DAY 27 - Bliss, ID - 532 Miles from home

People. I'm beat. I'm bunking down in the RV hookup section of a Love's truck stop. My first time "Loving" it... The guys are across the way at a perfectly okay motel called Amber Inn. We are in Bliss.

I don't think there could be any more intense contrast between life at this truck stop, and the walk we did today - up on the plains and hills above the Snake River, on Old Highway 30 (until I missed my cut off, and ended up backtracking on E Allen Road) - very few cars - old, pocky asphalt - quiet air and sagebrush and the gray green glint of the massive Snake far below - and birds whose names I don't know - with long legs and split black and brown tails, and a cheeky little call - and placid cattle and horses, and one extremely friendly dusty old dog, and fewer sunflowers than earlier walks but a whole lot of sun sun SUN.

Once we got to Bliss - which is basically this truck stop - I ordered a footlong meatball sub at Subway and a Diet Coke and salt and vinegar potato chips. The formica gleamed. An adorable tow-headed little boy and his even littler sister were zooming around as mom and dad bought lunch. The kiddos were happily riding some plush hobby horses for sale - a blue one for the boy and a pink one for the little girl - and patient mama was firm but kind, telling them finally to put the toys back in the bin."We come here a lot," she said, smiling, to me. "He knows the toys. He's always excited to come to the 'heart store.'"

I was overwhelmed by the bright surfaces and clean cheerfulness. "Customer 96, your shower is ready. Please head to Shower 2." But I was also energized. After I dropped Bob and Ed off at their motel, I pulled into the gravel lot dedicated to RV hookups, and got busy. I filled the fresh water tank. I flushed the black water tank, I took my very first shower in the rig. (It was damn good, actually). I mopped the floors. I wiped out the refigerator shelves. I organized the cupboards. And then I collapsed.

I don't know what this life is, of such extraordinary contrasts. From the crazy perseverance of my roadside sunflowers, to the gleaming efficiency of an American truckstop. I'm sipping diet soda, and loving the tang and the sparkle. But earlier today, as the sweat was pouring down my back and I was taking long swigs of tepid water, I was also, pretty much, in bliss.

Sunflowers, Railroad, River - about 15 miles from Bliss.

Roadside memorial, outside of King Hill, Idaho.

50 feet away from Teresa Salazar's memorial, the King Hill Cemetery. The plaque reads: "Dahlberg, Lolla Rose (twin) d. 1923, age 10 mons, 3 days of. VE and AL Dahlberg. Pearl Gillette, Age 7. Kissinger (girl) Joe Wells Aunts Sister. Westfall, William d. 1913, father of Mrs. Laird. Two men picked up in river & buried here. Name unknown."

King Hill United Presbyterian Church. God's mercy endures.

Oops. I'm not supposed to cross the Interstate. I went too far...

Fortunately - E. Allen Road comes to the rescue.

Curious cattle on E. Allen Road.

Libby at Love's RV Hookup.

The "Heart Store."

It is. All three.

The cowboy life at Love's.

Meanwhile: the sunflower - E. Allen Road, between King Hill and Bliss.