So we lost Michael. Damnit, this was supposed to be our next big step – doing the busking thing and non-perishables for our little project.

Bad news bears. Michael has to fly home- #biggestbummerever. As they say shit happens, but we are going to kick it with Miss Strauss in Ogden north of Salt Lake for the weekend. Ignore the looming departure and live the next 48 hours as if nothing had changed.

It is what it is, and we vowed to try and make the best of the hours before us.

When it rains it pours and I’m being literal. After we get to Ogden it rained us out all but one beautiful hiking day, but I suppose that’s all we needed. The waterfall hike, ending in a waterfall. How creative. Just kidding, I’d done the same hike in March, during the brides matey’s pirate weekend and it was a calm sort of surreal, to be back here again.

For how the tides have turned.

I remember the last time. The start of this very story in fact, and I wasn’t the same child in the slightest. I remember charging up the mountain with a raw whirlwind of energy, expectations, and longing. My breath and blood rushing and every fiber of my being soaring upwards.

This time I know my purpose. My legs and limbs are driven by mission and sense of belonging, rather than raw ambition. Two completely different beasts to maneuver. I am now and always, awakened.

Snap back to present and reach the top. Water cascading down the sheer cliff and spraying a light midst against our cheeks and boots.

Take it in, drink in the light and altitude and snack on salty sunflower seeds. Cool water on parched lips. Michael free climbs and scares the bugeezes out of me. I don’t say a word. I’m not his mother.

Until… he gets himself into a right pickle – stuck on a ledge some twenty feet above the level ground.

I only stand, arms crossed and skeptical as he finally finds a pass and a foothold down, twenty minutes later. Ridiculous.

Clamber back down the mountain, hearts singing and eyes wide open in so many ways.

That first night we slept outside under the overhang connected to the garage. It was like a big kids’ fort with couches, except add a couple of weary travelers and a handle of Canadian Club. The whiskey we’d in fact procured from our Black Hills mentors Frank and Lilah. Twas’ a bottle from Frank’s deceased father…and was gifted to us in good health and consciousness. Cheers and prayers for those who walked this road before us.

Muddle around in Ogden a few more days before Michael takes to the clouds on a streamline to the Midwest. But in the meantime, we’d fallen into a bunny-utopia. Buns to the left and buns to the right! Birth control was a latent concept in this household. Thus, a yard filled with no less than eighteen bunny rabbits. Eighteen.

Every bun had a name, individual personality, and distinct look about them. The offspring of a Flemish giant and… oh, gosh I can’t remember the cross right now some other sort of dignified bunny breed.

I’d sit in the yard and strum my guitar, looking up at the mountain range and pressing light grass stains into the fabric against my knees. One bun at a time, would hop over…touch me ever so gently on the hand or knee, listen to the music for a spell then return to their hutch or recesses of a yard bush.

It was the most peculiar thing I’d seen in a coons age, but music doth calm the savage beast.

Rainy days deluge over a normally dry Ogden match our moods as days come to a close and Michael leaves on a jet plane.

Parting art such sweet sorrow my ass, this sucks. Get home safe buddy, you will be missed. And damnit now I have to start cooking…

Goodbye Michael, goodbye Utah – and I venture to Cali-for-nia solo. Gotta cross Nevada in the meantime, but I never saw this coming…

Kabloom! Seventy-five miles an hour across a hot desert highway pavement and a large metal clunk and boom rocks Delilah. Shit.

Edge her off the highway onto the shoulder and jump out into the hot, dusty desert air to assess the situation. Check tires first. Not a problem.  (Remember this for later folks). Open hood up, not that I have a damn clue what exists under it, but open and close it for good measure nonetheless. Forty miles from Reno… Seventeen miles from Fernley, Nevada.

Rumble, rumble, boom – Fernley will have to do.

She still runs but I can’t get her over fifty-five miles per hour without her shaking and trembling like the end of the world is near. Hazards flashing and creeping fifty-five mph on a seventy-five mph slow lane and praying I make it to town. Why does this always happen to me? No really. I always. Get. Stranded.

Putter into Fernley. It’s Saturday night. Nothing open until Monday. Now what? You’d think hotel rooms in a small town would be easy to come by but leave it for a dire situation and of course there’s some sort of hillbilly derby round these parts this weekend and every single room in all four hotels are booked. I’ve not had to do the Walmart-camp in my van overnight thing yet, but there’s a first time for everything.

Young girl at last reception desk said it’s not like they check the parking lot… twenty minutes later and I’m cozied up behind the Best Western, a night train periodically whistling behind me. I love city noises, (however a far cry away this was from a city) but trains, sirens, car horns and alarms were my lullaby. You’d think I grew up in the Bronx or something, but alas, the noises from a Pittsburgh suburb drift from my childhood through my present conscious and lull me into sleep’s warm embrace – lights out.

Sunday morning. Car shops not open til’ tomorrow. #howdoIkilladaystrandedinthedesert? It’s nowhere near five o’clock, or any other reasonable day drinking time, so I head to a pretty little park on the outskirts of town.

I pull into the dusty parking lot (babying the hell out of poor Delilah) and do my damdest not to stare dumbfounded at the scene unfolding before me.

Okay, granted – I was in Nevada, but my favorite version of Wild Wild West features Will Smith and a bowl of popcorn. Not the cowboys on horses with cap guns that were making guided turns and sporadic neighing in the gated arena before me.

I don’t know what they were really shooting, but they seemed like cap guns and if I were the horse I’d choose the glue factory over that sound in my ears over and over again. There were a few spectators occasionally clapping from the stands, so there must’ve been an actual obstacle to all of the hubbub, but hell if I knew what that was. Couldn’t help but think it’d be a lot more fun if they were on horses with paintball guns, but that’s just me.

Checking my judgement and moving on… spent a couple hours reading and writing in the cool grass with blades of sun hitting me on the cheeks and backs of my calves.

I am stuck, yet I feel no panic nor worry for the outcome. I’ll not waste the energy. Today is a beautiful day and I continue to feel blessed. Especially since the Steeler game kicks off in twenty minutes. Time for a cold one.

Turns out…there are no bars in Fernley. Okay fine that’s an overstatement, but the “bars” are hidden away in the casinos, for which there is one for every ten people in the whole damn town.

Throw a stone and pick one. Meander in and I see black and yellow in the distance. A Pittsburgh fan besides myself all the way out here, hallelujah. Although I shouldn’t be surprised, there are loyal Steeler bars all over the country.

Make quick friends with him and his group of construction guys who were in town doing a job for another month or so. If I make it look like I’m playing the blinking slots game fixed to the bar in front of me, then I drink for practically free. I’ll redact names here so as not to get our fabulous bartender gal in a world of trouble, but I learned to say “Yes, I’m still playing” without her prompts when I ordered a drink.

“Now you’re learning,” she winks.

Steelers lose and my near impenetrable cheerfulness is dampened yet not completely out. Head to a new hotel parking lot and have parking lot beers with the guys. In Fernley, Nevada….how did I end up here? I reason there are certainly worse places to be.

Back to the van bed and smile a small smile to myself as I have successfully wandered the day away. It’s been a hoot but time to hurry up with the Monday sunrise and get me outta this ghost town.

Rise and shine at seven a.m. waiting for the doors to open at The Hometown Auto Body. They’ve got a slew of people scheduled before me and no relevant time estimate on when they might get around to it. Looks like I’m hoofin’ it today.

Sit in the park, day two. Finish my Alice in Wonderland teen fiction fantasy spinoff, (stop your judgement right there) close the very last page and the phone rings right then.

“You’re all set!” the mechanic says.

It’s only been an hour so I’m shocked and relieved…it couldn’t cost that much for something that can be fixed in an hour. I get there and the man walks me around to the back of the van. I get a little confused as he begins to open the backdoor. Light falls on the hellhole disaster area in the van bed, but then I see the shredded scrap of what used to be my tire.

Now remember earlier when I told you guys I checked the tires…??? The tear in the rubber was on the bottom when I pulled over so I couldn’t see that that was the problem. Stupid, stupid, stupid. So I’d just spent two days stuck in Fernley and a 66$ “evaluation” bill for them to put my freakin’ spare tire on. Lovely. Moving on.

Hit the highway. Full speed. Finally blazin’ trails for South Lake Tahoe. Watch out California, here I come.