i15

How do those roadside diners survive?

Driving in day light desert to Las Vagas, waiting for the bend where you look to your left and sometimes in the distance between the peaks you can see french fried sand dunes. Maybe there, maybe not there. They shift with the winds, hide within the sky hazed by wildfire.

Mental tour guide notes:
That is a solar water tower. That is a touristy ghost town. One day there will be a meg-lav train they say but I don't believe I'll ever see it in my lifetime.


The joshua trees are jealous
This rest area is useless
Lonely is not a word I use anymore



I left Las Vegas at sunset on purpose. not wanting. to go home. to nothing.



This drive is much nicer at night when the sun turns red and low, casting deep shadows across the mountains. My head wanders to sounds of the song of desert stillness. This radio is useless.

Deep shadows sit on dry lake beds and slopes that go on for miles so in the mirror I can watch the headlights come down. Behind. I left this town tired and missing you; I came in here the same way.

Still near a hundred degrees at a quarter to nine when I pulled off at the useless rest stop, passing a parked old Union Pacific pickup, tumbled blown white in color with lawn chairs opened at its side and filled with its passengers. Popping the trunk I made my own chair above the bumper, sipping water, overlooking the full moon washed desert floor.

There are few stars above, most lost in the moon's glow. Their absence reminds me of that late hour laid out in Echo Park when you commented on the lack of stars and I replied, "No, you have go out to the desert to see them."

They will come out for you.



flickr photos used under creative common license:
first photo by ferg2k, second by oldshoewomen, third by gwen

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A)

moaning post

Too late movie reviews