My drive started out like any other drive headed West on Dodge street in the afternoon in Omaha, Nebraska. Then on the western city limit of Columbus, Nebraska I was swept away into a huge thunder cloud. The cloud represented the huge ass full of cellulite of an aged Protestant queen bee and as I traversed into its murky depths it shit hail upon me mercilessly. By 5 am the next morning I was at my destination, Devil’s Tower in the North Eastern corner of Wyoming.
Devil’s Tower was ensconced in a shroud of mountain air confusion otherwise known as fog or mist where Mountain Dew grows natural also where we get the root of the suffix, mystery. I walked around Devil’s Tower and slowly felt the idiocy that my city routine or rut creates in my head wear away to perfect clarity. I looked down at the mud of the trail and thought that that is the state of my mind amongst the tools of drudgery that my regimented life creates.
Eighteen hours of non-stop driving and a two hour hike around Devil’s Tower is what it takes to get my brain to think with clarity so be it. Next I drive through Spearfish scenic route to Deadwood, South Dakota. There is a Taco John’s in Deadwood and everything else is a tourist trap. I get my Super Ole’s and drive up to Roosevelt mountain until the entire road is full of snow drift. I park the car and hike the rest of the way to Friendship Tower. Here I enjoy my tuna and crackers within the walls of the tower while a black storm cloud sends torrents of gusty rain outside.
The sun is setting and since Devil’s Tower was my most northwestern destination everything since ten am has been a part of the trip home. The sun is beginning to set so I decide to forego Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and Sylvan Lake. I drive through Custer State Park and Wind Cave National Park and sight my first large fauna outside of the sturdy mule deer and antelope including a herd of Elk, some Bison and coyotes hunting at dusk amongst the Prairie Dogs.
The silhouette of the Black Hills shows black behind me with a purple sunset. I drive through Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the dark and re-enter white civilization at Rushville, Nebraska where I buy a map to regain my bearings and choose my route home. I have to work that afternoon and hope to get home by morning so I may get some sleep.
As I drive through the pitch black with The Rolling Stones Beggars Banquet album on non-stop repeat I can’t help but think just how out of touch I am with my surroundings. At a stoplight I get out of my car to get a water bottle out of my trunk to hydrate with after consuming half a bag of sunflower seeds. Outside of the artificial environment that my white Ford Fiesta 2015 creates I find for a couple seconds a peace I wasn’t looking for. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere Nebraska in the pitch black I find myself small, helpless, insignificant, unknown and finally, gone.
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