Flow Chart for Traveling with My Mother

My mother has smoked since she was 14. She's 88 now, and quitting is a tired subject. In addition, she's somewhat frail and needs a walk-in or roll-in shower with a shower seat. She walks very slowly, and really can't walk very far unassisted. I tried sleeping in her room (non-smoking) the first night on the road. I would get up when she got up and walk her down the hall and around the corner to the smoking courtyard, I thought. At 3:30 a.m. she stood up and shouted and waved her arms around. I think she was asleep. She shouted again a couple of times an hour later--still asleep and dreaming, no doubt. My daughter M, who has traveled with her grandmother prior to this this trip, said, "Yes, she does that every night around 3:00 or 4:00." Thus, my enthusiasm for sharing a room with my mother waned.

The second night we got my mom a room with a door that opened to the outside. I slept in the other room with my daughter. My mom could then quite ably walk herself outside for a smoke without much risk of taking a fall. In the morning I was a new person.

The third night was more difficult. The door to the outside in my mom's room was heavy and hard for her to open. Utah state law required that she smoke 30 feet away which meant a stumbly path into the parking lot. M borrowed a plastic chair from our balcony and set it around the far corner of the motel just a few feet away from my mom's door where she could light up out of sight. Still the doorway had an awkward sill that we worried about. Hence the flow chart.

And so tonight, our last on the road, with thanks to the fact that Las Vegas is apparently a mecca for smokers, my mom has a smoking room on the first floor with a roll-in shower. I won't tell you about the crazy part. About how I accidentally made the reservation through Expedia instead of directly with the hotel. Or how Expedia fucked it up. I will just say that a wonderful desk clerk named David fixed everything that Expedia botched.

Now, on a less mundane note, the west is full of wonders.

Rivers crossed today: Green River, San Rafael, Virgin (several times,) Muddy

Most disconcerting sign: CAUTION! BRIDGE DECKS AHEAD!
Ensuing dialogue: "Google that for me, M."
                              "Sorry, Mom, no 3G."

What I see in front of me/What I see behind me

Yesterday, driving west on I-80 through Nebraska, the white lines between lanes were obliterated by the afternoon glare. I used the seam in the pavement to orient me, noticing that when I looked in the rearview mirror, the lines were there behind me, clear and distinct. What I'm heading towards as I travel across country with my just shy of 88-year-old mother is hazy like those lines. Yes, she's coming to live with me in California, but what does life have in store for the two of us? The past is clear-- like those lines in the rear view mirror, through memory has its own way of obscuring things sometimes. The afternoon drive today was a similar mirage. A ghost landscape against a distant sky that sometimes appeared as white as the haze shrouding the mountains and mesas.

We made our target destination for the drive today--Green River, Utah--but we all feel weary tonight as if the hot dust from the landscape has coated our enthusiasm. The desk clerk told us that it's been over 100 for the past 90 days. Tomorrow our goal is Vegas or somewhere near. It will be scorching there, too. The alpine scenery of the Rockies and the Colorado River with its banana-colored kayaks seems like a mirage in this dry place with its closed up storefronts and sandy streets.

Rivers crossed today: Kiowa Creek, Clear Creek (twice,) Eagle River (three times--at least,) Colorado River (numerous times,) Plateau Creek.

There was a strand of weird town names in Colorado--Silt, Rifle, Parachute.

Favorite road sign: WE BUY ANTLERS

In Utah on I-70 there was exit after exit that read "No Services." Western Nebraska is big and wide. That wide open countryside and Eastern Colorado seem to be made for grazing. Stretched out herds of cattle and fields of hay bales--some like lego blocks stacked into sturdy piles, some cylindrical, and even a few old-style haystacks like in a Van Gogh painting. The landscape in Colorado changes abruptly. Sage brush and cragginess and then, as if a page in a picture book has been turned to a new chapter, lush evergreens sprout toward the sky. The part of Utah that we drove through today makes Nebraska and Colorado look like the intersection of the Tigris and the Euphrates. It seems full of mystery. If someone exits at one of the "No Services" exits, where do they go?