drive from Nottingham to Wales, a small tour of ruined castles. I’ve got good and bad memories of that trip. Part and parcel of road trips, really. The next one was in 2003, Scotland, in the dead of winter, off to catch Radiohead, and I’ve talked about this trip before. I tried to do something similar in Mexico, but the idea didn’t have enough track with my friends.

I Sheffield to Edinburgh, in almost the dead of winter. I learned too many things about driving in the UK and icy roads, but you live, you learn, eh? I enjoyed that trip much more, so it’s the experience of driving.

Still, that itch of driving near the sea, in California, it was ingrained, no, almost programmed in me. I had to do it and through the years, people volunteered on and off. It never happened, for x, y or z reason. The closest I managed was driving from Tijuana to Los Angeles in 2008, but that didn’t count to me, it was a solo trip and not a real “road trip”.

Until 2016. It was july, I was wasting my time playing GTA Online while talking on the phone with a friend. She ribbed me about my never-happening-in-my-life trip to California. The ribbing felt too close and I got annoyed enough to hang up on her, click on Expedia, and book a flight, a car, and hotels. The goal: San Diego to Monterey and back again. The hurdle: me. Alone.

I don’t mind traveling alone, but I can take seriously bad decisions. It took me ages to get to my hotel in La Jolla, as I got lost several times on what really was a simple drive on the I-5. My “if it’s solo it doesn’t count” mentality was now gone, because I wasn’t getting any younger and people had real life commitments. So I drove the I-5, the 405, Pacific Coast Highway, and the smaller roads. Went to Los Angeles, saw Wye Oak live -and almost met Jenn Wasner-, lost my mind in Pismo, got lost near Monterey and drank a liter of coffee at a Denny’s…then drove aimlessly to San Francisco and back again as a challenge. Big Sur was overwhelming, beautiful beyond my expectations.

My trusty iPod, with an AUX cable, was all I needed. And the two tracks I just HAD to listen were Debbie Boone’s California -a driving force in my California obsession- and My Morning Jacket’s One Big Holiday.

I became a fan of My Morning Jacket due to Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown, a movie whose soundtrack is untouchable. I think the roadtrip part of the movie galvanised my hunger for a roadtrip, and My Morning Jacket’s jaunty, 70s AOR-heavy jab at the music industry felt like it should be fixated. Every morning, I would start with that song, see how the day treats me, go where the sea lions, woodpeckers and odd monsters roam, say hi to the dirty hippies, eat clam chowder, drink beer, stay hydrated, have a panic attack, repeat again, think about your childhood.

Sorry, for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself.

-Sam J. Valdés López