Looking for Nowhere

We are heading deep into Mormon country; southern Idaho. The first prescience happened as we descended from the green eden of the Henry’s Fork river into the fetid Snake river plains (flat, but potatoes!), Mollie woke from the passenger seat, sat up, and started sniffing the air vents. She has learned that this is almost as good as an open window. Soon even my dim olfactory bulb caught a new and novel scent. Chemical, almost agricultural. Then I saw it. A brown stain on the hard shoulder that revealed itself to be thousands of grashoppers or crickets. Big ones, I could see their crooked legs, even at sixty miles-per-hour, as they crawled and hopped their way across the tarmac to their death. The two tracks of the lane were slick with their crushed bodies. This was the smell. This went on for a couple of hundred yards I suppose, relented then resumed again in two smaller patches. Certainly singular in my experience.

The table napkins sitting on top of the toilet paper dispenser did not look inviting. I was diverted here by the universal sign of the faulty urinal, a plastic garbage bag thrown over the plumping. As I relieved myself I thanked whoever was responsible for not having to figure out how to use the napkins. I mean how would it work? Is one enough? Is it too much? 

I wandered back to my table at Denny’s with some hope that my Ultimate Omelet (TM) would be there. Alas only a refreshed cup of coffee. 

I do not know if I will ever learn to not enter a restaurant advertising for staff with the expectation of normal service. It wasn’t busy (another clue) though there was some family-like concoction at one table. Another held a neatly dressed older Mennonite couple, her with the little lace bonnet, him with a neatly trimmed white beard talking quietly to themselves. Perhaps this is the Saturday dinner they treat themselves to. They are not a large community but they are common enough to see around Idaho.

Nearby was assembled a large table of people that were taking most of the attention of the one waitress. This table is what held my interest while I waited for my dinner without a phone to while away the time. 

There were perhaps a dozen at the table including three children. A woman in pink hair apparently the mother of the children. What little my rude eavesdropping revealed I found fascinating (or perhaps I was just missing my phone). There was a tall skinny couple, the man of which was dressed in some kind of oriental robe and leggings with a dragon motif. He had a red band tied about his forehead. At first I thought martial arts but he didn’t give off an athletic vibe. 

A man at the far end of the table with premature balding and a moustache to embarrass even Peter Coyote was wearing some kind of getup as well. (He turned out to be attached to pink haired woman.) 

Across from moustache man was a younger woman quiet and single. Two other men in their 30s sat across from each other in the middle of the table. They had on hoodies and the one on the far side seemed to be a kind of ring leader. 

Listening to the conversations finally unlocked some of the mystery. Virtually all of it was well, virtual, that is online gaming related, with great depth and intensity. At one point I wondered if I would see Christopher Guest appear. It had that earnest ‘Best in Show’ feeling. 

It also called to mind Napoleon Dynamite. A movie I missed on release (though I was intrigued at the time) and later watched at the behest of an acquaintance who grew up in Southern Idaho. It seems to have passed me by when it was released, that this was the point of the movie, to describe coming of age in southern Idaho, and had little to do with Napoleon or explosives. 

I did watch it shortly after the endorsement of said acquaintance owing to his belief in its authenticity. I have to confess I could only make it halfway through and can only say that I have more respect for what this man went through in adolescence given what I saw of this authentic portrayal. I speak from the position of someone who also grew up in a small town in western America. 

Anyway this is what was happening on a Saturday evening in Burley Idaho. I finally got the greasy concoction of eggs, sausage, vegetables and hash browns from the overworked and overweight manager who was covering for the short waitstaff. I worked through it as I considered just how much oil is used back there in the kitchen. Paid the tab old fashioned style by just leave a twenty on the table and walked out.

I checked into the motel (the cheapest I could find at $130 a night plus $20 for the dog). A dog so nice, cute, and well-behaved I always think they should pay for the privilege of hosting her. 

We unloaded our meagre belongings for the night, most of which were the dog’s, and then proceeded to get ready for a walk. Her pent up desire so great that the usual jumping and growling evoked a short bark of joy as well. We headed out to the grim pickings of the freeway-side industrial park.

One of the many ways Mollie displays her superiority is in her unfettered enthusiasm for walking in any location. She is almost completely agnostic and can find interest in almost any location. In fact I think the more wretched and rundown the more interesting on her part. Often this is enhanced by her olfactory discernment. 

The irrigation sprinklers were putting off great puffs of moisture in a narrow slice of agriculture not surrendered to the highest and best use of Budget Motels and Denny’s restaurants. Mollie shys from them and we move to the back of the lot sniffing and pissing (her not me) our way to a strip of weedy verge overlooking an irrigation drain. 

Southern Idaho is one great agricultural district and it would be fair to say that not one drop of water here did not come from the Snake river that wends its way through this great plain. This was the source for the great sprinklers and this was also what was trickling through the ditch that serves as a drain.

Snake river water and whatever leaches out of the irrigated fields, minerals, pesticides, excess nitrogen and phosphates flow down these drains. And down there were four mallard ducklings paddling away downstream of our leery eyes in the bottom of the ditch lined with a Roundup-wilted salad of weeds. 

Some poor mallards, who only know water as water, nested there and they represent a kind of resistance movement. Occupying all of the most dangerous niches closest to man. Awaiting the final brief flare of petrochemical induced progress to sputter out; then to resume what the world had been doing for time immemorial. 

We continue past the Fairfield Inn (more upscale) and encounter a Killdeer, another member of the resistance. Defending, presumably, a nest in the only undeveloped plot of vacant land, choked with weed, levelled flat awaiting what all land longs for, a bulldozer and development. The Enlightenment bestowing the virtue of work and worth unto verily the earth itself. 

Mollie is immediately taken by the ploy. The old, ‘look at me, a wounded bird!’, ‘I can only walk and barely fly’, ‘listen to my pained cries and mewings’. ‘Oh chase me over here away from my nest’. She chases as much as the leash allows, but becomes bored when I will not engage with the same enthusiasm.  

Back at the Budget Motel I recall the friendly efficient young women behind the desk. One still sporting adolescent acne with the addition of a slim nose ring. Plain-faced and cheerful. The other more businesslike with an ‘in charge’ vibe, suffered from fake eyelashes and overdone mascara and makeup. I briefly considered asking them what their escape plan was. I certainly had one but I didn’t grow up here. I suppose that might be seen as unkind, so I kept my mouth shut. 

If nothing else I suppose there is the Spud Cellar Lounge. Yea this is potato country and they do lean into it. If you visit the Potato Museum there are ‘free taters for out of staters’. Pocatello, one might be forgiven for thinking was a first attempt at spelling potato before Dan Quayle’s attempt at the plural. There is (or was) the Museum of Clean, which counts at least in terms of breaking with the tried and true subjects of museums. 

The Motel was also the meet-up for a fallen-hero honor guard. By god there were a lot of them (guards not fallen soldiers). Mostly old men on motorcycles and I suppose most of them Vietnam vets. They were sponsored by Alaska Airlines and seemed to come from Seattle, at least most of the them. There was some large box on a trailer under a blue tarpaulin that had the usual symbols and flags of such things. One hopes it doesn’t contain a body but why not? Of course transporting a corpse across state lines probably requires endless untangling of red tape. 

The motorcyclists all wore custom veteran jackets and milled about the place with some of the younger support staff driving cars and hauling trailers. 

After breakfast (no not Denny’s) but Perkins this time (look at me pushing the boat out). The solitary waitress limped over towards me with a lame left leg. The left side of her face looked wonky and I supposed she had be in some horrible accident. A curt exchange found me at a table next to some of the aforementioned gents with a cup of hot coffee while I waited to compare omelettes. 

The morning meal complete and the earlier walk of Mollie finshed it was a simple matter of collecting a few belongings from the room along with the dog and packing them away in the camper and truck parked at the curb. 

As I did so another of the aforementioned gentlemen managed to park his Harley between the front of my truck and the trailer in front of me. I now had a predicament of finding out if I had enough room to back up. I walked back to look and gauge the three or so feet available. 

As I got back in the truck the motorcyclist became aware of what he had done. Rather than move his bike he said something I could not hear through the closed windows. I am not a people person and really just wanted to get moving. Some confusing gestures and I wound down the window and his wrap-around sunglasses adorned face homed in closer, the dog began barking as dogs do when their territory is invaded. The man said something lost in the dog din. 

My annoyance was now rising. I suppose he sensed this so he then thrust his hand through the window at me expecting a handshake. (What?) I did my best. But it seemed like an act of control or aggression rather than friendship. He said some anodyne comment about being good friends. (what? again) I indicated I wanted to go and he stepped back as I turned the wheel sharply and drove away from the scene carefully. I suppose this should be chalked up to another awkward encounter between strangers. 

After picking up some supplies we headed out on a quiet Sunday morning on the Interstate. We were headed towards Nevada and it seemed prudent to get more gas before we left the Interstate so we stopped in Snowline, Utah. Here the sole gas station was inundated by the fallen warrior honor-guard I shared a motel with the night before. It was like a flock of seagulls. I steered around them, bought my gas and manuevered again to avoid them on my way out. They had all gathered in a circle which looked like they might be about to pray. 

This all left me contemplating these fellows and how this created meaning in their lives. For me I suppose it was complicated. I support our military and veterans and feel we should all be grateful to have people willing to fight on our behalf. However there are very few, if any, conflicts in my lifetime I could say were in defense of the nation. 

I also have a different relation to patriotism; mine is not so demonstrative. I do not fly a flag, I do not festoon my vehicle or clothing with flags, eagles, bits of the Constitution or Declaration of Independence. I celebrate the peaceful transfer of power after an election. The extension of rights and equality to all. Being ruled by laws and having equal opportunities. Ahh, well this current age of American politics, makes one almost nostalgic for the cold war, though not really. Me? I am waiting for someone to promise to make america great again. 

The drive across the upper reaches of basin and range country included a sign indicating no gas for 103 miles, hence the stop at Snowline. My rig with trailer might have made it but this is Sunday and I would not have made Elko (Great name, I have always thought, but then again with neighbors like Battle Mountain and Winnemucca there is some stiff competition.)

the 103 miles would place the next services in Montello Nevada. So off we drive across the high flat sagelands, mountains in all directions. Headwind still driving into the grill of the truck, dark clouds and curtains of rain visible across the western approaches. 

Also a strange amount of RV traffic heading in the opposite direction. Certainly this part of northern Nevada is not that popular. Then a temporary orange traffic sign, arrow pointing to a dirt road where more RVs and vans were pouring out onto the highway. 

The sign advised the route to E11 was this direction. A little while later Siri informed me this was Utah’s version of Burning Man, called Element 11. Element 11 is also Sodium or Na. I guessed this is somehow significant. At this point the traffic began to behave as expected, that is to say no traffic. 

We approached Montello and small groups of domiciles began to appear. None of them neatly kept nor did they give off any sense of prosperity. Desperation or a strident desire to be alone was the theme. It was certainly the right place.

Montello seems to exist because of the Winecup, Gambel, and other ranches. The original transcontinental railway runs through here as does the modern version though not over the same route. The original railroad route is apparently an autotour one can drive. The valley to the north is called Thousand Springs and was famous as part of the California Trail where the 49ers and others travelled to find a new life before the railroad was built. 

It should be called the Thousand Cows Valley as most of the scarce water has been monopolized in support of a bovine plague. Like much of the west this is cow-spattered land. Dispersed camping sites will nearly always have cow pies under foot. Anything that looks like a wet patch of ground will be trompled into a mud bog, trees and shrubbery around it mutilated and it will stink of fresh cowshit. Springs are plumbed to water tanks, wells are drilled and pumped. Ravines are bulldozed and dammed so what little seasonal precipitation occurs can serve as a bovine mudhole before it dries and returns to cracked parched earth. 

Water is pumped out onto the valley floor in vast pivot irrigation systems. This in turn grows hay and alfalfa to feed the herd through the winter. Right now the cattle are set free on our public lands to do all the things mentioned above. 

I suppose by now we have finally figured out the old trick of using stream flows and aquafer flows as different. It probably dawned on the cattlemen who depended on stream flows, that once the centrifugal pump was developed, the streams coincidentally began to disappear. As they say whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting. 

The town of Montello itself has a couple of bars and cafes and a general store which turned out to be the services mentioned on the blue sign 103 miles earlier. Montello is compact, laid out in an orderly grid to accommodate not so orderly houses. I circled back on the highway to line up for the fuel pumps. The camper in front did not seem to be pumping fuel. I got out to inquire and the man inside the truck said they don’t open till noon (it is Sunday) which as it turns out we are just 5 minutes shy of. Another traveler pulls in behind me so I inform him of the situation. 

The store opens up on time and a none-too-communicative white haired gentleman was manning the till. When it was my turn I got to operate a gas pump that I had not seen since my youth. It all worked fine and I paid my $39 ($5 a gallon for regular) in cash and left. 

We left and drove north over a dirt road towards the Thousand Springs Valley. The weather had turned wretched again. Strong gusty winds, driving intermittent rain. Temperatures dipping into the forties, I was not looking forward to setting up camp.