Diary 131109 – Holly Trucker

“Now the view was obscured by clouds and sleet, but on the usual day Chee knew the (window) glass overlooked immense space – across the Laguna and Acoma Indian reservations to the south and east, southward across the forty-mile sea of cooled lava called the Malpais toward the Zuni mountains, and eastward toward the Canoncito reservation to the great blue hump of the Sandia mountains behind Albuquerque.”

Tony Hillerman published that in 1980, in People of Darkness.  I remember then; Iused to love driving these roads.

All that’s behind me today, but I spent most of yesterday driving along from Albuquerque, just slightly south of the area he described.  On a normal day in 2013.  There were no clouds, no dust storm, no wind, visibility only about five miles, mostly obscured by a yellow chemical haze.  The sun shines through it at lunchtime with the amber glow of  late afternoon, and the glowing health that my body grew breathing the clean air of the canyon is melting around me like a the muddy air itself.  My ears are ringing, sinuses filled up, the floaters are back in my eyes and I’m working up to a nosebleed for the first time since leaving Bryan.  But worst for driving, is the difficulty of focusing on what I’m doing.  The contrast, from two days ago, is enough to inform a large number of decisions.

Anyhow – this time the brakes are really fixed.

And it was fun meeting Holly, who actually believes she is personally in charge of this monster semi.

Most likely tomorrow I’ll make it to California.