Our short road trip leads back towards the coast. We leave the mountains and come through small places that we know from American films in one way or another.

There is a main street where all the shops are and there are sure to be people living behind it. Large pickup trucks park on the side of the road, which also offers enough space for these large cars.

We pass parts of the legendary Route 66, which no longer exist. This route once stretched from Chicago to Santa Monica in California and crossed the American Midwest. In the past, many poor farmers used this road to move from the center of the country to the economically growing regions of the Pacific.

Route 66 was never really developed and over time it was replaced by continuous highways. The country roads still convey the charm of a mixture of the pursuit of a goal and hopelessness. The expanse pulls me under a spell.