Sunny Tucson morning. Snow shovel still in the back — the one we dug out with in Philadelphia eight days ago. It rode the whole way.

Sonoran desert to California — the landscape running through its paces: saguaro and rock, then the Salton Sea basin flat and strange, then mountains, then coastal haze and the smell of the Pacific coming in through the vents.

Lunch with Denis somewhere in the desert. Good timing for a familiar face. Then the state line. Then the feeling of it.

LA welcomed us with stopped traffic in Chino Hills. The little stick shift Tacoma felt right at home — sat in it and held its own. Dinner with family at Locanda Portofino in Santa Monica, a walk from the beach. Good food. Good table. End of the road.