The question is: Is Los Angeles ready for me?

On Monday, I drove from Lincoln, Nebraska to Fort Collins, Colorado. Both are easily two of the most beautiful, yet underrated, places in the United States. I fell in love with each’s respective charm. But Fort Collins struck a particular chord with me.

Its general layout is not unlike Canton, Ohio — my hometown’s next-door neighbor. The difference is that I wouldn’t mind living in Fort Collins. Overlooking the Rockies, it has a nouveau upscale feel to it while still keeping some small-town charm. Everything is understated, unique. But it’s artsy in a sense that Canton has striven for recently but never really fully adopted.

It’s a place that just screams “homey” to me. Heck, when I was waiting for my friend to get off work so I could bring my luggage into his apartment, random people, strangers, waved to me. It took me off-guard.

But this blog is called “Things that rhyme with ‘cars'” — not “Better homes and gardens” — so it wouldn’t be all right to mention Fort Collins without its car scene. Car enthusiasm is more or less like fetishes: everyone’s got one, and all of them vary person to person.

Fort Collins’ fetish is one of age. The city is a Mecca of cars that survived time, the threat of rust, to make it through as a testament of what was so obscure that it wouldn’t be remembered had Fort Collins not kept it around anyway. Take, for instance, the fact that I saw a Ford Courier pickup there — and I didn’t even know the Courier compact pickup that preceded the Ranger was even sold in the States! Or an original Subaru Legacy Sport turbo wagon, an incredibly rare vehicle. Or the FJ70 Land Cruiser I saw. Or people running unrestored ’60s F-100 pickups.

I had never seen such a time capsule of cars as I had seen there. Also, I thought Pittsburgh was the place for Subaru enthusiasm, and it still might be the best fanboy community in the nation if NASIOC and RS25.com are to be taken seriously. But Fort Collins gives it a good run for the money.

Speaking of which, my friend, Roy, let me drive his 2007 WRX wagon with suspension and light performance modifications around narrow, twisty, hilly, and otherwise fun roads. A full write-up will follow shortly, but I feel it’s worth mentioning that the car shames Mazda’s competitor — and the Mazda is fantastic. It’s just that it’s much, much easier to drive the Subaru — and it’s foolproof. Really. And fast. Really fast.

As I drove through the Rockies today, I had to shift into fourth gear and even third at times. I ascended to as high as 12,000 feet above sea level — more than twice the height of Denver. My car wheezed. I felt the effects of altitude sickness and had to pull over in scenic Georgetown, Colorado, where I caught up with a contractor who could have passed for The Dude. He moved from California and never looked back. But he wished me luck and said I’d love Los Angeles.

Today struck me as magic, pure magic. I stood outside in the snow in 60-degree weather in Colorado. I saw roads and mountains that looked as though they had come straight from those cheesy motivational posters. I saw what I imagine Heaven ought to look like with an endless road ahead of me and an endless sky that melted into the mountains. I really had never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

And aside from my car misfiring a bit more than normal from the oxygen deprivation, the groans it made, the fact that I had to cover my left arm with a t-shirt to protect it from further sunburn, or the fact that I’m getting pretty good with Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga lyrics because KISS FM was the only channel that consistently came in clearly that wasn’t country, the only thing I wished out of the day — finally thinking about something along the thousands of miles driven — was that I wish I had someone to share my adventure with. Anyone. Because this has been way too damn cool of an adventure to keep it to myself.

Tomorrow, I will be finishing up my trip, making it to the City of Angels. I’m eager to see what will come next. I’m eager to have the opportunity to keep my eyes up and my ears open. I’m eager to begin the next chapter of my life.

But unlike the last five years that effectively ended on May 1, I’m not going to just keep the great parts in memory. No, this trip — all 2,400 miles — was meant to be savored completely and utterly. It’s been quite an excursion to be sure, and while I don’t think I’d ever do it again in quite the same way, I know I’ll be able to tell my upcoming nephews or nieces stories that will rival their father’s when he was 19 and hitch hiked across the nation. And if I ever have a family of my own — if I ever choose to slow down the pace of my life or change it completely — I know I will never have to live with regrets of not seeing sights or following my passions.

I always thought the idea of the epic roadtrip had become cliche. But seriously, don’t knock it until you try it.

By the numbers:

Best MPG (average tank): 38.1

Worst MPG (average tank): 32.9

Major stops: Fort Collins, Colorado; Richfield, Utah

Miles driven: About 1,900

Miles to go: About 600

Fastest highway speed driven: 86 mph in a 65 zone (Route 14, Colorado)

Slowest highway speed driven: 50 mph in a 75 zone (I-70 Rockies, Colorado)

Coolest car of the day: Yellow Ford GT with black racing stripes in Fort Collins

Number of other Ohioans spotted out west: 4 (2 going to Utah, 2 going to Los Angeles)

Tomorrow’s destination: North Los Angeles (New home)