WINNEMUCCA TO ZION NATIONAL PARK
Early
the next morning I set out for parts unknown via the eastern Nevada high desert.
The environment was very desolate, but beautiful nonetheless. There’s not
much out there except sagebrush. On occasion, there’d be a
cattle ranch, but they were few and far between. It's a land of invisible
people. There's evidence of human life, but I never saw anyone.
They must be there. Maybe they only come out at night.
I think the main occupation in that part of the world is pushing dirt into big piles along the side of the road. I never figured it out; there’s all these big piles just sitting there. Another thing I couldn’t figure out is how people determine where to live. One can drive for hundreds of miles in nothingness, then all of a sudden there’s a geodesic dome sitting right next to a house trailer and nothing else. I had this vision of someone trying to pick out a place to live and saying, “No….no, not here…this isn’t right….no…right….here.” I guess it all makes sense if you live there.
En route, I did my endless hunt for something on the radio. My choices were limited; I found one AM station out of some tiny place between Winnemucca and Ely. When there's only one station in all the static, it sounds pretty good. They played an eclectic mix; Tone Loc, then Frank Sinatra, followed by Hanson. That caught me off guard, but I decided for that day only I liked Hanson. They sounded noticeably better than static. As part of his public service, the announcer read the lunch menu for the local elementary school. The kids were being treated to "Buckaroo Beans" that day. I spent a lot of time wondering what "Buckaroo Beans" were. My mind wanders a lot when I drive long distances.
I cruised the high desert;
winding through endless mountain switchbacks followed by
sweeping valleys, playing leapfrog with some old guy from Oregon (at least his
license plates proclaimed as much). In the valleys, he'd fly up behind me and
hang on my bumper at 75 mph. There was no limit for passing opportunities, but
he felt content to just sit there staring at the back of my Jeep from about two
feet away. Some compulsion would invariably grab him at random, and he'd sail
past me and disappear over the horizon. In a matter of minutes, I'd see him
pulled over on the side of the road. I'd glance at him as I whistled past and
he'd be sitting there, staring out his windshield. Like clockwork, he'd end up
tucked in right behind me
a few minutes later , and we'd start our dance all over. We did this
for hours. He reminded me of the crazy scientist J. Frank Parnell in the movie
"Repo Man"; the guy hauling the alien around in his trunk and singing
"Clementine" along his cross-country trek. Out there, that notion didn't seem so
far-fetched.
I ended up in Utah, or Arizona, or somewhere like that. Wherever I was it was a real strange landscape. It felt kind of creepy to stand there on the side of the road and marvel at the scenery. I kept thinking something was going to come out of the desert and put the zap on me. "Did 'Repo Man' guy stop and bury something on the side of the road here?" I wondered. "Is that why he kept stopping?" One has to think about these things.
Arriving
somewhat weary at Zion National Park, I decided to stop and stay the night. The
campground was kind of a dump, but it felt good to get out of the Jeep, build a
fire, eat some Van de Camps "Pork and Beans" ("Are these 'Buckaroo Beans?' I
wondered), set up the tent, and enjoy the Park.
I took one of the free shuttles and enjoyed the narrated journey through the park. It's a beautiful place in a stark, almost prehistoric way. I think I was the youngest person on the bus by about 30 years though. I kept waiting for someone to tell me to stop slouching or quit picking my nose. I wondered if--had I made the wrong comment, or acted in an inappropriate way--I would have had to sit in the corner. I don't know if busses actually have defined corners, but I imagined the folks on this bus would find a way to improvise one.
Getting off the bus back at the bus stop place, I said goodbye to the tour bus oldsters. I think they decided that I wasn't a hoodlum, as I didn't misbehave. I hiked back down the road to the campsite and crawled in my sleeping bag. It was pretty early, but I felt compelled to shut down for the night and listen to the sounds of a campground slowly closing down for the evening. I laid there and drifted off amidst the noises; muffled conversations between my fellow campers, the rustling of sleeping bags getting pushed around in tents, the last pops and crackles of dying fires. The ether was merciful that night, and I was able to pick up National Public Radio on my little radio. There was something strange about lying there in a tent listening to the same programs I fell asleep to at home. It was kind of fun, in a "National Public Radio in the middle of nowhere" sort of way.