Wendover, Utah

We made it! After four hundred miles on Interstate 80 East, we've set up camp in Wendover, Utah for the evening. We thought our hotel was in Nevada for the first few hours we were here, until my dad asked the clerk and found out that we'd lost a precious hour in driving a quarter-mile past the state line to our hotel. It's funny how arbitrary things like time zones and state lines are.

Anyway, there's not much to tell about our day. My dad stomached a lot of my music (as in No Doubt and Patience and Prudence and lots of other artists). After that, we also listened to Pink Moon by Nick Drake together. If you've never heard it and are interested, the full album is below. It's one of my all-time favorite pieces of music, and will always probably remind me of car rides with my dad.

Some background, since I'm feeling verbose. When I was in maybe fifth grade, I got one of those silly music encyclopedias that Rolling Stone publishes. Flipping through it, I found the entry on Nick Drake and became intrigued. After showing the entry to my dad, who was also unfamiliar with his music, he took me to Best Buy and bought me Pink Moon for ten dollars. We went back out to the car, a little nervous to listen to the CD--we'd never listened to Nick Drake before and knew nothing about him except that he'd made this album before he died--but, as soon as the title track came on, we simply looked at each other and smiled. And for years after that, we'd listen to that album in the car together.

 

 Pink Moon (1972)

So, to end that major digression, Pink Moon felt like appropriate music for driving alone together through the rocky and sparse Nevada countryside.

We also talked (imagine that) about everything from Ernest Hemingway's post-war insecurities to Willa Cather's treatment of the Midwestern terrain to westward settlers journeying on the California trail.

Oh, and we saw some really lovely things out the windows. My Internet connection right now is dreadfully slow, so I'm afraid these photos may have to be without captions for a day or two,

My dad wasn't even irked that I pulled over to look at this dust devil

We were told there would be geysers

I often dream of trains