Where the Road Begins
We chased the day westward, but the light still slipped away.
Head out for adventure. Head out on the highway. Ready for whatever comes my way.
As CamperVan Beethoven rolled away from our cozy hole in the ground, she looked at me auspiciously.
“What?” I proffered.
“I’m sorry—I think I left the back door unlocked,” Woolfinia said, nervously. “No, I did. I definitely left it unlocked. I went out to feed the birds, and when I came back in, it was stuck. You know how that door is. So hard to lock and unlock. It's like someone steals the doorknob, but guilt makes them return it every time. And each occurrence leaves it less functional than before.”
So, we make the block. I bounce out of the vehicle and inside, where I find—sure enough—the back door unsecured. An easy fix. The lock is stubborn, but not as dire as Woolfinia made it out to be.
It’s okay. I give the place a final once-over. She always does the last looks, but if I don’t go first, she’ll always find something else to do. The signal that it’s truly time to leave? Me sitting outside with the engine running.
And so we roll away a second time, waving again to the neighbors, who are excitedly installing their new pool. We are above-ground-pool-people in an above-ground-pool neighborhood. Last week, they spent hours leveling their backyard so the massive thing wouldn’t tilt. Twenty degrees may not sound steep, but ten thousand gallons of water sees anything above zero as the path of least resistance.
They wave back enthusiastically. They get it. Everyone forgets something when heading out—wallets, keys, phones, eyeglasses, stuffed animals. The universal loop: departure, realization, return, repeat.
There are two stops before we pierce the invisible barrier this town has erected around us:
1. The bank. We need neither brains nor heart for adventure, but cash will grease the rails of curiosity.
2. Her mother’s place: to drop off the tender spring plants.
The day is nearly spent when we finally head northwest, past the Harley-Davidson dealership that marks the edge of civilization in our direction.
As we pass through the landscape, my mind spins. So little has changed here in a thousand years. The subtle roll of the plains, denuded of trees save for the massive white wind turbines, is stunning in its severe blandness. And therein lies its beauty. Like a Rothko painting—just yellow or just green—the lack of detail is what makes it majestic. Especially during that golden hour, when light can transform any setting into a Renaissance masterpiece.
On certain stretches of blacktop, the left is a vibrating red—the color of clay soil—and the right, a burst of green spring wheat, sucking up the earth’s nectar and thrusting toward the sky, each stalk crowned like a prince.
Here, there are miles between homes. So much land—most of it fallow. I wonder how it would look if we lived as God intended, not commodifying existence or cramming humanity into the rat maze of high-rises. I fantasize about making this journey on foot, moving at a human pace through these red and green lands. Maybe the homes would be humble, dotting the earth like wildflowers, filled with families and love. Not barren. Not silent.
My sense of calm finally arrives, hard-won. My missus doesn’t inspire ease behind the wheel. Her head flits side to side, catching curiosity like a bird—billboards, tractors, a car going the other way. She makes tiny, sudden steering adjustments. Jerks, tugs. Never smooth.
I remember my parents fighting about this. My mother said my dad couldn’t hold a steady curve. He was a welder—maybe he was just used to that spiraling motion you use when laying down a weld. It aggravated her anyway. So, I made it a lifelong goal to keep a wheel smooth and steady. Just like I trained myself to hold my head stiff at the barber’s, having heard “rubberneck” one too many times as a boy. Now, I hope the old barber would be proud of my neck’s oak-like quality.
As the sun races the horizon, we discuss where to sleep. I found a golf course that allows overnight parking. A few wineries lie ahead. Out here, every small town has a revitalized downtown where we can pull up and camp. That’s the beauty of being self-contained.
Woolfinia has her heart set on the Bob Wils Museum. It’s closed now, but it’ll be open in the morning. And it’s only thirty minutes from Caprock Canyon—a minor cousin of the Grand Canyon.
The turnoff from the state highway onto a Farm-to-Market road is thrilling. Like when Indiana Jones is already on an adventure, but then enters the jungle—it’s better still. No traffic. Just a winding two-lane road and the horizon.
As we approach the canyon, the geography shifts. Gashes of red appear where topsoil has eroded, carving deep gullies.
A massive wild pig dashes into the road and halts, stunned. It looks around, as if unsure how to interpret this geologic anomaly. Black asphalt. Infinite in two directions. It reconsiders, turns, and vanishes into the undergrowth.
Cows chew their cud, languid and content in the evening light. They no longer wonder which side of the fence holds greener grass. Like us, they’re just enjoying this glorious sunset.
And what a sunset!
The clouds form a filter, and the sun slides beneath them, igniting the sky in an electric display. Orange so intense it defies description—fluorescent, explosive, smeared across the west. Not a point, but a sheet. A painting made live. And underneath it, a haze of purple seeps in like a secret. Purple and orange, perfect complements—designed to awe. The Artist… oh, the Artist. How great thou art.
I always wish sunsets like this would last. But they can’t. Their fleeting nature is the whole point.
As the light fades to blue, then grey, then black, we arrive at the canyon. Campgrounds are booked, so we circle the state park in the dark, looking for a quiet place to simply exist.
We find one easily. Just us and the blank night sky.
The clouds hide the stars, but that’s okay. Instead, I get the rare and welcome absence of light.
I close up the van to give my wife some privacy, then head out for a walk. Nothing but the dark, the crickets, and the wind for company. And it is stunning.
The only visible feature is the contrast between the inky black of the earth and the washed-out grey-black of the sky.
The hour grows late, and the day’s wandering catches up with me. We’ll play a drawing game—roll the dice, sketch the prompts. I’ll read some aloud—for me, and some for her.
Then we’ll drift off, rocked to sleep by the echoes of the road behind us, and the quiet promise of more ahead.
#travel #essay #memoir #100DaysToOffload #Writing
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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