Coming back from Boise was the trip going in reverse except that the views and sightlines are all 180° off so that it is really never the same trip. I might not be the best authority on this, however, as Michele and I have driven across Nevada – probably – more than 20 times and, to me, it never seems the same. And all the trips are great, but maybe, it is an acquired taste. One trip, I remember, it was snowing – but right on the edge of the freezing line – for the whole trip which meant that every mountain pass had wet snow and every valley was misty rain (except for worrying about what the weather would be like in Utah – our destination – the trip, ensconced in our heated car, was magic).

The Owyhee Mountains seemed much more mountain like this time around and, what seemed like richer farms and ranches coming in, now seemed poor.

After the oasis of Boise with its soft green-ness, even the green floodlands of the Owyhee River seemed lost in the endless, late summer, Dry.

As we drive through the high desert, watching it float by us as if on TV, we chat and joke, we listen to Eileen’s iPhone music collection, we sense, more than hear the ever present car noise. But, when we stop, when we get out of the car, it is a deep quiet.   In Scenes in America Deserta, Reyner Banham talks about the silence of Drylands, Silence  heat and light. The silence flowed back around us, like a filling pool, as I switched off the engine of the car….In Basin and Range, John McPhee quotes Freeman Dyson It is a soul-shattering silence. You hold your breath and hear absolutely nothing….You are alone with God in that silence. We weren’t alone, and our chatter followed us out of the car when we stopped; but the background silence was always there. One one stop, Eileen and I took pictures of each other, and I think Eileen’s better captures the silence and immensity of the space.

At one point, as we drive along, I watch a truck – on a parallel road but in a life sharply divergent from ours – throw-up a dust trail. It starts me  thinking about how hard it would be to sneak up on somebody out here. We left Boise after lunch and now the sun is getting low as we get close to Winnemucca and the Interstate. The mountains are soft in the fading light and we start thinking about where we will have dinner in Reno (a Thai restaurant south of the airport won) .

To be continued….

was

Boise is a shock of green after hours of driving through miles of sun-bleached-beige drylands. Especially at Ophelia and Peter’s home which is near the Boise River (not the Snake River as some, sometimes, tend to mis-identify it.

In the green and the softness of Boise’s early fall afternoons, it is also a little shocking to a coastal Californian that – shocking in the morning when we go outside, that is – that it had frozen the night before.  But, by mid afternoon when we went over to see Peter and Ophelia’s grandkids and grand chickens, it was short sleeve shirt weather.

While we were Boise, in the outside world, the tide turned against Lance Armstrong, one of the Pussy Rioters was released from prison, and, contrary to my prediction, Obama was hit hard in the poles over the debate. Each thing was sort of shocking to me and each was, really, already there.

In a way, in the back of my mind where I am not paying much attention, I have known for a while that Armstrong was doing something. Winning seven times is a lot and the were growing rumors that he was doping, or juicing, or whatever is the proper term. But the magnitude of the whole thing, the amount of evidence, the casualness of it all that is just now coming out, is still shocking.

And what is it with the russian courts? It turns out that Yekaterina Samutsevich wasn’t even in the cathedral for the hooliganization for which she was convicted. So a higher court suspended her sentence. To an American mind, in my mind, it seems that she is either guilty or she should be let go. That she is innocent but we will still call you semi-guilty is bizarre. But, then, I have no idea about how any Russian court should work.

And coming back to the reality of post vacation news – in the post debate polls – to find Obama trailing is very shocking. I think that, with Romney gaining stature by being on stage with the President, that he , Romney, came across less evil than he had been painted by the Obama ads. But, in a way, he has always been personable. That is his schick. Somehow Romney was able to pull off the slight of hand of announcing a goal – reducing the national debt, for example – being the the same as actually having a policy.

Driving to Boise took most of a day and driving home was the same, so our time enjoying the warmth and camaraderie of our little group was very short. Soon it was time to wave goodbye and get back on the road.

The picture above with the caption, We are on our way to Boise was supposed to be posted last Saturday. Somehow it wasn’t and we are now back. Maybe the fact that it didn’t post is good because the picture is way more dramatic than the actual drive. Here is a more typical scene.

To be continued.