We'll Just Go Look

It's eleven in the morning and there's nothing on the schedule until dinner. Somebody has a full tank. Somebody else knows there's a road out past the arroyo that supposedly connects through to the coast. The sentence gets said. We'll just go look.

Nobody packs for this. That's the defining feature. Two waters between three people, whatever was left in the cooler from yesterday, and a jacket that happens to be behind the seat. The tools are in the truck because they live there, which is the only thing that saves anybody.

The road is good for the first eleven miles. Graded, fast, the kind of surface that makes a truck feel expensive. That's the trap. Everybody relaxes and the turnaround conversation never happens, because turning around at mile eleven of a great road would be insane.

Then it degrades, the way these always do — not into anything dangerous, just slower. Rocky, then a section along a wash, then a gate that isn't locked but takes a minute to work out. Now it's two in the afternoon and everyone is committed, because going back is exactly as long as going forward and going forward is unexplored.

At mile forty-one they come over a rise and there it is: the whole basin dropping away west, empty, with the coastal haze sitting out at the edge of it. Nobody says anything smart. Somebody takes a photo that will not come close and everybody knows it won't and takes it anyway.

They get back at nine at night, on headlights, having eaten a bag of chips and a shared sleeve of cookies from a store in a town none of them can pronounce correctly. A hundred and ten miles. The people at camp have already eaten.

The road does connect through, for the record. It's now on the list. Next time somebody will pack for it, and it'll be a great planned trip, and it will never be quite as good as the day they just went to look.