And then God said, "Let there be California"

I was headed home after our Southern California project got off to a rough start. The Co-Worker, who's managing the project, stayed behind another day. She suggested that I relieve my stress by taking the Pacific Coast Highway rather than the customary freeway route, U.S. 101 and I-405, back to Los Angeles International Airport. I asked if she was sure that it was faster. "Oh, yeah," she said. "And beautiful, too."

As I drove through Oxnard, apparently a military and agricultural outpost, I wasn't so sure. Looked like any other surface-street alternative route to me. At this point, it's just California 1 South, Oxnard Boulevard.

Then, my rented Chrysler Sebring convertible made a slight jog to the right, and the truth was revealed.

Oh. My. God.

I just don't have words. Thank God I was wearing sunglasses, because I was literally near tears as absolutely breathtaking scenery led to even more superlative sights. On the left, a mountain rising to the amazingly clear blue sky; in the middle, me and the Sebring; on the right, the Pacific crashing into the rocks stacked at the side of the road.

I see now why people overpay to live in Southern California. I appreciate why people build those houses in Malibu atop those cliffs, despite the very real possibility that they'll slide off into the ocean someday (and ultimately, I'm not so sure that would be a bad thing.) I wonder why anybody who is recruited to attend Pepperdine University, whose campus runs along the east side of the highway south of Malibu, would turn it down.

There are just no words. It was epiphany-level beautiful.

In a way, Los Angeles might be the true Anytown USA. It was disconcerting to be on a road for the first time and see so many familiar exits: Mulholland Drive, Wilshire Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, Santa Monica Boulevard ("All I wanna do/is have some fun"). You want diversity? I looked to my right at one red light in Santa Monica, and saw an early-'70s Vega with the old blue California license plates, belching gray smoke from its exhaust pipe directly onto the shiny new Rolls waiting behind the Vega at the light. That's not a sight I'm going to see back in Suburbia; nor, likely, was it a sight I was going to see on the 405.

I live in one of America's versions of Paradise; it takes much more than a 69-degree day in January to impress me. I certainly came away impressed, and then some.