If a Blog Falls In the Woods, and Nobody’s Around, Does It Make a Sound? (Part 1 of 2)

War Journal Entry: 000002
Ogallala, NB to Jean, NV
Distance: 984 miles

There I was, just Potts and me, back to back, rifles to our sides, six feet underground. We can hear the planes dropping napalm all around us. Above the sounds of incendiary grenades and the raging inferno that is sweeping across the jungle, we can hear Charlie screaming from up in the trees. Lullabies to Potts and me. Just lullabies for us to fall asleep to…

Oh, hello. I didn’t see you there. I was just thinking how I’d rather be in the Shit in Vietnam than relive the shit known as Nebraska. But since I’m not stationed in Da Nang, and Potts never came home, and since I was in Ogallala, Nebraska, preparing for the second leg of my trip, I’d best just write about that.

While right then in China they were just putting their underage gymnasts to bed, I was just awakening for Day 2 of open highways and busy byways. After finishing my continental breakfast, reading the Wall Street Journal, checking my stock options, and writing a letter in Bengali longhand to the child I sponsor for thirty cents a day (I know, I know—I spoil him), I left the Super 8 Motel and met with another day of ass kicking and name taking.
Let’s just be clear: Nebraska is just as boring during the day as it is at night. It’s flat, brown, and devoid of anything resulting in happiness. But by the time one gets to Ogallala, there’s not much more Nebraska to be had. In little time, I was crossing into Colorado, the South Park state.

The Nebraska-Colorado border is an interesting one. As soon as you reach the sign that says, “Entering Colorful Colorado,” it’s like someone flipped a switch. Gone are the Dust Bowl colors and in their place is a lush, vivid landscape with sights and attractions. Even the air isn’t as sad. Colorful Colorado indeed! It’s like a rainbow took a huge dump and some passerby, most likely Kane from Kung Fu, named the fecal matter Colorado. I can’t stress enough how much change there is simply by crossing that imaginary Nebraska-Colorado line, but think about the first time Dorothy steps out of her home in Kansas and finds herself in Oz. It’s kind of like that. I’d also like to state that I hate, hate, hate the Wizard of Oz, and a little part of me died by using that analogy. Remember, I did it for you, people.

But Colorado—it starts out with green prairies and pastures, which eventually transform into rolling hills teeming with vibrant color, and then transform into a giant mountain chain. They’re called the Rocky Mountains—perhaps you’ve heard of them. They’re named after a baseball team. It’s really something to be driving along a ledge where on your right you can see the top of a tree that is probably over one hundred feet tall. I also think I saw Tom Cruise’s Colorado home, the one most recently featured on Oprah, but can’t be for certain because it was far away and I didn’t bring my crazy binoculars with me to confirm it.

One thing I learned while driving through the Rockies is that certain vehicles don’t like high altitudes. Those vehicles are semi trucks and my car. While other vehicles--Pintos, Gremlins, assorted SUVs and the like--are passing me at 70 mph no problem. I’m jamming on the accelerator just to get my car to perform at 40 mph. But I more than made up for it on the way back down the mountains. My car was careening around corners and down straight-aways at 80 mph with my foot on the brake. It’s at that point you realize you are encased in a guided bullet. The only thing preventing your rag doll body from launching off the side of a mountain is your steering wheel and a not-high-enough guardrail. Pray both hold up.

After climbing and winding my way through the mountains, and just when I thought I’d seen all the Rockies had to offer, they threw another surprise at me. The rocky cliff sides you’ve grown accustomed to for the past hundred-some miles change into these red-like ziggurats that climb into the sky. They almost look foreign, like some tycoon flew them in from South America just to fuck with everybody. Eventually, the mountains taper off and Colorado resembles something more desert-like, but just as engaging as the rest of state. Traveling through Colorado is like visiting three different states because the terrain is so unique in the east, central, and west portions.

Utah was the next state to get ball gagged on my trip across Go America, and apparently it heard Colorado put on a pretty good show and did its best not to be outdone. To you, Utah, I say, “I can’t pick a favorite. I love you both equally.” Upon first entering Utah, the first thing I saw was tumbleweed. Tumbleweed! A staple in all the great Westerns! The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly had ‘me, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had ‘em, Feivel Goes West had ‘em, and now I’ve seen ‘em. Who knows—maybe one of the tumbleweeds I saw worked with John Wayne some time in its tumbling career, or maybe a sibling, parent, or grandparent was directed by the great John Ford on how to tumble into a shot?

Beyond the entertaining show tumbleweeds put on, Utah has its own geography distinctly unique to the ones found in Colorado. For one, everything has a tint of red about it—the ground, the sky, everything. The landscape is covered in large canyons you can’t see the bottoms of and plateaus that poke out of the ground like Lite-Brite bulbs. At one point in the late afternoon, after having already driven for about ten hours, interrupted only long enough to fill up on gas, I stopped at a viewing area next to the San Rafael Swell so as to prevent careening off the road and into one of the aforementioned canyons. I can’t do justice to the majesty of what I saw. I took pictures on my phone, and I’d upload them if I were good at stuff, but since I’m not, I won’t. But even pictures don’t get the job done. To truly appreciate the San Rafael Swell, one must go there. It really is a sight to behold. The Swell itself is a rock formation that looks like the back of a dragon peeking above ground. To it’s right was a chain of rock formations and valleys that stretched all the way to the horizon. It’s when you see these parts of the world that you really get what environmentalists are preaching when they talk about preserving the Earth. To think of an oil drill raping the countryside I saw seems downright sacrilegious.

However, all gushing about Utah aside, it was also the state that put me in the largest state of panic for the longest. Night was falling quickly and my car was still having troubles with altitudes more than two feet above sea level. And I had no cell phone service. And there was no radio. And I was in the middle of a severe thunderstorm. And the nearest gas station or rest stop was 100 miles in any direction—no exaggeration. If my car ran out of gas or blew a tire or any of a thousand maladies that could occur to my ’93 Cougar, it would be the end of my story. I tried to remember what my Dad told me to do in situations like this, but then it turned out my Dad only offered me one piece of advice my whole life, and that was:
“If a bird poops on your hand, are you going to wipe it off on a napkin or your brand new pair of blue jeans?” Thanks, Dad. Thanks a lot. And to answer your question, there is no answer. It’s like, “If a tree falls in the woods and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound? Or, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” You’re deep, Dad, I’ll give you that. And you’re a snappy dresser—I can’t take that away from you. Come to think of it, you didn’t offer any advice at all. You just posed a question—and a rhetorical one at that. Fortunately, the Cougar is a descendant of the Millennium Falcon and Zeus, god of Olympus, so she held together.

The last Utah story I’ll imbibe on you is one that takes place at a Wendy’s. Normally I shy away from Wendy’s, because I don’t endorse red heads. But seeing as how I hadn’t eaten all day, I felt it high time to gorge at the next bistro. It just happened to be that little redheaded spawn of Satan. First, I stopped at a bathroom because I was doubled over in pain brought on by two Gatorades and a fistful of bottled waters. Whilst washing my hands, a Wendy’s employee came into the bathroom, went tinkle, and left. I probably shouldn’t bother complaining about an employee of a fast food restaurant not washing their hands. I am, after all, about to put fast food into my body. In fact, them not washing their hands probably give the cheap food that extra spice that makes it taste so good. But to be a snob, I left without buying any food, deciding to stop at the next place instead. Which just happened to be another Wendy’s.

After a junior cheeseburger, chicken sandwich, and chocolate Frosty, I left glorious Utah and made my way through the corner of Arizona, the John McCain state! Moving on.

Actually, no—we’re stopping there. You, the reader, need to rest your peepers, get up, do some calisthenics, maybe take the dog outside, or fix yourself a sandwich. The underwhelming second act to the second leg of the trip will be posted in a couple of days. In the meantime, may the moon always hit your sky like a big pizza pie.