Talk to Me of Mendocino

I came across something I wrote almost six years ago:

Mountains here and mountains there

Unless you are in a particularly investigative frame of mind, one mountain looks pretty much like another. So why is that when I am told that such and such a view is of the Alps or the Pyrenees, the fact leaves me pretty cold, whereas if I learn that it is a photo of the Bitterroot Mountains, my heart is filled with an inexpressible yearning?

What is it about America that excites this yearning in a way that few other places do? I think it has something to do with the vast distances out there compared to our own cramped Europe, combined with the fact that so much of America is familiar to us, at some deep subliminal level, from films, TV westerns, songs, comics etc.

Here are part of the lyrics of a song called Talk to Me of Mendocino:

Talk to me of Mendocino 
Closing my eyes I hear the sea 
Must I wait, must I follow? 
Won't you say "Come with me?" 

And it's on to Southbend, Indiana 
Flat out on the western plain 
Rise up over the Rockies and down on into California 
Out to where but the rocks remain 

And let the sun set on the ocean 
I will watch it from the shore 
Let the sun rise over the redwoods 
I'll rise with it till I rise no more 

And here is the song itself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBS3xrgU6vw