Travel is one of those things with pretty distinct paradigm shifts to me. Once change happens, it’s hard to remember what it was like before the change. It took me 5 hours to fly 2,000 some odd miles. Yet it was a mere 100ish years ago that we travelled by hoof and sail. The same trip would have taken me weeks. Route 66 was one of the main ways to get to the west coast for the average person. “Road trips” weren’t really a thing before the automobile and Route 66 held many fond memories for a generation of Americans. Nowadays with efficient air travel, the romance of Route 66 has faded. It is just another overlooked sign by the side of a nondescript road.

The hills behind the Popeye’s might not mean much to most folks, but they too went through a paradigm shift. Ground Sloths and Mammoths once roamed that very hillside. So bear with me if I smile at some random California landscape the same way your older uncle may look fondly at a road sign on a dead palm stump.