As a young professional, couldn't afford a house in the bay area - which were now selling for huge sums, some of them were over $100,000. So I left the research job at Raychem and headed east. My brother-in-law and I took two barely running cars out and drove straight through. That's about 24 hours of driving, a storm front coming in behind us. The last hour was the worst. Windows open, radios blaring, we were flashing lights at each other and leap-frogging every few miles to keep from dozing off.