The last of the desert drifted away behind me as I crossed into Idaho and its lava rock and hills which soon became mountains and sage brush, pine trees, and snow that lingered after the recent storms. I had seen snow in the high desert of New Mexico, not long after the crash. Someone hit my bus from behind while I was trying to make a turn. They were following so closely I couldn’t see them in my mirrors. The accident totaled two cars that accordioned behind me. It bashed my bumper, I was the only one who drove away. Luckily nobody was hurt.
It had snowed a couple days after that, but it felt like an illusion. It was cold. The ground was white, yet somehow everything felt dry. Cactuses covered in snow. Mice sneaking into my bus. I think I finally trapped the last of them this week over a thousand miles away. When the snow melted you wouldn’t have known it was there. That’s what Idaho had that I hadn’t seen in months and I sorely missed—running water. Creeks running down from the hillsides. The sweet smell of willows. Turkeys strutted through camp, vanishing in the underbrush.
I sat in a hot spring in Idaho, letting the first water I had immersed myself in pull away the stress from the accident I had stored up in my neck. Maybe a little whiplash, but not bad enough to risk more debt by going to a hospital. I’ve hurt myself worse skiing. Two hours in 103 degree water, surreptitiously scrubbing the dead skin off my body as only hot water can do. Probably a hundred cold showers since I drove into the desert and that much soap that formed like a crust without heat to wash it clean.
I’ve had maybe five hot showers since the end of September. It’s a strange life that takes getting used to. A spartan existence. Monastic. My compass guided me further north. No longer hiding out from Winter, I had a deadline and something told me the denouement of the story was in Montana, at the diametrically opposed side of the country. Half an hour from Mexico and now an hour from Canada all in under a month.
I’m glad to leave the desert and its vegetation that just wants to poke and maim and poison you. The desert is harsh and New Mexico is arid and dusty with a ridge of mountains that taunt you running right up the middle. But there’s something about the north country, past the Four Corners, driving beyond the arches and up to where the angle of the sunlight feels like something else that is hard to explain. It feels like home and yet far away all at once.
Beyond Idaho I crossed the Divide and continued into Montana. For the last few days, I have been camped next to a reservoir. I can hear the waves lapping in the darkness on the pebble beach at night. The cold wind that comes down from white peaked mountains is still heavy with the breath of the Pacific, as much of it has made it over the Cascades.
I don’t hate the desert. I grow bored of its monotony. Arizona is so desolate it is clean. Not even the dust of New Mexico. Just sunbaked rocks and creosote bushes. Rat-chewed saguaros and bones. Strange mountains that were once at the bottom of an ocean. I wonder if they miss water the way I have? An entire portion of this country is desert. Large enough to swallow waterlogged Europe with room to spare.
Moving has invigorated my spirit. It has kept me from going mad from the dust and wind. The wind here in the north feels like moving and dancing with a lover to music. Springtime follows us now the way I chased the changing colors of fall before. I’ve learned to live leaner, push further. Sacrificing creature comforts like Americanos and $20 dinners for a few more gallons in the tank that could take me another 50 miles.
I feel like I could run forever.
I had court today. The State trooper didn’t show up to prosecute. The case was dismissed. With the stiffness in my neck gone, I only have my bus to fix once I get stopped for a while. Until then, I drive it with its scars. I’m zeroing in on the story with only a week left and my deadline approaching. If I time it just right, I’ll see the next border between snowstorms.
