Under Magenta Mountains

emme hendrix

Jack and I began our journey on June 1st, a cloudy day that quickly became rainy as we passed from state to state. We would be gone for a month on a trip around the great American West– up through Colorado, across to Oregon, down California, and back through Texas. I had poured my heart into this trip. I suffered through six months of working three jobs to pay for it. I tore up my social life and mental stability to go on this trip, and as soon as we passed over the Mississippi state line, the voice in the back of my head told me to turn around. My anxiety-induced perfectionism had convinced me that this trip would not be what I had planned, that anything and everything would go wrong. Of course, I knew this trip wouldn’t be what I planned. When did something ever go exactly as planned? Still, the fear of the unknown weighed down on me like Sisyphus’ boulder. What would we do if we got a flat in the middle of the desert? What if someone broke into my car in San Francisco? What if a bear decided that he wanted Alabama bisexual for breakfast? What if Yellowstone decided to explode in the two-day window we just happened to be there? The odds of any of those things happening were quite low, and yet this overwhelming urge to give up remained. 

I wish I could say I had some poetic reason why I kept driving. I wish I could say I was proving something to my parents or even to myself. I really don’t know why, but I think it was because I just couldn’t stop. There really was nothing that could keep me from my journey. I had invested too much time and energy for a silly little voice in my head to convince me to turn around. I just assumed that the further we got on our trip, the less it would bother me. And I was right. 

After two and a half days of farmland, truck stops, and the endless nothingness of Kansas, we arrived at our first real destination. Under the shadow of the Rockies, my fears melted with the snow. I felt like I could actually do it. I could fight back my fears and brave the bright future ahead of me. I left my perfectionism and expectations behind in those beautiful mountains. I was convinced this trip would be wonderful even if it all went to shit.

As we made our slow loop through the west, I basked in the world around me. I cherished every moment, even the mundane ones: the man standing bare-assed on the side of the highway. The incredibly passive-aggressive note we found on our car in San Francisco that called us uncivilized and insensitive for parking on the wrong side of the street. The woman in the grocery store who was convinced that Jack, an eighteen-year-old man, was my son who was just learning to use a credit card. (It’s not her fault really, Jack does look like a twelve-year-old boy.) By the time we reached the home stretch of our trip, I had enjoyed every moment, but I was ready to get home. 

Our final stop was Big Bend National Park. It sits on the far edge of the United States, on the border of Texas and Mexico. You could cross the Rio Grande and take a day trip to the Chihuahuan Desert in Mexico. As we had just spent a month on the road, we did not do this. We had seen enough of one country, we didn’t need to see another for a long time. 

Although not as popular as the other parks we visited, it was no less gorgeous. The sun was setting as we drove the long, winding road through the heat. The desert was bathed in color. The brush which was normally dry and brown was a glorious yellow. The Chisos Mountains with their jagged rocks and hidden canyons lined the horizon. They reflected the light back towards the sun, transforming their dull red hue to the most perfect shade of magenta. No artist or camera could truly capture the pure radiance of the terrain. Even now I do it an injustice trying to describe its beauty. We arrived at our campsite before the light was gone. We had just enough time to watch the color slowly fade from the mountains. 

While the beauty of the sunset was quite noticeable, it was not enough to distract us from the less than delightful oasis that was our campsite. The heat was oppressive. The peanut butter we used for our sandwiches was almost liquid. The cicadas in the tree right next to our tent were screaming at us. Their screaming, combined with the generator that belonged to the old couple next to us, made it so that we could hardly hear each other talk. We thought we might find some shelter in the bathrooms. Nope. The bathrooms were so hot, that we did not care about the hundreds of spiders that had made their home near the sinks. The heat did not help the stench of manure that wafted through the camp. I could see the piles of shit on the ground, completely dried from the blazing sun. As harmless as piles of shit are, they worried me. 

At most campgrounds you can go to in national parks, you will find a bear box at each site. Bear boxes are large steel cabinets with intricate latches to store your food in while away from camp. I was used to seeing the warnings and requirements for using these boxes. At this point, the only bears we had seen on our entire trip were in Yellowstone. It was only one and he was quite a ways off. He was lumbering across a great meadow, not minding the hundreds of tourists with their tripods and macro lenses. However, the warning on this box was different. On it, there was a drawing of two animals, a bear, and a javelina. (For those who don’t know, javelinas are wild pigs. Wild pigs are highly aggressive. Think Old Yeller.) As much as bears terrified me, the thought of javelinas sent my anxiety through the roof. Yes, a bear was a horrifying thought, but at least I knew what to do if a bear came lumbering along. Javelinas were aggressive and erratic. I had no idea what to do if a pack of them came into camp. 

But I had nothing to worry about right? The odds of a pack of wild pigs coming into our camp to turn me into swiss cheese with their tusks on the one night we were camping there were slim, right? We hadn’t had any bad experiences with wildlife in our campgrounds so far. I mean, the only time I had seen something that wasn’t a chipmunk or a bird was when a herd of deer walked through the campground in Rocky Mountain. Luck had been on our side so far. 

But why was there so much shit?  It was everywhere and some of it was fresh. Something had been there within the last 24 hours, and whatever it was, it had plenty of friends.

Jack and I went to bed around ten. I had told him that the thought of Javelina’s concerned me, but I’ll be honest, Jack does not always catch on to every detail like I do. The shit on the ground meant nothing to him. I went to bed on edge, he went to bed with the sole thought of “those stars were really cool.” We laid there in that stuffy tent, trying to find some way to fall asleep. The desert had cooled a bit and the cicadas had quieted down. There was a strong wind, but it was blowing on the side of the tent opposite of the door. That was on me. I always faced the door towards the car so we could make a run for it if necessary. We had to suffer for the sake of safety. I pulled my shirt up and tied it, kicked my blanket and pillow off of the slowly deflating air mattress we shared and laid there watching the few Game of Thrones episodes I had downloaded at the last place we had service. Jack was just as miserable as I was, neither of us could find a way to fall asleep. 

As we lay there, melting, I heard a faint rustling outside the tent. It sounded like footsteps, heavy footsteps. There was huffing and puffing. Something was outside the tent; something big. My mind jumped to my greatest fear on that trip: 

Bear. 

Immediately, I thought of an article I had read in Reader’s Digest years before at my great-grandmother’s house, the story of a bunch of hikers in the Arctic and how they survived a polar bear attack. All I could think of was one man’s description of how the teeth sunk into his head. I imagined my own head in the bear’s jaws. That man survived his injuries, but would I?

I had made a million lists and checked them all twice. I made sure to purchase everything I could possibly need for this trip. The only thing I had not been able to buy was bear spray. And the only time I needed it, the one place I thought I would be safest from bears, I didn’t have it. After all, why would there be a bear in the desert? To eat me, apparently. 

I tried to calm my anxiety. Maybe my hearing was just bad? It was just the people in the site next to us moving around before bed. That had to be it. There was not a bear in the camp. And then the sound moved to the other side of the tent, away from the site. It was most definitely not our neighbors. 

To say that I was panicking is a gross understatement. I have never prayed harder in my life. I didn’t have bear spray, but I had pepper spray. What would that do against a bear? Not much, maybe distract it long enough for Jack and I to run to the car. Jack. My main concern was Jack. Even if I got eaten by a bear, I needed to make sure he was safe. His parents would raise me from the dead just to kill me again if he didn’t make it home. 

Speaking of Jack, while I was lying there, trying to listen to every single sound outside, he just laid there like nothing was happening. He rolled over, making as much noise as he possibly could. I sat up, slowly and slower still. Our tent flap was open, I had to see outside. I had to see if it really was a bear. I strained to look around from my place on the mattress. Seeing nothing, I laid back down. This stupid bear had decided to terrorize me before he ate me. 

The next five minutes were the most harrowing moments of my life. I was playing Schrodinger’s bear with some huge creature outside my tent. I couldn’t see what it was and I didn’t dare try to look again. Jack had simply surrendered to his fate for some reason and was halfway into sleep. How was I supposed to keep him safe? I couldn’t drag him to the car and defend us from a bear at the same time. He was the one with the black belt! If anything he should have been the one to protect us!

When I was just on the verge of tears, I heard something new:

Moooooooo

I sat up straight, all my fear gone. I looked out the tent door. Off in the distance, 

I saw shapes moving in the moonlight. 

Cows. There was a herd of cows in the camp. A big red one walked by as I shook Jack to wake him up. It looked at me with no thoughts behind its eyes besides the thought of grass. Jack decided that sleep was far more important than a herd of cows. I was left alone with the cows that wandered by, munching on grass. I was angry but relieved. How stupid was I that a bunch of cows convinced me I was about to die? At least I could sleep knowing I would not be eaten.

The next morning, as we packed our little world back into my Subaru, I saw a park ranger replacing the reservation cards at each site. I let her know that a herd of cows had passed through the camp the night before and freaked us out. The ranger laughed and said, “Yeah they’re actually Mexican cows! They come across the river because the grass is literally greener on the other side. They do it all the time.”

Unsurprisingly, the rest of our stay in Big Bend was uneventful, just hot. Our next campsite was in the basin of the Chisos Mountains. A gentle breeze swept down over the towering red rocks and cooled us in the night. The next day, just before we left the park, I discovered that bears mostly dwelled in the mountains, rather than near the river. We had a better chance of encountering one at our second campsite than at our first. At least in the mountains a herd of cows wouldn’t walk through and keep me up with a panic attack. 

It took us three days to drive across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. We had plans to camp those last few days. Instead, we stayed in hotels and ate anything that wasn’t beef jerky and ashy Mac and Cheese. Jack and I didn’t talk to each other for a week after we got home. It wasn’t that we hated each other after being trapped together for a month. We were just tired. We had seen half of the country in twenty-eight days, traveled 8,135 miles, and listened to the entirety of the Fellowship of the Rings and half of the Two Towers if that gives you an idea of how much time we spent in the car. I had forced Jack to listen to Half Moon Run’s “Call Me In The Afternoon” half a million times because it reminded me of a guy I had a major crush on. I still love that song. Jack skips it every time it comes up while we’re driving. I let him. He’s been through enough of my angst. 

The last time I talked to Jack, we were sitting in the park near my house. I read him what I had written so far. He liked it. That’s all I wanted to hear. When I started that trip, I didn’t think I would ever take another trip like that again. When I got home, I wanted nothing more than to stay in my bed until class started in the fall. Talking with Jack that day, I just wanted to be back in the desert, watching the Chisos Mountains turn purple and waiting for the endless stars to appear once more.