Politics, health care, or sanctuary. Wide open deserts where no one will impede on personal choices, potential opportunities that hint at millions, or family reunions– even weddings!

People have flocked to sunny California for countless reasons.

One of the most compelling reasons to return to California is its gorgeous landscapes. So varied and so magnificent! We recently basked in their sunny glow for almost a week as part of our nearly 6,000-mile American road trip.

Temperatures reached 118 degrees on the roller coaster, sea-serpent state highway that welcomed us to Southern California. Sand flowed everywhere, bland in color and adorned with random scrub but mostly just desolate, broken up only by a palm tree farm oasis, occasional dirt trails leading off the highway to nowhere, and a few abandoned, splintered railroad ties that spell out the names of bored teenagers.

Finally, we arrived, barely above sea level, to find a green quilt square amid a sparse tan calico backing: Palm Springs. Date shakes, golf courses, and more swimming pools than people, all shaded in the afternoons by the western mountains.

Driving north, the sand footings of the distant mountains whipped by high winds, pelted our car, and drifted across the highway like the beginnings of a Midwestern snowstorm and the promise of a day off school.

Climbing, climbing, twisting, and holding our breath, we rose into the high desert, and then down into the valley where Joshua trees sprout random tufts of hair from their noses, ears, and chins. Twenty-nine palms or more thrive in this desert, an oasis for travelers or those needing personal space or respite from oppressive humidity.

Winding roads nestled between huge, rounded yellow boulders snaked us up to a deserted Western town where play actors pretended to chase bad guys and whoop it up in a saloon that now serves a tender Tri Tip nacho platter like nothing you’ve ever tasted before. The Wild West buildings are now tended by hearty folks drawn to this dusty anachronism, perhaps by dreams of a simpler time.

Northward, we dodged vehicles through windmill farms flanking Interstate highways. We jockeyed between city dwellers–wannabe Indy Car drivers–who left us poking along in the right lanes amidst construction cones but with closer views of houses perched on the sides of hills and troughs sprouting from the top of the hills and gushing water meant for sprawling municipalities.

Soon, the Central Valley, the breadbasket region with its groves of figs, vineyards, almonds, pistachios, Halos, olives and shadows of the Joads, reminded us of the bounty of the state that supplies the railcars that traversed the desert and mountains headed for points east.

Leaving the Interstate for two lanes of sparse traffic, the hills covered in California Gold wrapped us in its arms. Tall, waving wild oats and dried grasses, invasive and non-native, feed the few black cattle resting under the low, dark green trees that provide shade in the dry heat. Occasional lakes and streams irrigate the unrestrained, wild, waving grasses that characterize the Gold Rush landscape. Who wouldn’t be drawn to this reality of gold in them thar hills?

Climbing again, we entered Mark Twain land, where tall tales created careers, and the quest for wealth brought adventurers, yielded quartz and gold, and left fifty miles of tunnels below a camp of angels. This is the Wild West!

Further north, the state has protected big trees, stretching upward amidst trails that curve through the protected forest. Trunks, rough and red, wider than any man-made vehicle, are silent witnesses to its original inhabitants and more than a thousand years of God’s creation.

Winding and climbing east, we hugged the edges of mountains and skirted above rugged lakes, into the forest of pines, through tunnels blasted from the granite to see the jewel: Yosemite. Glimpses of El Capitan teased us, encouraged us from the roads, and then packed its punch when the car made the one-way turn, leaving us speechless.

Onward north, the slim, white skeleton trees, their wispy white arms intertwined, watched our ascent and fenced us out of their claim. Wide lakes mirrored the bright blue sky edged by conifers, and the snow drizzling the tops of the mountains hinted that winter is always hovering closely in the Sierra Nevadas, despite the heat of July.

Even as mere travelers and with California behind us, we heard echoes of the land’s multi-layered harmony: the low desert with its scorching, blowing sand; the high desert with its boulders, dust, and trees; the plains with their precisely-planted rows of verdure’ the hilly cattle country covered by waving golden grasses; and the trees, the ancient, magnificent sentinels, of the north.

The many voices of California’s landscape imprinted their melodious hymn of praise in our hearts forever.