The sun set on our last day on the road.

Fast forward to 7 hours later:
The sky is vast and covered with stars.
Duran Duran comes on the radio.
I’m guilty pleasure style singing along…
“Her name is Rio and she dances on the saaaaannd…”
The van sputters.
The wheel does something weird.
Everything turns off and I see a glowing sign that looks like a gas pump on the dash.
Fuck.

Burke wakes up in the back.
I tell him what happened.
I put on stolen bowling shoes.
We take the long walk to the next exit off the interstate.

I see two shooting stars in the first five minutes of our dark walk along the side of the road.
I think about how the last time I ran out of gas,
I was 19 and barefoot (I’m from the South, we do that sometimes).
I walked miles on the side of the highway to the gas station.
In the dark, I stepped on something furry.
Something no longer with us…
well, something with ME for the next 4 miles.
I did write a song about it later called
“I Walked Ten Miles With A Dead Thing Clinging To My Leg” –
so it was worth it.

Burke and I got up to the Gas/Food/Lodging sign on the interstate and it reads: Kum and Go Gas (24 Hours).
I shriek in delight! We are saved! We are Kumming and Going! Our adventure gets to continue!
Most importantly, we don’t have to sleep on the side of the road with trucks zooming by on a deadly mountain curve because of me.

My friend, Sarah had a dream two nights ago when we were in the desert that she was lost on a stretch of red dirt, then she collapsed and became an eagle.
Oddly enough, the town that was our savior was named:
“Eagle“.

We are all travelers of this existence…
connected in our Wanderlust.
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