I got on the road at nine, but I wasn’t feeling completley alert, and I kept pulling over to get out and stretch. I tried listening to an audiobook of the Pickwick Papers, but I couldn’t stay focused. I listened to some Renaissance music for a while, then a field recording of old Sacred Harp singing, then Steve Reich, then John Coltrane — but each in turn quickly grew annoying. I tried singing the bass part of a duet I’m learning, but I skipped over a part then couldn’t remember the words. I stopped at one place to take a walk, but it was beastly hot, so I got back in the car and drove. I stopped for lunch at the rest area on the Bonneville Salt Flats. An hour later I stopped for a quick walk at Tempe Spring Wildlife Area, but the Black-Necked Stilts were aggressive and I soon saw why: shy young Stilts were hiding in the reeds, trying to be invisible; so I left. I stopped at a reservoir in Echo Canyon, only to realize that the column of black smoke I saw was a burning tractor trailer rig on the west-bound side of the highway, right over the road I drove under to get to the reservoir. I took a forty-five minute walk, and when I got back to the car the tractor was still burning, surrounded by fire trucks. Finally I drove into Wyoming, into self-proclaimed Big Sky Country — which weakly describes a landscape that makes human affairs feel tiny and insignificant — glad to put an end to this day.
