Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
slidingoverthevoid.Iwasn'tusedtodealingwithlandscapes thatcankillyou.Cautiously
I pressed on.
High up in the mountains I crossed a wooden bridge of laughable ricketyness over a deep
chasm. It was the sort of bridge on which, in the movies, a slat always breaks, causing the
heroine to plunge through up to her armpits with her pert legs wiggling helplessly above
the chasm, until the hero dashes back to save her, spears falling all around them. When I
was twelve years old, I could never understand why the hero, operating from this position
of superiority, didn't say to the lady, “OK, I'll save your life, but later you have to let me
see you naked. Agreed?”
Beyond the bridge wet snow began to fly about. It mixed with the hundreds of insects that
hadbeenflingingthemselvesintothewindshieldsinceNebraska(whatasenselesswasteof
life!) and turned it into a brown sludge. I attacked it with window washer solution, but this
just converted it from a brown sludge to a creamy sludge and I still couldn't see. I stopped
and jumped out to wipe at the window with my sleeve, certain that at any moment a bob-
cat, seeing the chance of a lifetime, would drop onto my shoulders and rip off my scalp
withasoundliketwostripsofVelcrobeingparted.Iimaginedmyself,scalpless,stumbling
whimperingdownthemountainside withthebobcatnippingatmyheels.Thisformedsuch
a vivid image in my mind that I jumped back into the car, even though I had only created a
small rectangle of visibility about the size of an envelope. It was like looking out of a tank
turret.
The car wouldn't start. Of course. Drily I said, “Oh, thank you, God.” Up here in the thin
air, the Chevette just gasped and wheezed and quickly became flooded. While I waited for
the flooding to subside, I looked at the map and was dismayed to discover that I still had
twenty miles to go. I had done only eight miles so far and I had been at it for well over an
hour. The possibility that the Chevette might not make it to Victor and Cripple Creek took
root in my skull. For the first time it occurred to me that perhaps no one ever came along
this road. If I died out here, I reflected bleakly, it could be years before anyone found me
or the Chevette, which would obviously be a tragedy. Apart from anything else the battery
was still under warranty.
But of course I didn't die out there. In fact, to tell you the truth, I don't intend ever to die.
The car started up and I crept up over the last of the high passes and thence into Victor
with out further incident. Victor was a wonderful sight, a town of Western-style buildings
perched incongruously in a high green valley of the most incredible beauty. Once it and
Cripple Creek, six miles down the road, were boom towns to beat all boom towns. At their
peak,in1g08,theyhad500goldminesbetweenthernandapopulationof100,000.Miners
