Road Trip Wrap-Up

I am practicing grimacing in such a way that I appear to be smiling. This is because something snapped in my knee on my way into a gas station in Wyoming and now I am limping and wearing a black brace I bought at the Mitchell, South Dakota, Walmart for $3.18. Doc today says four to six weeks of rest and Advil. Not happy but it could be worse.

Traveling with two large dogs was probably not wise but we are loath to leave them in a kennel and they are generally good traveling sports, having spent much of their lives loaded up into dog trucks to go mushing somewhere. Still, there is the matter of never being able to leave them in the car (because of the heat) and a certain unpredictability in the older dog’s determination of where it is appropriate to poop.

My husband remembers the route/names/features of every place we drove. I remember the general feel of it all, like a kid who runs through the sprinkler, then sits on the porch with a popsicle, gets terribly hot , and runs through the sprinkler again like it’s the very first time. I have already forgotten most of the places I loved the most but remember the joy of being there.

Tent camping requires the suspension of fear – fear of weather, fear of bears and snakes and mountain lions, fear of ax murderers, fear of filth, fear of imperfection, fear of being alone. In the suspension of fear is freedom. That is a rare thing and quite sublime, probably found other ways than tent camping but that is what I know.

My husband can become friends with the guy at the next gas pump. All he needs is some, ever so slight, Wisconsin or sports connection, and about thirty seconds and he is engaged. He doesn’t do this on purpose. It is a reflex. He comes back to the truck with stories about the guy’s life, how he makes a living, why he’s a Dodgers fan, and why he moved ‘here’ thirty years ago. It’s a gift. I think.

The West, well really most of the country, is Indian Country, but that is recognized in only the most marginal ways. Important places – mountains, mesas, prairies and canyons – have white names. Forts are designated as historic places, which I suppose they are, much as plantations in the South are historic places, but they were as assuredly places of control and oppression. To be Native in a place where your history has been commandeered must cause a deep, endless ache.

Small towns seem to have a grip on the concept of the common good. Even the smallest towns – one having just 750 people – had a community park with picnic tables and historical markers. They had basketball and tennis courts and most had swimming pools, overflowing with kids just out of school for the year and ready to shed the incredible June heat. Without much, folks in these towns decided to invest in the community good. Families need to have picnics, kids have to swim. Shared values.

I used to ask myself: when will be the last time my son puts his hand on my shoulder when we are walking? If we walked down the street together today, his hand would not be on my shoulder like it was when he was nine or ten or twelve. But I don’t remember the last time it was. Things that you love just stop without warning. Not because people die but because what they do changes. We might never again drive down long dirt roads in Utah. There is no way of knowing.