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| Arco |
When the sun appeared over the top of the Boise Mountains I
was a few miles from the house, on a bike ride. I would be leaving town in a
couple hours but I didn’t really want to go just yet.
On the bike I had taken two-lane roads to the south away
from town, through flatlands once strictly rural and now well on their way to
suburban. I passed housing developments with names like Charter Pointe and
Devonshire. What’s with that extra “e”? And worse, what does damp old England
have to do with the high desert of western Idaho?
Back at the house, Grandpa was up and working in his office
all ready. This was rare; the hours of four till ten in the morning usually
found him in his sleeping chair, if not sleeping…. I packed the van, put ice in
the cooler, arranged my maps and snacks in the front seat….
When I came back in the house one last time, Grandpa was
sitting at the kitchen table. He asked about my route for the day, and then we
discussed the weather report…. He fell silent and didn’t seem to know what else
to say, but he wasn’t ready for the good-bye that would send me on my way….
In the past five days, since I’d returned, the two of us
hadn’t spent much time alone together, as we had before. In a way it was easier
at the rehab center. What else was there to do besides sit together, talk,
watch television. But at the house he had been busy, after his own fashion,
trying to get his life back together; it hadn’t been going smoothly…. Where
before he was calm most of the time, waiting to heal, at home he was querulous
and impatient; he was frustrated by his physical limitations (when one can’t
bend over, for example, even minor tasks are difficult or impossible); he
didn’t like much of what had been done at the house while he was away, and he
said so; and he often resisted the ministrations of his caregivers, arguing for
his own way. I’d seen him upset, seen him at moments behaving badly, and I
could only look away…. It didn’t seem to me that he could be mollified, most of
the time anyway, but that he would have to be the one to change and adjust….
I finally had to say, “Well, I have to get going,” and he
stood up and we hugged. I looked at him and wondered if I’d see him again, but
then I pushed away the thought because what’s the use of it. I prefer to assume
that he’ll manage and I’ll see him again next summer. He took a white envelope
with my name on it from his pants pocket and slipped it into my waist pack on
the table. I drove to the closest gas station and put his $40 gift in the gas
tank.
By the middle of the day I had reached Craters of the Moon
in the middle of the state. I went for a walk through a lava field adjacent to
the visitor center, remembering, as I do on each visit to this national
monument, the time when Alix was six and on a walk at the same spot she had
fallen and gashed her hand on the sharp rock, and there had been blood
everywhere…. I took care with each step.
At the town of Arco I turned north and drove another half
hour up the wide and lovely Big Lost River Valley to Mackay. To the west stood
the White Knob Mountains, to the east the Lost River Range, the highest set of
mountains in the state and including the highest peak, Mount Borah (12,662’).
I’d been in Mackay three years previous, to do the Mt. Borah hike, and I’d come
back to stay in the town’s campground.
The Mackay Tourist Camp is a throwback, both in name and operation.
Lots of towns established such tourist parks, starting back in the 1920s, as a way
of attracting motorists and getting them to spend their money locally. They
were often free, and Mackay’s still is. It is rather seedy, but it’s well off
the road (behind the town), and there’s shade and a few picnic tables. The first
time I’d had the whole place to myself, so I was surprised to find a number of
big RVs and trailers…. They had taken the best sites all along one edge, and
the second tier area was under siege from several big sprinklers…. But I found
a dry spot and backed the van in between two cottonwood trees….
I opened up the van and put up the table and spent some time
writing…. But the afternoon temperature had risen into the mid-nineties, and
even in the shade it was quite hot…. Eventually I drove into town for ice, and
at a small store in a Chevron station I discovered two booths in a corner. I
took one of them and continued my writing work under the comfy air-conditioned
auspices of the convenience store. The town’s people came and went, buying beer
and sodas, microwave burritos, cigarettes, and ice cream bars. For a time, four
young teenagers took the other table, and I was subjected to their painfully
inane conversation. One of the boys, about thirteen, kept whimpering
theatrically as he punched buttons on his phone; I didn’t see how the other
three could bear this performance. Finally, one of the girls said, “Let’s go
back to the park,” and they got up and left.
Eventually I left too, and returned to the tourist camp for
the night.
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Note: One year ago today I had my bear encounter at Glacier
National Park. I thought about it off and on during the day, occasionally
rubbing the spot on my left thigh where a shallow divot remains….Two days ago
Mom tried to give me a book called Great
Bear Stories, a collection of bear attack accounts. I declined her gift. I
do not want to read about bear attacks or even bears in general, maybe never
again but especially when I’m about to head back through Montana.
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