Philosophical rumination on the Lure of the Mountain

I live an hour east of Los Angeles, and 8 miles from an 8,000 foot mountain --snow capped in winter--and it makes a nice drive. Unfortunately I don't have an interesting car to drive up there now but The Mountain is always there, whenever I look up, tempting me. I think of this movie I saw once starring Richard Boone where he and his sons lived on the Niagara River with the falls just a couple miles down and they were tempted, by virtue of where they lived, to build a contraption to go over the falls. The only car I drove up there recently that was any fun was a Jag XK R-model coupe but I am sure there are some lightweight cars that with sufficient power-to-weight would be fun too.

I used to live in Los Angeles on the west side and would occasionally make it out to Malibu where, blasting through the tunnel on Malibu Canyon road at about 7000 rpm in my 4-cam GTC/4 pumped me up for the whole morning. Now I'm too far away to go way over there and no longer have the car.

But where I live now, there is always The Mountain.

I wonder if other forum readers have their favorite road they go to early on a Sunday morning? The Mountain gives me motivation, even if I don't have the proper steed at the moment to tackle it.