Driving from Las Vegas to Yosemite National Park

As I opened my car window at dawn, the neon signs and dust of Las Vegas disappeared from my rearview mirror. The air suddenly thinned, the thick smell of smoke, champagne, and gold that was characteristic of casinos disappeared, and the fresh scent of the desert night breeze floated. The wheels crossed the state line, the asphalt glowed silver gray in the morning sun, like a ribbon that had just been ironed slowly stretching far away.

The gravel roads of Death Valley twinkled just off, but the road turned right and went deep into the bosom of the Mojave Desert. Here the desert was not yellow, but like an ochre and grayish-blue tapestry. The Joshua tree, with its spined branches spread, gave itself up to the morning breeze and stood still as if it were saying a prayer. Suddenly, a hare leaped out of the bushes, and the dust soaring up on its hind legs glowed golden in the backlight, instantly blown away by a 70-mile-an-hour gale. We turned off the air conditioning and filled the car with a wind that carried the scent of sage and shattered rock.

As we crossed the Tehachabi Pass, the scenery changed completely. The Sierra Nevada Mountains rose from the edge of the desert, as if a carpet of green velvet suddenly spread out. First low oak trees, then straight-stretched yellow pines, and further up, a fir forest. The altimeter rose slowly, and the sweet smell in the air grew stronger and stronger. It was the scent of pine resin melting in the midday sun. Occasionally, a stream crossed the road, splashing on the windshield, instantly stretched like a transparent thread by the wind.

I almost hit the brakes when the giant granite cliffs of Yosemite appeared from across the pine forest. The cliffs of El Capitan were bisected by the setting sun, with the upper half a fiery golden color and the lower half a gentle gray-blue color. The murmuring of the Merced River through the valley could be heard clearly through closed car windows. It sounded arrogantly quiet, unlike the sound of a slot machine in Las Vegas. I stopped and saw my shadow in the setting sun stretching long over an ancient rock wall called the Tunnel Viewpoint. Three hundred meters below, the bridal veil falls were weaving rainbows into the sky.

As the twilight creeps up from the top of the eastern forest, I finally understand. The 500 kilometers from Las Vegas to Sequoia Valley was not a geographical journey, but a retrograde of time. Las Vegas is a symbol of the future. A glittering, constantly moving electronic screen rises. Yosemite, on the other hand, belongs only to the present, or more precisely, the eternal now. When I turned off the engine, all I could hear was the sound of the wind blowing through the pine needles of Fremont. It was as if the earth was taking a deep breath.