if i didn't drive the truck out of brooklyn i'd be thinking about leaving brooklyn and i don't want to do that so i take the first leg of the trip. new jersey is as unhospitable as you'd think, with bone snapping pot holes and little zippy cars that show up in my slow lumbering arm pit and speed away before my irritation becomes actionable. the better part of pennsylvania is merely an exercise in will, trying to get far enough away so i can't cry and clutch apron strings. i don't get to enjoy that state as much as i usually do, with neat farms buttoned into old mountains, red barns with their protective symbols, the occasional shimmering river.

he sews up the remainder of pennsylvania, and takes the rest of the midwest with it. we pass the bones of what will be the recreational vehicle and motor home hall of fame, gasping at what that might be when fully arrayed, but no more so than the flyover labelled, without any other fanfare: fangboner road. thank you to the good people of davenport iowa for the only decent dinner of the trip, with both good meat and good vegetables. and thank you also to the cheery hotel clerk who when asked to name the quad cities says, davenport, bettendorf, rock island, moline, and east moline.

i'm on again in wyoming and an uneven spring is melting the snow in crenulated slags, like the uneven nacre inside of an oyster. it's well time to retire it, dirt crusted and jagged, and only made more apparent when we move into utah. this is so immediately mormon country even the snow appears to have been steam cleaned than placed carefully onto the mountains. they have even gotten god to stage the lighting so you will know he lives here, greatly, expansively, powerfully.

nevada is the inverse, ruggedly beautiful yes, but with a godless earthiness, a more emphatic "here i am, you deal with it" than the preening peaks of utah. i get us over the california line and it's time to let him take me home.