On Highway 127, I discovered the breathtaking wonders of going the long way

"By midwinter, Los Angeles is defined less by cold than by light. Cool, clear mornings give way to afternoons shaped by the low winter arc of the sun, painting the mountains in long shadows and the sky in improbable color. And as that low light settles in, my whole body shifts in spirit. Somewhere deep in the limbic system, a synapse fires like a flare, tracing the old circuitry of migration and memory - that annual pull toward the wide-open deserts of the American Southwest."

"I dream of lizards, dark skies, sand dunes and sunsets streaked in rose-mauve and smoky violet, the air heavy with the scent of wet creosote and campfire smoke. But mostly I long for the open road, those forgotten highways where pavement runs through the quaint towns, weathered landmarks and the millions of acres of public land in the desert. It is a nostalgia shared by the chroniclers of the past."

"Many of those original roads have faded away, swallowed by high-speed highways or erased by suburban expansion. But a handful still survive - routes that don't carve a straight line but follow the meandering, undulating contours of the land. They are living archives of the West. This essay marks the beginning of a series exploring those remaining roads. And we begin on Highway 127, a two-lane stretch that runs north from Baker, slowly ascending and descending toward the Nevada border."

Winter in Los Angeles is defined more by low, clear light than by cold, producing a visceral pull toward the deserts of the American Southwest. The sensory longing includes visions of lizards, dark skies, sand dunes, rose-mauve sunsets, and the scents of wet creosote and campfire smoke. That nostalgia centers on forgotten highways where pavement threads through small towns, weathered landmarks, and vast tracts of public land. Many historic backroads have been lost to highways and sprawl, but a few remain, following the land's contours. Highway 127 runs north from Baker toward Nevada, bordered by Death Valley to the west and extensive public lands to the east.

Read at Los Angeles Times