Just under 550 miles today, road warriors.

Left Portland at the brisk hour of 2 pm—completely on schedule—and drove like the wind across Oregon and Idaho. Got just about to the border of Utah, after a minor snafu in Twin Falls in the parking lot of an unnamed megastore.

I tried camping out in the parking lot of the place, but had a cavalry of parking lot cleaners, rent-a-cops and inquisitive night shift workers buzzing me as I tried to bed down. Not working. You know, you pick a dark corner of this monster parking lot, retire to the back of the van, and wouldn’t you know it, you’ve got some Barney Fife motherfucker with NOTHING to do, flashing flashlights, or that sweeper/cleaner guy doing figure eights around me? Long sentence. Sorry. Who knows. Wasn’t working.

So I kept driving into the late Idaho night, and just about got to that Utah border. Something like that.

Oh, and nothing says summer like, “Trying to sleep in the midnight 90 degree high desert heat in the back of van, and having to have the windows closed due to the goddamn flies outside.”