Rolling Out

Do you ever listen to yourself talk and think, damn that sounded strange?  It happened to me yesterday.

I was sitting in the grass eating a tortilla when, out of the prairie to the east, a red truck appeared.  I guess I hadn’t heard it coming over the windmill’s chugging and Duke’s panting.  The truck bumped along the bushogged cut that I’m camped alongside.  I stood to the side of the road and let it come abreast.

The people inside rolled down their windows.  It was a crew-cab Chevy with four older folks who were wandering around ticking items off their “Bucket Lists,” as the driver told me.  They lived in Colorado and had come to visit Nebraska’s “sand hill country,” which is apparently where I’m camped.  I told them I hadn’t known that this region went by that name but that it made sense, because the country was had plenty of hills and the soil sandy.  At the time it seemed clever.

They looked over my rig and asked if I had spent the night out here.  I said, I’ve spent a couple.  The lady in the back-left looked around the prairie.

“Did the traffic keep you up at night?” she asked.

She gave me a peach and four chocolate chip cookies, saying “I bet you don’t have these.”  I told her no, I’d been out of fresh food for awhile.  They asked if the water from the windmill was good to drink, and I said I hadn’t gotten sick yet, and asked me where they were on the park map, and I told them.  I told them about my quest for authorship, and they wished me well on my research, camper repairs, and writing.  The driver put the truck in gear.  He rested his wrist on the gearshift.

I had to make myself shut up.  I’d been babbling, I think.  They drove away, and the lady in the back-left turned and waved.  I think she thought I’d been too much in the sun.  I think she might have been right.

So this morning I am packing up and rolling out.  I look forward to the open road, a warm shower, and a laundromat, in that order – I crave the open road, a warm shower would be nice, but – I may as well be honest – I’d skip the laundromat except that flies are landing on my Carhartts and I spilled diesel on my best shirt.  The fragrance is a bit much.  A little civilization sounds about right.

Uploading a blog entry on Internet Ridge -- the image on the screen is a reflection.

My old friend the windmill.  Duke, who got annoyed with the clanging sound,

 would growl at it quixotically from time to time. 

My nine-day attempt to grow a beard.  Not gonna happen.  Razor time.