On their album “Bookends”, in the song “America”, Simon and Garfunkel described how everyone on the road had “gone to look for America.” It was a sweet sentiment, but not exactly true. It seems to me that at that point in time, 1968, we were really looking for who we were, and, we hoped, having found ourselves we would make a better country/world. Now, 50 years later, as I drive down the backroads of the West, I feel that at last the song is true. I’m not trying to make a political argument here pitting one side against another. I just feel that no one is truly happy with our country in its current state. It is well and good to hearken back to another age when America was great, but was it really? And what is it in this country that inspires such yearning and determination to find a better world anyway?

We went to bed in Pocatello. The night was in the mid-eighties. The campground host warned us to keep an eye on our dog, to not tether her out unwatched. The horned owls and the bald eagles tended to carry them off. I made us a quick batch of campfire stew for dinner after which we climbed into our bunk. The sound of donkeys braying in the corral behind us came through the open windows occasionally as we dozed off. Sometime in the early morning I woke with a spate of violent shivers. The temperature had dropped down to near freezing, which, combined with the open windows and running fan, made the camper into a freezer on wheels. I was shaking so hard I could not get myself out of my sleeping bag to remedy the situation. Lydia, valiant woman that she is, reached over, shut the window, and rose to go to the bathroom, never realizing that she had saved me from severe hypothermia and probable loss of several extremities.

 

Near daylight my internal clock sounded its alarm. The campground was quiet, though soon others, in more of a hurry than we were, or perhaps having farther to travel, began to unhook water lines, disconnect power cords, and raise their leveling jacks. I drank coffee and watched the hills turn from a vague grey to golds and greens as the sun rose.

When Lydia began to stir, I put on water for tea and began to warm banana bread to accompany fried eggs. I dressed and walked the dog while trucks with long trailers and bus-like motorhomes crunched across the gravel to the exit and the highway beyond. We choose to break our driving into short segments of four hours or less, so had a leisurely breakfast and pack up. The day was already warming as Atticus found the pavement.

 

All day we skirted along the edges of the mountains, through wide, surprisingly green valleys. The slopes of the hills had a fuzzy emerald haze as well, surprising for July we thought, because we had expected the multiple shades of brown and yellow sage and bunch grass that are the hallmark of the West. We passed through Montpelier, Soda Springs, Cokeville, and several others. It was the Fourth of July and the streets were draped with bunting and flags, orange cones marked routes for expected parades. A fair was being held in a park and it appeared that every ranch family and dry-land farmer for miles had come to town to celebrate. The highway became a small-town main street. Traffic stopped and started as families crossed, small hands held by big. All morning we had driven across empty plains and hills with few signs of inhabitants, and now here they were. People who choose to make their livings miles from others out in the high desert, come to town to celebrate Independence Day.

 

Mid-day we finished our climb up onto the high plain and desert of western Wyoming and began our trek across the wide, brown expanse. Nothing in sight for miles to the unfamiliar eye, but Lyd and I had made previous crossings and so, understood the innate beauty and power of the “wide lonesome”. Our horizon was shortened by misty blue arms of the Rockies in the far distance or steep, brushy hills closer in. Eventually, a granite ridge crossed the road in front of us and on its end was the monolith Independence Rock, at its base fresh water, an oasis for early pioneers, whose cross-country trek reached the rock near July 4^th. Hence its name. We didn’t stop; we’d seen the names of immigrants carved and filled with tar on another trip and would be back in a few days with grandkids in tow. We’d been with them in Boston to see the Old North Church, and Plymouth to see Plymouth Rock. History is important. We want them to see this too.

An hour later we skirted the end of Casper Mountain, picked up a rental car, and made our way to the Bar Nunn Ranch. The clouds rolled in and the bus shook from the wind and thunder as we went to sleep.  It was Wyoming weather at its best.

 

Looking back on the days drive, I think we saw much of who we are. I don’t have a name for it or an answer, but I have a deep, down feeling.

 

Safe Travels.

 

The Road