Dodge Challenger in the American deserts

Three things will tell you that you’re in America: long stretches of open road in the middle of the desert, hamburgers and the Dodge Challenger.

All vast landscapes and great American adventures deserve to be lived with an American car. You need to get the full experience and learn how different parts of the “Western” world look like. Being on U.S. soil we wanted to be in the same scenarios we always seen in movies and television series and with almost the same cars. With little time and cash on our side, we rented a Dodge Challenger: unfortunately for us it was a V6 and not a V8. Despite our initial disappointment, we stopped complaining after we heard the cool exhaust sound and experience the torque delivery and fast acceleration.

Why all rental cars aren’t that cool in Europe?

Our Escape couldn’t be in one of America’s most iconic places, Arizona. We Set out at 2.46 pm from the gas station in Vegas and take the Route 93 right after passing Hoover and to the Route 66 through the Grand Canyon. Our Destination? The West. We wanted to see the symbols of U.S.A. with our own eyes.

With the landscape changing quickly we soon find ourselves into a dreamlike situation, just like a lifetime dream was awaken right in front of our eyes. I could swear I still had the thick grey color of Milanese fog before my eyes when I got out of the plane: nothing could prepare me for this. Time seems to have stopped when you pass through abandoned gas stations with rusty cars parked outside. A whole new world was breathing and living right before our young eyes. If we worked a bit with our imagination we could see Jack Keruack and Charlie stopping by to rest for a while in the blazing hot Arizona sun. No one could prepare for this adventure, not even the best Western Film.

We drove until we reached the town of Williams where we didn’t find any place where we could sleep. With the cold temperatures of the night approaching, we had no other choice to sleep in the car under the neons and the stars. We swear we could hear the Dingos and Coyots cry out during the night, just like in any Warner Bros cartoon.

The day after we left early in the morning to reach the Monument Wally which is Navaho territory. We know it also because the car’s radio kept playing their chants no stop. It was one of the most mystic journeys’ we’ve been on.

Being in the desert and having rear wheel drive we couldn’t resist to try to do some donuts and crazy childish stuff like that. Predictably, the car soon camouflaged perfectly with the sand, covering the factory bright white finish with a thick layer of dirt. We had to do this once in our lifetime.

I believe that man is mostly amazed by nature and all its artistic efforts are dedicated to reproducing it: no matter how good he or she will be at reproducing nature they will never ever be able to be like it. The spectacle of the Grand Canyon and the bright stars that appear at night is one of the best and most emotional I have ever seen in whole my life. I know why Americans are so proud of their land.

For the first time when I am working I stopped thinking about cars.

I never regret firing up an engine to go somewhere, yet sometimes I prefer being left where I am and forget about the rest.