Wednesday, March 27 9pm
At the diner at the Flying J truck stop just east of Rapid City, South Dakota. I'm surrounded by truckers smoking cigarettes with telephones to their ears and their eyes glued to one of the two TV screens. Drove ten hours today, east from Dillon, Montana. I'm beat, but if I don't get these "Notes" out soon I'm going to completely lose track of all that's happened since I began this tour.

I might just sum it up by saying my perceptions have been blown open. I've been drunk on the letters of Everett Ruess. From 1930 to 1934, the time he was sixteen until at twenty he disappeared in southern Utah canyon lands. Everett wandered Northern Arizona, Southern Utah and Colorado. He was an artist who made block prints and watercolors, but what is remarkable are his letters. "A Vagabond For Beauty" is a collection of the letters that he sent home to family and friends during that time. (Thank you Andy Davis in Orem, Utah for the book!) Everett could see in a way that transcended the mere act of vision. He sensed the beauty of the canyon lands so acutely that it bordered on pain, and he wrote about it with astounding emotion, fearless passion, and clarity.

So all the while lost in this book I'm trying to maintain composure during my gigs through California, Oregon, and Washington and having a great time. I do recall, as I've written before, how beautifully lush California is March: green as Ireland, the live oaks are old and graceful, pushing out a new felt of spring leaves. And in Washington, the Puget Sound, a glorious waterworld, especially in contrast to the Utah desert in my mind. The ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle was especially sweet.

Here's some stuff from my notebook since leaving Seattle last Sunday:

Driving east now, upstream through time zones toward the rising sun. Clouds at my back, laden with pacific waters, hurl over me as we all speed toward Idaho.

Last night I was a gypsy caravan in a motel parking lot just east of Spokane.
Sliding door open to a patch of grass and a sheltering tree.
Brushed my teeth, watered the dog and changed into bedclothes as I prepared for reading and eventual sleep deaf to the rushing interstate close by.
A guerilla asphalt camper parked in the shadows invisible but for the parking space stolen.
Tonight however, I am a respectable American in a "budget" (read expensive) motel room.

Rambled through the Coeur d'Alene today on my way to Missoula.
Clouds pulled off the mountains in great long strands.
Melting snows plunged into the Columbia
Skies paused from rain over a carpet of fir and spruce
Tops of people's homes poked through

Here I sped the interstate
Cruise locked at sixty-eight
Steering like a train on rails
Not a thought prevails

Then I mused:
If I were president the first thing I'd do would be to outlaw billboards
Just like in Vermont.
I'd be a dictator!
(A friend said she'd do it as a philosopher King!)
I'd take away all the traffic signs and directional markers
People would have to travel slower and have to inquire with one another where things were. Singing land.

There would be songs about where the best diner was Between Spokane and Coeur d'Alene. Stories passed down like recipes about the various routes between Salt Lake and Butte. The hobo's language would be subtle and unseen by those without the eyes for it. Good food / bad man-stay away / dry place to sleep / all written in the language of stones, chalk, branches.

South Dakota looked beautiful tonight with the sun going down. It's a shame I've got to race through. Camping tonight, then onto Minnesota tomorrow where I hope to spend the night in Albert Lea where I can get some photographs of the "Avenue of the Saints" signs for CD artwork.

As of April fools day I'll be in New England for three more weeks of gigs before heading home. I'll let you know how that goes! Don't forget, keep in touch, write me a note - come to a show. We're all in this together. Thanks for reading.

See ya later! - Dana