First gear. I pull away from the gas station, praying that the extra coolant won’t come hissing and steaming out of cracks in the radiator before I can make it to Vegas.
Second gear. As I hit the onramp, I wipe the sweat from my brow with a discarded t-shirt and wish for the thousandth time that the air conditioning in my Jeep was functional.
Third gear. The giant feathered headdress on the “Buffalo Bill’s Casino” sign
dwindles in my rear view mirror as I merge into the busy afternoon traffic.
Fourth gear. And as I yank down hard on the gearstick, the shifter knob pops completely off into my hand. Oh, boy. 116 degrees here in the Mojave Desert, and the glue holding the knob in place had completely liquefied. This was my first day on the road after leaving my adopted hometown of Santa Barbara for the summer, and already I was getting in trouble. My vessel was no match for Mother Nature at her most extreme, and the high, cool mountain roads of Colorado that I craved were at least five hundred miles away. Waiting until July to embark on this road trip was beginning to look like a bad idea.
Welcome to the first entry in yet another collection of outdoor travel stories which purport to chronicle a former New Yorker’s journey amongst the majestic peaks and vales of the Rocky Mountains … at least, if and when I finally arrive there. This is Bryan Snyder, an environmental science teacher and professional generator of ill-conceived plans, such as my current notion to cross the desert in the midst of a regional heat wave. Temperatures had been steadily rising in my valley outside Santa Barbara before I departed, and it had felt rather odd to be packing gloves and long underwear for the upcoming trip. Every night, the wood of my cabin would cool and contract from the extreme variation in temperature, producing sounds akin to a wooden hull splintering upon unseen rocks. And in the surrounding National Forests, fires were breaking out on a daily basis, raining ash onto the streets of nearby cities. It was time to get out while I still could.
Smoke continued to follow me into the deserts of eastern California, and the further I drove away from the ocean, the more intense the heat became. I rolled the windows down, but being buffeted by scalding breezes made me feel as if I was sitting inside a convection oven. I was dehydrating faster than I could replenish fluids, and mist from a spray bottle evaporated from my skin within half a second. Alas, my career provides enough funding to allow me to take summers off, but not enough to repair the Jeep’s air conditioning system. To make matters worse, I had to have my vents pump hot air into the vehicle continuously, just to draw heat away from the overstressed engine.
The drive was a test of endurance, and my laptop computer succumbed to heat exhaustion first, cutting off in mid-song and shutting down abruptly. Flapping sounds came from the roof, which meant that one of the rubber strips lining the top had become unglued when its adhesive melted. And finally, one hundred miles from Vegas, the temperature gauge flashed a bright orange warning. I pulled the Jeep over to the side of the interstate, popped open the hood, and stared grimly as the overheated radiator hissed and spat coolant down into a rapidly-widening puddle. Nothing to do but let things breathe for a while.
An hour later, I had made it to a gas station on the Nevada border and replenished my coolant, which brings the story back to my biggest predicament of the week: figuring out what to do with the unglued gearstick knob in my right hand while I was dangerously decelerating in the middle of interstate traffic. I set down the knob, grabbed the gearstick shaft and pulled it the rest of the way down into fourth gear. Then with my knee bracing the steering wheel, I held the fractured end of the gearstick shaft together with my left hand while I attempted to wedge the rubber knob back into place. It fit. Fifth gear. Once again, I was just another driver with his sights set on the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas.
Actually, I’m not big on glitz and glamour. I was more intent on finding shade and cool breezes. So, with an ice pack moderating my laptop’s temperature, I cranked up the traveling music and continued east the next morning, finding the first cloud cover in Arizona and the first thunderstorms churning above the mesas of New Mexico.
That night, flashes of lightning drew nearer and nearer to the campsite I created in a mountaintop rock quarry outside the Navajo Reservation. As the rumbles grew louder and the wind picked up in intensity, I scoffed down my dinner and quickly scrounged in the dark to find boulders to use to stretch out the tent’s rainfly before my bedding was blown off the cliff. The graveled ground was too hard for tent stakes.
Thankfully, a flicker of lightning lit up a piece of rusty machinery. I hurriedly dragged it out of a pile of rocks and debris and attached one of the rainfly guylines to it. My tent secure, I hopped back into the Jeep to wait out the storm. Rain pattered against the windshield and washed away the desert dust. I felt relieved; even though I knew I hadn’t escaped the heat of the Southwest completely, the worst was over. And the Rockies, with their snowfields and their cool, cool breezes, were not far.

Bryan is a 1991 Norwich High School graduate and works as a naturalist at the Rancho Alegre Outdoor School in Santa Barbara, CA. You may reach him mid-journey at foolsby@hotmail.com.