around the block,

then a couple of hours to load and be off past the Marshes of Suisun,

cross the Valley,

the River and up to Heather Glen

where we’ve been stopping for thirty years to rest, have lunch if the time was right and let dogs out although this time that didn’t seem such a good idea seeing as where sometimes it’s true there’s been a little trash tossed in the ravine there was garbage* all along the turnout.  Emblematic, seemed to me, of the message from the top which says laws, especially laws addressing the public good are made to be flaunted as aggressively as possible and let

the good public, losers all, clean up after them.  Oh well; after that it was on over Donner

[sans Blitzen] and down the other side to Wadsworth’s much cheaper gas, left on 447

north away from all that

and on to…the Dust of Empire

with Gerlach hanging at the edge of it

as was the Smoke Creek where

the desert kept on blowing over towards Winnemucca all that first night.

*Nice they left at least some of it bagged; probably didn’t want it stinking up the back of the Escalade.