Dispatch from Panamint Springs, California
Text, photographs and web design by Erik Gauger

I pulled in to the hotel in Panamint Springs. Setting up a tent in the desert is cheaper, and often-times more comfortable, than a hotel. The coolness of the night-time ground makes up for the heat. But today was particularly hot, and I felt no guilt in the expense of a night at the hotel.

My plan was to hike two miles on a mud flat at the center of Panamint Valley. The valley is gigantic, and parts of it fall within the Death Valley National Park boundaries. The Panamint Valley can defy imagination - at once it appears lifeless and desolate, and with the falling of the sun - warm and otherworldy, filled with the colors of ancient stone.

When I returned from my hike, it was to my great displeasure that I learned the room had no air conditioning. I decided to spend the evening cleaning my truck, and talking to the hotel's guests. One couple - "I'm Sheryl and this is my husband Eddie" - offered to join me for a hike in the morning, and bought me a cold beer. "Eddie used to be in the trucking business," Sheryl said, "but years at the wheel made his belly big and his back bad."

Sheryl did most of the talking. She said, "Now Eddie's doing his dream job. Works for Harley." Eddie, who wore an American flag for a bandanna, raised his beer and grinned at me. "It allows us enough time to go wherever we want. Tomorrow, we don't know where we're going."

I said, "me too...I think I'm going north, to Oregon." They liked this, and so Eddie bought me another cold beer.

I went to sleep in that daze you get after walking a good distance in the desert. That daze of sweat and dispassion.

I turned off the light, and wandered into that half-awake state where thoughts and dreams are indistinguishable. I was sweating in the heat, but resolved to sleep, because I had six hundred miles to drive the next day. I became entertained by the static shocks on the dry bed. I found that, by kicking the bed, I could generate a dozen shocks, a quick generation of lights across the bed.