#21 / 2003 Tour 2: Walker Lake, Nevada

Rainbows at Walker Lake

#21

I saw the end of the rainbow at Walker Lake, Nevada. It bowed and dipped into the shoreline only a few hundred feet from where the VW bus was parked, overlooking the water’s edge. We pulled in to watch the rain.

Throughout this trip through the Southwest, I have been astonished at the pattern of rain in this region. In Tennessee we have these fat raindrops. But out here the raindrops are so small you can hardly feel them. And the rain falls with pouring down sunshine.

Beatlick Joe, a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico, says there are different kinds of rain in the Southwest. Up in Pojoaque, north of Santa Fe, our friends John and Maria haven’t had any substantial rain on their property in four years. It hasn’t snowed in the winter, creating droughts in the summer. In a Pojoaque rain, the wind blows, the clouds move in.

It looks like rain, it smells like rain, feels like rain. The clouds grow dark and swell like a pregnant woman ready to issue forth, but it never happens. In Nevada, where we camp now, there is rain. You can see it fall out of the sky, but the sun is shining brightly. The wind scampers back and forth across the highways, nudges the sidelined clouds on the horizon, until you swear something is going to happen. The water falls from the sky, but nobody gets wet.

On the streets of Las Vegas nobody is carrying raingear. As a matter of fact I haven’t seen anyone with an umbrella in their hand since I left on this trip.When we first hit Albuquerque, heading over to the Frontier Restaurant, rain began to fall. Joe and I dutifully donned our tarps, put wide brim hats on and headed out. Joe is wearing the remnants of a yellow slicker, repaired with duct tape. I guess it stayed in his backpack too long because the tape has failed him. He holds the back together like a patient holds a hospital gown, modestly trying to cover his rear end. We walked about seven blocks, taking a right at Walgreens on Central. There we passed two American Indians standing by the outdoor telephones. We smiled as we flapped by in our plastic raincoats. “It ain’t gonna rain that long,” we were advised.

This whole place just takes a lot of getting used to, I am so out of my Southern element. Now, riding through Nevada, I can’t really trust what I see. It is so hard to determine how far away is the horizon of mountains. Valleys sweep before us and splash up the side of the granite mountains like waves of concrete. The land is so barren that there are no reference points. Drivers keep their headlights on day and night.

Riding down the road in the heat of the day, I swear there is a car parked in the middle of the highway up ahead. I am sure there are blinking. Yellow caution lights in the distance, indicating an accident perhaps. But as we approach it becomes obvious that the car was never on the other side of the road, refracting light waves have bent in the heat. And the blinking lights are headlights stacked on top of one another. The road stretches out so far that the headlights of vehicles up ahead all pile on top of one another. My fears about heat have long subsided. Ever since we picked up Highway 95 North out of Vegas we have been consistently climbing. We actually pulled the blanket out about four this morning. We are less than one day’s ride from our destination with three more days to kill. So we are taking it very easy.

After our final stop of today, the 23rd, in Fernley, NV, to stock up with water, food, fuel, and all else we will need for eight days, we are off and gone. No more submissions for over a week as the Black Rock Desert has no internet access, telephone access, or television. In the parking lot of the grocery store, it was quite obvious who was going to the Burning Man and who wasn’t. Some folks were towing a couch behind their truck. Water jugs by the dozens are stored atop RVs, trucks, and the numerous VW buses we are encountering. I think I have found my tribe!