On the Road Again

West Texas.

Miles and miles and miles of road stretching between a handful of tiny towns in the Chihuahuan Desert.

On the busier roads, like US 67 between Alpine and Fort Stockton, maybe you'll pass two dozen other cars on the one-hour drive.

And on the less busy ones, like US 385 from Marathon to Big Bend National Park, you might drive the entire thing and never see a soul.

I am the county biologist for the second largest county in Texas, which is larger than the state of Delaware and only slightly smaller than Connecticut. It's almost 100 miles from east to west on I-10, slightly shorter from north to south on the US highways.

central Pecos County

As a member of the District 1 team, I'm often asked to help with my coworkers' tasks too, ranging from El Paso in the west, Midland in the north, Sanderson in the east, and Alpine (where our district office is) in the south. It's a big district; the entire West Texas region is roughly the size of Maine.

Thus, I drive. A lot. We all do.

the road to Alpine

Somewhere in a previous blog post I wrote about how I've begun treasuring these long hours on the road. 

my chariot

There are only a few radio stations, and my truck, with which I have a love/hate relationship, doesn't have a CD player or auxiliary jack and only picks up the radio stations when it feels so inclined. The truck itself is also loud, with shot suspension and doors that don't close properly, so when I do listen to the radio, I have to turn it up so high my ears are often bleeding when I arrive at my destination. 

Thus, most of the time I leave it off, and I drive 75-80 miles per hour (yes, these are the actual speed limits) on the deserted desert roads, sometimes late at night after spotlight surveys, sometimes early in the morning to catch the plane or the helicopter for aerial surveys, and I think about my novels.

There's an actual shift that takes place in my head when I set out, a switch I can almost feel, turning my brain from real life to imagination. Sometimes my real-life worries are too great or I'm too tired, and it's frustrating then, like I can't quite reach that switch no matter how hard I try. But when I can reach it, it's magic.

Yucca, ocatillo, rattlesnakes, and mesquite fly by, and maybe another car or two (to which my fingers automatically lift from the steering wheel to offer a friendly salute, like the fingers of all good West Texans), and I barely notice. I'm thinking about my scenes. I'm thinking about that awkward moment when my two main characters meet, the build-up of romantic tension as they travel through Europe, that climactic moment when they first kiss. I'm thinking of enemies, attacks, close calls, and tragic ends. I'm thinking of witty remarks to impertinent questions, lies told to mask emotion, declarations of love and loyalty that are neither cheesy nor understated. Winks, nods, shrugs, frowns. Plot twists, hidden agendas, secret ambitions, driving forces. I put it all together.

I even keep a little notebook in my center console so I can jot particularly good ideas down. Not while driving, of course. Sure, there's never any traffic, but you never know what might jump out in front of you on these roads, like a deer or an aoudad...

...or something else.

black-tailed rattlesnake in Pecos County

I feel lucky that I get to have these moments, these hours of faraway thought, this valuable time for imagining and plotting and fine-tuning. As someone who's sort of ADHD, I have a hard time sitting still at home trying to come up with ideas. I can't even do it while hiking, one of my favorite things to do, because I'm so stimulated by everything around me.

Driving is it. Driving is key. Driving is crucial. I'm not sure why.

I have always loved driving, probably for this very reason. Sure, I'm useless in places of unending beauty (and road-happy wildlife) like Colorado or Montana, or places with heavy traffic, or places I've never been, but I now know the roads of West Texas so well, each twist and turn, each blind corner, each patch of cedars where I know the elk are lurking, that I can do it on autopilot. Don't get me wrong - I'm still aware of what's happening. I can still spot the eyeshine of a deer coming up on the shoulder and press my foot to the brake, or watch an approaching oil truck to make sure he stays in his lane. I have damn good driving instincts and I'm not ashamed to brag. Maybe this is why I love it - because I can do two things at once, a perfect, guilt-free combination of work and pleasure.

Maybe I love it because it keeps me sane. Because I'd go nuts with all this driving if my brain didn't have a way to amuse itself.

Maybe I love to drive because I'm a writer.

Maybe I'm a writer because I love to drive.

my personal car in Glacier National Park