On the Road to San Francisco-- August

Only a couple days after leaving the farm, we found ourselves on the road just over the border in Utah. We stopped in a small town for grease and a stationary, cooked dinner. Marisol was making dinner—Chinese noodles with a homemade peanut sauce, mustard leaves, and whatever else we’ve got lying around—while the rest of us enjoyed the chance to get out of the bus for a bit. As he often does, Keith got out his bike wandered off….He came back with his face all lit up, smiling, no—smirking, saying “Look what I found!” He held up a sink. “There’s a giant pile of sinks!” he said. We needed two sinks, one for each bus, and haven’t really had a chance to think about where we might get them (not least, get them for free). We got the other bike down and Keith and I rode off to the sink treasure trove together (me standing up on the bike the whole time because I can’t reach the pedals from the seat—it’s currently at Ethan height). I followed Keith through several dirt parking lots in a fairly empty area and lo and behold—a pile of about 50 sinks, all the perfect size, all identical—perfect. We decided they were too heavy to bike back with, so we headed back to the bus with plans to eat and return on our way out with the bus.

Marisol was just finishing up cooking when we got back and we all started congregating on the roof of the new bus (where Ethan found his reading in solitude interrupted, though likely happily so). Dinner was well worth the wait, and we had a fun, happy, good spirited dinner together on the roof and listened to Nando and Ethan tell some good BioTour stories from the past.

I started driving out with Keith and Adam on board only to get a phone call from the other bus just minutes after having navigated a particularly windy detour to the highway—“Hey..Maggie…Can you come back? We just found a ton of grease.” I turned around and drove back to the other bus, and fell asleep in the process of greasing, so Alan took over driving for me. I woke up several hours later to the fiery light of the sun rising over the desert mountains in Utah, about half an hour west of Salt Lake City…Not bad. We stopped at a rest stop to transfer grease, and sat on the roof basking in the warm golden morning light as we waited for the barrel of grease to settle….

At a rest stop in Utah just past sunrise…

I sit on the hood, listening to the carefree anecdotal chatter between KB and Dubs

bouncing down from the roof as the sun sifts

through the dusty golden air with its rays,

while long shadowed humans trek back and forth

to the restrooms in the sandy brick building.

The rest stop parking lot is full of the dramatic elongated lines

of sign and light post shadows climbing

over the orange extension cord that does its part

to help pump our grease.

Our three shadows reach out and plant themselves on the whiteness

of the truck parked alongside

I look across from where I’m sitting to see, pasted onto the cab of the truck,

an American flag and

“Love It or Leave It…”

The truck rolls away, barreling back onto the freeway and

for a moment, its shadow flattens us into darkness.

But the dark cloud passes

and we’re left to bask in the soft morning light again,

With an empty space

where the roots of our shadows had been settled.

(8/22/08)

Back on the road in Utah, I fell asleep again, cuddled up in the back bunk. I woke up a couple hours later in a rest stop on the side of blindingly white salt flats. Gorgeous.

I’m feeling so grateful to be seeing all these different landscapes. And overwhelmed. And wishing we could slow down. Wishing we could stop and find out where all these tiny little roads lead that meander off the highway into the desert. But San Francisco and the real beginning of our journey await us…