Sunday followed that sadder day, the fires still raging. I piled up tumbleweeds in the sculpture
park and then visited with friends through the afternoon but forgot to take the camera
over to Dave’s as the low light tended spectacular.
They left soon after, L. and I walked briskly to the chairs and back
and next morning, still chill, I loaded up after breakfast and went into town where the guy
at the gas station told me the reason the company pickup was so rusted out was from all the time it spent in the mud extricating fools off the desert…as in, for instance,
those three Sheriffs who sank at Threemile on their way to Burning Man.
Which he said was still wet so I drove on further to get onto the playa,
coffee-drinking and driving, the wind cold out of the north all day.
Veterans’ Day behind the Black Rock itself, an Airstream with a pickup putting slowly towards it in the dust the only sign of man to be seen all day, then
Black Rock Hot Spring and beyond
to
the hanging playas [lower, below]
and
upper, above] and subsequently NE to overlook the eastern arm of the BRD where it looked like
someone since I’d last looked had
made a way down the ridge to the Other Side, hey.
So I did too; down the ridge
and south
for lunch
on an alluvial moraine of exploded tufa fragments and small stones [note truck, below].
I circumvented the Sink, small stones ubiquitous,
around the bottom of the Black Rock Range
and ultimately down
the desert by which time, heading into low sun at 2:30, i was finally able to divest myself of
at least my down vest and go in at Three-Mile no problem [those Sheriffs must have
been either from some other part of the County, pretty stupid or both to get stuck there].
34, 447 and home, three o’clock.
A hundred-five miles, five hours only, but a most rewarding, most necessary five hours.
still so pristine looking, that’s a relief
Divestiture of down vests, indeed!
Does tufa explode of its own volition? (i’m pretty sure that a microwave can explode tofu, but…)
I like the profile of your shadow (or compatriot) reflected in the side-window of the truck. What’s that sticking out the side of its head, enny-way?
Did you visit ‘The Dip’ on this circuit? [ I’m guessing: not this time ]
North of “The Dip” this trip…I imagine the tufa needed a little igneous impetus to shatter that way…a weird, wonderful area.
Illn’
It makes me happy, glad, …thrilled that you are still doing the time (tunes?) and miles ‘out there’…
It helps keep me sane ‘out here’ since I’m not ‘out there’ in the same dusty way… spacious mebbe, not the same clear dry cold!
Thank for the good vibes my friend,
E
Road meditation… “management by walking around.”
Wow! blue sky. Haven’t seen that in a while.
Now that we’re back in California I can see what you mean by that…arg!
Really dazzled by the thin little landscape between “Over at Dave’s” and “They left…”.
Ah driving around in the desert, so glad you are still at it. What is it about that monochromatic landscape that is so dynamic?