By bus and by car

Heleen had bought almond milk at the grocery store the day before, after I’d made some passing comment about preferring it over soy or cow’s milk…. So I was sure to use it in the morning with my bowl of muesli.

I sat at the table and ate while Tom made coffee in the kitchen, and soon Heleen appeared, with wet hair from the shower, and they talked of their plans for the day, and I wished I wasn’t leaving, but it was time.

At seven Heleen drove me to town, to the K-Mart, the morning stop for the Eastern Sierra Transit bus, an eighteen-seat affair. We hugged good-bye and I thanked her again, and then I was on the bus and she was gone. I sat in the back and took off my shoes and hunkered down with my book as we set off north on US 395…. We made several stops along the way, in Mammoth (bathroom break at a McDonald’s) and Lee Vining and Bridgeport, climbing through the eastern foothills, crossing over into Nevada, passing through Carson City…. Across the aisle, a scruffy looking man in a baseball cap worked some sort of deal on his cellphone, then called several people in Reno in an unsuccessful attempt to find company for lunch. Another man slept in the opposite corner of the back row, his knees and arms covered with big scabs from some accident.  In Mammoth a young guy got on with a long ski bag, and a stack of five ball caps which he placed carefully on the seat beside him.

At the Reno airport I reminded the driver that he owed me ten dollars change from when I’d paid the fare in Bishop. He said, in an unconvincing manner, “Didn’t I give you two fives?” No, I told him and he didn’t argue. He dug in a small vinyl bag and came up with a ten which he handed over without a word and more than a hint of reluctance.

A one-way rental car is ridiculously expensive, it turns out, fifty dollars more than a plane ticket from Reno to Boise (connecting in San Francisco); but I couldn’t bear the thought of getting on a plane, so I splurged for the car. I was given a white Hyundai Elantra, which seemed a bit large for the “Economy” category but which actually got excellent gas mileage….

On my way out of town I spotted an In-and-Out Burger and, caught by the mystique, I pulled off the interstate…. The restaurant was packed, but an efficient system moved people and burgers along at a rapid pace…. I was disappointed, though: the fries were mediocre, the hamburger bland

I took I-80 east and north across Nevada, listening to sports radio talk about the Heat-Thunder game, till the commentators all started to repeat themselves, then occupied myself trolling through the two hundred or so XM satellite radio stations….

After a couple hours I reached Winnemucca, where I stopped for maps at the Visitor’s Center; the teenaged girl at the desk knew less about northern Nevada than I did, but she was sitting in temporarily for someone else…. I stopped at the town’s grocery store too, Radley’s, and bought a loaf of french bread and some fruit, after standing in line for ten minutes while a sixtyish woman with coppery red hair had to send a bagger to the tobacco department several times before she got what she wanted. The neatly dressed old man in front of me in line—shirt tucked in, cellphone on his belt—turned to me and said, “This is the Express Lane.” I responded appropriately to his observation, smiling ironically and saying, “yeah.”

From Winnemucca I took US 95 north through big and wide sagebrush lands, through one of the least peopled regions on the continent…. After a while I took the turn-off to the town of Paradise Valley, twenty miles off the main road…. Past the tiny town the paved road gave way to gravel and I headed into into the Santa Rosa Range, treeless mountains marked by stony outcroppings, the highest peak almost 10,000’.

The road narrowed and devolved, and then climbed in big, exposed switchbacks, and the drop-offs made me nervous and I clung to the inside of the road, not worried about oncoming cars because there were none in those lonely mountains. Fifteen miles up, I reached  Hinkey Pass and got out to look back over the valley below, where high winds had filled the air with big dust clouds….

A nearby campground was disappointing, the small sites tucked into the bottom of a canyon cleft overgrown with scrubby aspen. I decided I didn’t want to sleep in the tent…. I could’ve gone back the way I’d come but decided to take a chance on the road, which led another twenty miles north back to 95…. It narrowed further on the descent down the other side of the pass, and the faint strip of green in the middle suggested less use…. The smooth mountains stretched away to the horizon, rangelands for a scattering of cows but not many.

I hoped the road wouldn’t get too bad, that I wouldn’t have to go back…. It turned west, came to a saddle and then dropped precipitously, in another set of switchbacks, down the face of a slope. I drove slow, keeping away from the edge….

A half hour before sunset I finally came down out of the mountains and onto the wide plain of the highway valley. Just before 95 an older man in an RV waved me down to ask about camping. “We’re tired,” he said, indicating his wife, and the dog on his lap, “we just need a place to park.” I directed him to a spot five miles back, just before the climb, where I’d passed a pullout with fire ring. “But I don’t think you want to go up to that campground, not in your rig.”

At the very small town of McDermitt, on the Oregon border and just next to the Ft. McDermitt Indian Reservation, I stopped at a drive-in for a vanilla shake, served up by an Indian girl with big arms and numerous tattoos.

The remaining three hours to Boise were a slog. The dark came down, and I shuttled between brights on and brights off as long-distance trucks barreled by headed south…. I passed brown signs for reservoirs and lava beds…I came to the town of Jordan Valley…crossed into Idaho…went through Marsing…reached I-84…and soon after pulled up in front of Grandpa’s dark house, back where I started nine days ago, back much sooner than I’d planned.