Long Lonely Drive Big Vast Empty West or "I am sorry Mike Wild. I didn't know you were paying attention!"

I just got back from the Tundra, the homeland, the womb of my formation, the Icebox of America and a couple of things stuck out in my mind.

-I was amazed at how quickly my Minnesota accent came rushing back.
-There are various levels of where some friends I know are and I wade amongst them trying to place myself in the their swimming lanes...didn't really fit anywhere.
-Not just pandering but you, Mike, are one of my favorite people. Always have been. It's funny how people pick lives and they just work out and they are happy. Obviously not my forte.
-I had at least four different lives in Fargo. Weird.

OK, what I really wanted to talk about was driving halfway across country by yourself. I love it, especially across the extremely lonely, beautiful West. The space in between Bismarck, ND and Billings, MT is so incredibly haunting to me. It magnifies the real lonely parts on my mind and soul but also is kind of reaffirming in fact that no one is out there. Or whoever is out there, why the hell are you out there. It's timeless and primordial. You can see the long formation of landscapes. You can envision the stupefying hardships of native nomads or later, the relentless onslaught of frontier folk. The impressive lack of civilization out there just fucking kills me. I always turn on some AM radio on these long drives. I listen to it all---nutjob right-wingers, local women sharing recipes, crop reports, and Canadian broadcasts from Manitoba. However, my favorite comes at night when you are all alone out on the Interstate. I see a car about every hour and the only artificial light comes from my headlights or the rare ranch miles and miles in the distance. This is the time at night when they do the conspiracy theory shows, the UFO craziness, the not uncommon devil possessed family member, the haunting horror radio plays. It just creeps the hell out of me. In reality the Interstate is the easy way out and is really more insulating than I give it credit. If I really wanted to freak myself out I would do the old Blue Highways trip with no map (which I have done much in the past but I didn't have the time or money this time). AM radio is the shit...

I about drove myself insane on this trip. I did it in 27 hours. It was kind of stupid as I almost fell asleep numerous times on road. I only slept once at a scuzzy Rest Area in Idaho. Pulled in to the place and it was filled with truckers sleeping off some rust and when I woke up I was the only car in the place. For once, though, I really ran out of things to say to myself. Absolutely I was annoyed with my own thoughts, sick of talking to myself in my own head so I decided to go off with the weirdness. I will spare you the boring details but here are some highlights.

-I did pretty much the exact same trip that Lewis & Clark did except it only took me 27 hours. I kept having fake conversation with them and their hardscrabble crew as though I had just picked them up as hitchhikers.

-I was delirious enough to actually visualize dinosaurs roaming on the plains.

-Pretended I met a women in Cut Bank, MT and married her. How would my life be then? Sundays down at the ol' VFW? Pickup truck and bent hat?

-Knew if there was an Apocalyptic event that this is where I would be. Gas and gun running across the interior basin.

Enough. But, damn, what a trip!

This is my favorite song of the month.