What do you do when you are a little too hung over to write? I rarely drink, and it seems a chocolate Stout last night did me in just a little. I’ve been thinking about the prompt of fifty all day, and all kinds of fuzzy ideas have wandered throughout some of the many trails in my head, going uphill and downhill, never quiet in focus.
The main idea that has kept climbing its way to the top is writing about Highway 50 in Nevada. It is known as “The Loneliest Road in America”, and just that has always made me love it.
When I was a more youthful slacker, and Oakland was cheap to live in, I would often start up my ’71 VW Bus, and drive to nowhere in Nevada. From Singing Mountain, off to the Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park, I would sleep on the side of the road, taking in the vast emptiness of the desert, in all its thoughtful and stark beauty.
I have a longstanding love of desert. The quiet, the peacefulness, the open power of land and sky, the smallness of me, and the perspective on life all that brings. My mom was born in Reno, so I guess Nevada is genetically within my soul. I used to drive to the tops of the summits along the highway, stop to climb around and sit and stare at the world, grounding myself in the vastness, the clear view that would sear outward and within.
I miss those days and my bus; sadly, time really does change things, and I haven’t ventured that far in quite some time. I guess if writing is some form of the mind travelling, then that’s my replacement, and as you can tell, not unlike my former version of a vacation, I’m wandering past little thought landmarks and going nowhere still.
I’m sure once I publish this I’ll get a grand idea, a much better take on this, but here I am, ready to call it a day and out of words. Some might say that’s a good thing, at the moment I have no idea, and not much else to say.
Kevin Army 