it was actually totally dark at seven when we rolled out of Fruita, me with my motel coffee and the dogs still bewildered though perhaps letting them out to run free at the Trail Through Time

was reassuring. Anyway it’s the last Colorado exit, after which we rolled away from the sunrise

for riverside breakfasts at the Tamarisk in Green River after which we went west again;

Ghost Rock, gas in Salina, the burn by the side of the road that closed 50 on our way east

five months back and eventually, after a stop just before the border, Nevada for the usual gas [and last of Luz’ steak] in Ely, continuing talk of Adventure Trucks, the lack of physicality in young cadets, San Francisco real estate [and escaping from it], unpaved roads across the US

and Canada…the usual stop at Lone Mountain

and west, 50.

a last stop for dogs and men on the pass between Dixie Valley and Salt Wells after which

I took us in to Fallon to discover the Holiday Inn Express no longer welcomes dogs, making me just a minute too late for Jiffy Lube but not Fallon’s La Fiesta for another Mexican dinner,

another motel night [the dogs more nervous by now as although the people couldn’t have been nicer the wide angle views fail to do justice to the inherent claustrophobia of the rooms],

more restive than restful for me but come the dawn we were off

to Fernley’s historic WigWam on a quiet Nevada Sunday where

the Fire Department were tucking into their breakfasts.  After ours

I began the last push over October’s last unseasonably dry

mountains, let the dogs out before Truckee

and then [not shown] Heather Glen,

leaving Bryan to deal with the Cali traffic all across the Valley to Benicia where as Luz hadn’t left the two of them got everything into the house leaving enough time for falafel salads from One House if not that ice cream from the Double Rainbow…by then Linda, exhausted,

had taken to her bed, watched over by Mary and Judy who’d come from San Rafael to offer much appreciated aid, advice and comfort and so it begins…California.