Day one
This time I am taking my own car, an Inifinity G35X. I bought a tent, sleeping bag etc. and plan to sleep outdoors every night of the trip. We'll see how that goes. I also brought my new bicycle, an orange Lemond road bike that I love to ride. I bought it on Ebay from a guy in Arizona.
We left our house in Venice at 11pm last night. My goal was to reach Las Vegas and spend the night, or what would be left of it. But 140 miles later, my brain started lying to me. I didn't get much sleep the night before and all the high-octane espresso started to really fuck with my driving skills. I had the distinct feeling that the road I was looking at was always a memory of the road about ten seconds back, like there was a sync problem with reality and my perception. A lag. This is a dangerous feeling.
Fortunately, just as I started feeling this way, about 30 miles North East of Barstow, I saw signs for a campground in a place called "Calico Ghost Town Park" I pulled off and immediately saw a KOA campground right on the 15 highway. This was dissapointing because camping next to a highway with all those RVs and soda machines, the kind of campground where there's a guy mowing the grass you're tent is on in the morning, well you might as well be in a motel.
Before going into the campground, though, I drove up a pitch dark road toward the "Ghost town" just for the fuck of it. About five miles up, I saw a sign that said "Campground"! I pulled in and found a quiet, secluded simple campground somewhere in some mountains or hills, I didn't know what because it was so dark.
There were a few RVs parked in there but not much. I found a secluded spot, opened the tent which I had never taken out of it's wrapping and set it up by the light of my car headlights. This tent is awsome. It takes about three minutes to stand up, it's cool yet safe feeling and perfect size for Loona and I. As I set it up, Loona nosed around trying to understand where she was. I rolled out the sleeping bag, zipped us both into the tent and fell asleep around 2am. The ground was rocky, hard and on a steep slope so I had the constant sensation of tryign to hang on and not roll away as I slept. I woke up about a thousand times, once because Loona was barking furiously at some creature that must have prowled around us. I think I slept a solid two hours in a row before waking up at 7am to find myself on the set of "Planet of the Apes."I had no idea at all that I was in the middle of the desert.
My camping spot was at the base of a steep slope. Loona and I got out of the tent and scrambled up the slope and were met with an INSANELY beautiful and varied desert landscape. Mountains, gorges, deep crevices, about a thousand shades of brown. It was so stunning and unexpected that I laughed out loud.
We went for a short walk. I had to scream at Loona a few times so that she wouldn't tumble down what looked like abandoned mine shafts a few times. When we got back to camp I ate a grapefruit, some almonds and had coffee that I stuck in a thermos last night at a truck stop. IT was still warm. (what a fag)
Before moving on I decided to go for a bike ride. The tent was in a cool shady spot so I zipped Loona in there with a bowl of water. I went for a punishing uphill ride that felt amazing. When I got back, there was Loona, laying casually outside the tent. She had clawed through the mesh door and gotten out, destroying my brand new, perfect tent. I am going to have to go to a camping store and buy some material to fix it or maybe, fuck it, a new tent.
Okay, almost done with the daily report. I took a shower in the campground bathroom. When I got back from that, there was this old guy leading two young people on a walk aroudn some giant volcanic rock nearby. I said good morning and he just came on over and started chatting with me. The young people, who seem to have paid him for the tour, kept walking. Roy, as I found his typical name to be, stood there and just told me his whole life.
He's from Oklahoma and his father moved here to pan for gold at a time when folks weren't much doing that, like the 1950s. Anyway, Roy walks a lot because his daughter who is a nurse, told him he has to keep his heart rate high. We had a nice chat and he was happy to let me photograph him and his piece of rock.
Anyway, the car is packed and it's time to go. My goal on this trip is to see the Badlands of South Dakota. It's the one part of the country I've never seen. Since I read Teddy Roosevelt's biography I have wanted to see it. Today I will try to get alll the way to Salt Lake CIty and hopefully be in South Dakota on Saturday. I hope to camp there-abouts for at least two nights before making a bee-lline for home so I can help my poor wife with our insane daughters.
talk to you later.
LCK