Texas and California are the two most populous states in America. Accordingly, they boast three of the nation’s 10 most highly populated metro areas. But between these masses of humanity, where steadily increasing populations strain against the indefinite boundaries of urban sprawl, lies 1,500 miles of desert highway. Pulling up stakes and migrating from one of these states to the other, as an estimated 63,000 Californian and 41,000 Texan transplants elected to do in 2017, is a multi-day road odyssey.
Embarking on such extensive journeys by car can spur a strange affliction. Highway hypnosis, a phenomenon that emerged alongside the nascent U.S. highway system in the 1950s, is an altered mental state in which people drive considerable distances with little to no conscious recollection of doing so. Also called white line fever, the condition not only causes one to slip into a trance-like state, but often also conjures vivid and disconcerting hallucinations.
