Sand Canyon, CO to Los Lunas, NM

It’s early, like 6:30 am. I know Blaise is already up and at it, because I heard him take Dixie outside and start his truck. It’s cold. Colder than it feels like May 2nd should be.

But I know the high desert. It doesn’t play by the normal rules. By noon it’ll be boiling, by an hour after tonight’s sunset, it’ll feel like this again.

I dress quickly, brush my teeth, crack open a cold brew latte from our little propane fridge. That fridge is the best, most functional utility offered by The Cosmic Nomad—Thanks, technology from 1972, for holding it down in a new millennium.

When I pop out of the camper ready to rock, they’re both surprised. I’m not a morning person, and it’s no secret. But today there’s things to do, places to go, and I feel like I don’t want to miss a thing.

We head back towards Cortez, stopping for gas and quick breakfast. I thought we’d found a restaurant I used to go to when I lived here, but it wasn’t the same. Nonetheless, it was some generic bacon, eggs, and coffee to keep up moving for the day.

Before we leave the no-name diner, we decide we’ll navigate toward the Four Corners. I haven’t been in years, Blaise has never been, so it just makes sense.

A little less than an hour, and we’re there. It’s still early, only about 10 am when we get there. I’m glad for it, since it’s starting to heat up.

It isn’t packed yet, vendors just starting to open their stalls, only a handful of tourists taking pictures and milling about. Thinking back to the last time I’d visited, I relish the peace and quiet today.

A man sees us taking a selfie, and asks if we’d like a picture of the two of us—Sure, we say, and he snaps us a lovely picture. He hasn’t been here since 1972, he says, and we both thought to ourselves “Wow, that’s the same year The Cosmic Nomad was made.”

Funny how life brings you full circle, sometimes.

We walk, get a lemonade, and decide it’s time to get out of here. It’d been cool enough to snap a few pictures, but as we get Dixie out of the car, we realize that tipping point of the day is upon us, and it’s time to keep driving.

I think this was the day we realized we’d both made an intentional effort to not use our air conditioning at all, in either vehicle.

For me, it was a matter of saving gas and not straining my motor. Then it became a point of pride. But that will come back up later.

Let’s focus for now on things coming full circle: This day was going to circle, spiral, and do all the things that generally throw a person for a loop.

When we left Four Corners, we drove through so much reservation land. The landscape became desert, and the desert grew more desolate.

I’m no stranger to the desert—I drove here like it was my job April through August of 2016 with an expedition company. I was an intern, and it was my job.

To get there even though I’d never been where I was going. To get there with a trailer, in a vehicle I wasn’t used to. To be ready for a flat tire, for my car to overheat, for whatever might happen. To do it scared, to do it sad, to do it tired, to do it by any means necessary. Just to get it done.

So this didn’t feel foreign. It didn’t feel weird, or scary.

It simply felt like… driving through the desert.

Sometimes there was road work. It’s surreal to wait in “traffic” in the middle of nowhere.

But sometime, even in the middle of nowhere, you have to just wait.

Traffic breaks up.

We stop for gas in Sheep Springs, New Mexico.

The parking lot is a 50/50 mix of dusty sand and broken glass and bottle caps. It’s crunchy and sharp sounding.

I park under a tree—the only tree, really.

We find some dirt that’s less crappy for Dixie to have a potty break.

Taking turns, we stay with Dixie to get each of us a potty break, too.

We pretend we can’t hear a couple screaming at each other in their broken down minivan in front of their kids. It’s a fuel pump, we overhear. We definitely don’t have the time, tools, or know how to fix that on the fly.

It feels shitty to just have to pass through a vignette of struggle, but there’s nothing we can practically offer in that moment other than to kindly avert our eyes.

Some gas stations are wild. You follow the signs and know you’re waiting for a bathroom, but it feels like you’re mostly just trespassing in a back room waiting to be where you’re heading.

I studied the soda crates and cardboard boxes of this back room. Did my best to fade into the peeling blue paint of the walls, waiting for the dad and kid ahead of me to finish in the bathroom.

Pretending I didn’t feel insanely out of place.

We finish, and we leave. It feels good to put this little scene in the rearview.

Pushing onward, we stop in Gallup, New Mexico.

The gas station we stop at is right by the train tracks and the first Route 66 sign we see.

We stop, make some phone calls to our folks. Get snacks, get drinks, and get back on the road.

But less than an hour later, we stop again.

Blaise and Dixie need a break, and a bathroom stop. Best part of hauling a camper is, you’ve always got a bathroom with you—even if it is a bucket, more or less.

Hey, no one ever said this was going to be elegant. It certainly works, though.

Clouds had been gathering all afternoon. As I walked around outside, I felt the wind picking up.

Here’s the thing: I knew this was going to be an unusual afternoon from when the day began. My folks have had this sweet, golden bear of a dog named Bandit since I was 21.

I’d just spent a week and change with Bandit and my own dog, Indy, while my folks were on a trip.

They weren’t sure Bandit was going to be with us much longer when they left on their vacation. I’d been left with instructions on how to proceed in case she said it was time.

But Bandit thrived! She went for short, slow walks. She kept doing all of her tricks for treats at promptly 2:30 pm each day, like she always has.

And every time she gave me her paw for high five or to shake, I reveled in how soft her paws were.

It’s creeping up to the time my mom told me the vet was going to come to their house, today.

Bandit is tired.

Bandit is sick.

Bandit has told my folks that it’s time, and they’ve listened.

Standing on the side of the road, it felt stupid to not be home. Like I’d gotten this golden slice of time with their buddy all to myself, and now I couldn’t be there to help tell her goodbye.

Nonetheless, I called my mom.

She let me know that the vet had come and Bandit was gone. That she’d had a lovely sendoff, some time on the back porch in the sunlight like she loved, last kind words from everyone who loved her, and that she had passed peacefully and it was over.

I tried to find the words, but mostly just found tears.

Some phone calls are more silence than words.

It’s just about being as close to there as you can be, when you can’t teleport to where you wish you could.

I paced. I smashed little mounds of dirt under my shoes, softly. I stared at the gathering clouds, and into the gulley where a wrecked car from decades ago fell into its various parts and pieces.

Looking up at the sky, I felt small.

And sad.

But the road beckoned us on. Driving onward from here, I turned my music off for awhile.

The wind whipped my long hair and my aimless thoughts around.

Hours later, I found myself in Grants, New Mexico. We stopped for gas in a tiny, expert level gas station I was surprised I fit into with The Cosmic Nomad.

Pulling out, back on the road, I snapped this photo:

The drizzle continued, sometimes enough to be rain, sometimes almost light enough to pretend it wasn’t there.

Some part of me was grateful for a day that felt as grey as I did.

As we drove onward, we were finally on Old Route 66. We ended up on the Laguna Pueblo, chasing not Highway 40 that aligns with newer Route 66, but the older roads.

The original road.

In this case, the roughest thing a road can be and still retain the title of “road.”

Maps call it Sparrow Hawk Road.

My experience called it “Ok, but like… how is this real?”

The road was more pothole than road. And they weren’t just garden variety potholes.

These were deep, just drive around it, it could be six feet deep potholes.

The pavement?

Failing.

The lines on the road?

Less present than the lines on my face.

The weather?

Disgusting.

My soul?

On fire.

Thrilled to be out here seeing the things that don’t have long left to be seen.

Things that are half in, half out of this plane of existence.

Things that are fast fading into oblivion.

“The world’s big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”

John Muir

I’m not too cool to admit that the road was rough, though.

When we made it back to modern pavement, my bones and my nerves were rattled.

Stopping at another gas station in Los Lunas, New Mexico, I told Blaise I was beat. I didn’t know where we’d camp that night, neither did he.

And we both needed a shower.

Parked where I fit, with the big rigs, we researched briefly.

Made the usual phone calls.

“Hi, are you pet friendly?”

“Hi, do you offer a veteran’s rate?”

“Hi, can we please pay you for a place to rest our weary bones tonight?”

Walking back, I realized that even though I felt like I took up so much space on the road, I shrunk in comparison to these semis and their trailers.

Nonetheless, I was showing up.

Doing my best.

Doing it scared instead of just not doing it.

We drove, arriving in less than five minutes at the Western Skies Inns & Suites.

At first glance, the room was swanky.

Upon closer examination, it was generic.

Peeling wood veneers, sticky handles on drawers, some mysteriously crusty dog food looking residue on the faucet handle of the kitchenette.

Lifting the mattress, we were happy not to see any evidence of bedbugs, and decided to conclude our investigations.

We settled in, opened our bags, got Dixie her dinner.

Shortly thereafter, we got our own dinner—Wendy’s, my favorite standby salad on the road, checking the box again for another day of adventure.

It was late when we finished eating at the tiny table in the kitchenette. Shortly thereafter, we each showered, and wound down for the night.

Tomorrow would be our first whole day on good old Route 66.