Late Covid American Sojourn: Day 17
By: Sandy Tolan
Tags: Covid Diaries, Covid 19, Roadtrip, Arizona, Sandy Tolan

We left Carlsbad early, still a thousand miles from LA but now close enough to feel the pull of home, like a horse nearing her barn at dusk.

The coolant had reached the low line, so I stopped for some, but overfilled it. The guy on the phone at the Subaru dealer said this could overheat the engine, so, for the first time ever, I went to Walmart for a second straight day, buying a turkey baster for $2.14 so I could siphon off the excess coolant.

And so we set out, heading southwest on U.S. Highway 62, out past White’s City and then climbing, as the scrubland opened up, giving us a view of distant hills. We cut past Carlsbad Caverns and up through the Guadalupe Mountains, lamenting, but only a little, that Wyatt had Zoom school and that we had no time to stop. It’s just time to get home. Mid-morning, shadows still cast deep into the crevices of the Guadalupes, giving them textured allure. To the north, the sheer rock face reminded Andrea of Yosemite’s Half Dome, and she wondered if climbers scale this one, too.

Beyond the Guadalupes the land flattened again, small yucca trees sprouting at the roadsides, reminding us of our beloved Joshua trees of California. Yes, getting closer.

Now the big sky absorbed our vision, stretching in a great bowl above us, the road arrow-straight and laid out for miles. Wispy clouds formed crazy patterns, like a Peter Max painting. Amidst the vastness, a lone building: “Salt Flat Cafe,” a Greyhound sign emblazoned on its side.

At a tiny crossroads, Cornudas, we found a bright red cafe. Outside a sign read: “Only skinny people are kidnapped. Stay safe. Eat our cake.” Inside I advised the waitress that with all the road food we’ve been eating, I’m plenty safe for the moment. We ordered warm apple cobbler, bought the local paper — “RANCHER INDICTED FOR THEFT OF NEIGHBOR’S COW,” read the headline — and left under a halo of well wishes.

“Didn’t you get the feeling everybody knew each other really well?” Andrea asked. The local paper affirmed this. “Friday, Gary and Kay Scarbrough took Nora Lea Lewis to Carlsbad. They ran errands and took care of business,” reported the Hudspeth County Herald. “They had take-out lunch at My Daddy’s Barbecue…After lunch, they met Kearney Lewis and visited with him while shopping in Lowed for materials for Nora Lea’s new porch.” Now THAT is local news. As is this: “Elaine Dodge says, ‘You iknow it’s really try and tough when you run the siren to call the cows and 11 javelina come running with the cows to the cake wagon.’”

Back on the road, our portable hot spot was failing, and Wyatt kept getting kicked off his LAUSD Zoom. Meantime he had carved out a little fort of pillows for the dog. Rascal needed a spa, Wyatt declared. We should stop for cucumbers, he said.

Why cucumbers? I asked.

For his eyes, Wyatt said. He set his Ipad to “Dog TV.” This relaxed Rascal, Wyatt reported. “He’s watching the birds and nature with one eye open.” Andrea told Wyatt she’d heard dogs liked to be read to, so Wyatt searched for The Raven by Poe, and recited to Rascal:

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil! —

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted —

On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, I implore —

Is there — is there balm in Gilead? — tell me — tell me, I implore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Rascal listened quietly.

We skirted the southern edge of El Paso, then cut northwest, back into New Mexico, joining I-10 and hitting 80 mph, rolling toward Deming. Andrea took over and I met with a student about her thesis, wrote an introduction to a colleague’s talk, did some late recruiting for a class. Mobile office, man.

In the back, Wyatt’s school was over and he was building missile launchers on Minecraft, trying to reach a friend back in LA to play with him. I noticed the other day his friend’s voice is now a lot lower than Wyatt’s. Wyatt is smaller and still not yet at puberty, reminding me that I didn’t hit five feet until high school. By then nearly all my friends had deeper voices than I did. It was hard to be last.

Past Lordsburg, we crossed into Arizona. Tucson, and our home country, grew near. Soon, a taco truck, distanced dinner with dear friends, Wyatt and Camila running around the back yard, playing Spy, and grownup talk of politics, vaccine, the American road, and our own home, just one more day away.

Late Covid American Sojourn: Day 16

Late Covid American Sojourn: Day 17

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