by Derek Neal
Friday, September 2, 3:24 pm
I’m in a white Toyota Camry, practically brand new, and I’ve passed a spotted deer grazing outside the airport and a billboard with a picture of a baby and the words, “God doesn’t make mistakes.” Wyoming, I think to myself. The GPS on my phone tells me I can drive 104 miles on the one lane highway before making a turn. Going west, I think to myself. I decide to try out the luxuries of the Toyota Camry; it has Sirius XM radio, and the breadth of stations is impressive. I put on “Studio 54” radio and immediately hear Luther Vandross singing for the group Change, a Chic-inspired disco band from the 80s. I listen for a few songs, but it’s all wrong: this is music for New York. I try to call up The War on Drugs on my phone, a fitting soundtrack for cutting through the plains, foot to the ground, blue skies above, but I don’t have service. Wyoming, I think again. Thank God the map is still working.
Going back to the radio, I see they have artist channels and one of them is Tom Petty radio. Now that’s music for driving west. The fist song is “Saving Grace.” Petty is singing:
And it’s hard to say
Who you are these days
But you run on anyways
I realize I don’t have the vocabulary to describe what I’m seeing beyond the windshield. Words come to me: steppe, bluff, vista, brush, but they lack a specific referent outside of the vast expanse unfolding before me. The landscape is dry and undulating, with occasional growths of struggling vegetation. There are few trees, much rock. Everything is a baked yellowish color, cooking under the sun and meeting the light blue sky on the horizon. Read more »