Dearest Natalie,
After two and a half days of driving straight west on I-80 — 1,500 miles in 23 hours — we put a fork in it. We pulled off the interstate tonight in Winnemucca, Nevada. From here, in the morning, we will head northwest out of town on Nevada 140 toward Oregon and leave the freeway in our rearview mirror. At least for a few days.
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| Essentially, "Go straight for the next six hours." |
Today was another long drive — 740 miles from Laramie, across the high desert of southern Wyoming and into northern Utah, where I-80 threads itself between towering red buttes. We found our way around Salt Lake City and then skirted the Great Salt Lake to the south, traversed the moonscape that is the Bonneville Salt Flats and crossed northern Nevada, where the mountains erupt from the earth in giant khaki creases and crags. It took us about 11 hours.
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| Lunch break in northeastern Utah |
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| The Bonneville Salt Flats in northwestern Utah |
I have been kind of admiring the way we’ve come full-circle. We took part of this route in 2009 — in the opposite direction — on our very first Teardrop trip. We took a dip in the Great Salt Lake and snapped photos of the trailer in the middle of the barren salt flats. Since we’ve seen this before, we blew past without stopping.
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| 2009! |
Despite protests from Charlie and Clare, we started a new audio book: “The Book Thief.” I can't remember if you've read it, yet. It’s set in Nazi Germany, and I kind of puzzled over whether this book would fit the feel of the trip, you know? But strangely, the bleak and lonely tone of the book — which is fascinating, although your siblings have yet to admit that they’re hooked — squared with the vast, unforgiving wilderness streaking past our windows.
We stopped for pizza at the Winnemucca Pizzeria before making our way to our hotel. Although it was 90 degrees outside, we enjoyed pies (and cold beer for me and Dad) on the shaded patio. We noticed several tables of mostly (seriously, Nat: really, really good-looking) men. When we checked into the hotel, which is completely booked, we noticed more groups of young, fit men (and a few women) unloading trucks in the parking lot and finally deduced that they’re firefighters.
There’s a devastating wildfire, called the Martin Fire, not far from here. As of earlier today, it has burned nearly 700 square miles, which is an area almost half the size of Rhode Island, and is only about 48 percent contained. So, we take our hats off to all the firefighters working hard on that.
We are staying at the Holiday Inn Express in Winnemucca, which is probably not the plushest, cleanest or newest place in town. But I chose it because we stayed here nine years ago, on our way home from San Francisco. The toilet won't stop running, and there are cigarette burns on the bathroom counter. I don't remember it being this crummy. I DO remember that when you guys saw the casino on the other side of the lobby, you asked to play in the "game room.” As we were all getting ready for bed, Charlie lost his first tooth here. And later that evening, when we couldn’t get you guys to settle down in one room, Dad and I put Clare to bed on the bathroom floor.
Because the place is packed with firefighters, the only room available to us has only two double beds. We asked for — and received — a rollaway bed. There is seriously no space to unfold the third bed without blocking the door, so I guess Nevada doesn’t have fire codes that prevent the use of rollaways in small rooms. Although there is a hotel full of tanned, handsomely bearded firefighters who could rescue us in an emergency, it still feels unsafe to obstruct our only exit. So we wedged the cot between the two doubles, and now it's like one giant bed for four people. Clare is overcome with disgust at the idea of sleeping so close to Charlie, and she locked herself in the bathroom to try to quietly recover. Dad and I briefly considered allowing her to sleep on the bathroom floor. Again. The symmetry of this situation is so goddamn beautiful.
It was great to hear from you today, Natalie! I love the still-life that you’ve been working on in your painting class! I am so proud of you! I’ll post it here for everyone else to see, along with the real-life scene with which you've been working (featuring your Hottie McHotface painting instructor, the aptly named Mr. Cullers, in the background):
I love you loads, my baby. I’ll talk to you soon.
Love,
Mom
xoxoxoxoxo
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