Moonlight on the Salt Flats

Eastbound rest stop on Route 80, 112 miles west of Salt Lake.  The sun has already dropped off the western edge of the world, the moon has long since risen in the east, having showed its face over the mountains since midafternoon.

It was the hour of half light.  That blue-gray time of not yet darkness, and not still light.  But for the roar of trucks passing on the highway, the land rested quietly, awaiting night.  The nearly-full moon spread its glow land-ward, mirrored in a small pond of water behind the buildings.

For many miles already, Route 80 had sliced through the Salt Flats.  Here the land was low, and white.  Occasional small bodies of water showed, and the area round them where water would be when more appeared.  It was not sand, exactly, but not rocks either.  Small pebbles, very small, but not rounded smooth as happens in flowing water.

With the Trucker's permission, the Passenger stepped inquisitively down the shoreline to meet the water that remained.  Touched an experimental finger to the whiteness.  The hardness was surprising.  But firm pressure caused the white to yield like wet sand.  Touching the finger tip to her mouth, taste buds assaulted by the extreme saltiness caused her to spit it out immediately.

Sprinting up the beach to where the Trucker sat, she kissed him.  He too tasted the salt.  Together they gazed across the land, the moon reflecting on the water, the vast expanses of salt glowing white in its light.

Then they walked back to the waiting Penske as darkness dropped around them.  Sky became deeper blue, then blue-gray, ever darker but not quite black.  Eastward on Route 80, the white land luminous under moonlight as a snowy evening in winter.

And the Passenger found an apple in her bag, though even that did not erase the salt from her highly insalted and unforgiving taste buds.

Level, straight Route 80 brought the Penske and Passengers toward Tooele, Utah.  As the moon climbed through the sky, its light became sharper, brighter, and more focused.  Dark changed shades to reveal outlines of mountains ahead.  Behind and above them glimmered lights of Salt Lake City.  Along the road now shimmered  a lake, the moon spotlighting a path across the ripples.  Beyond, lights of Tooele reflected white, yellow, red, orange on the water.

The Trucker remembers a time when this stretch of Route 80 needed rebuilt.  The lake had risen, it's waves slapping the shore and overspreading the road, the salt damaging trucks and pavement alike.

Now a parking space at the Tooele TA.  Weariness of yesterday is still present, and the pressure of schedule is done.  Now to match schedules with the little black box when meeting it again Monday morning in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Curtains are drawn, paperwork completed.  A small vibration in the bunk is creating cricket-like chirps.  A homey touch.  Good night.