06-07-2309
The scenery passing my window was as dull as it had been for the past 400 miles. In the late afternoon of our third day on Luna, we drove by nothing but flat farmland as far as they eye could see. The occasional hill speckled the horizon, and more common were clusters of trees clinging to ponds–and each other–for dear life. It’s all we’ve seen since before we even left the last region we drove through.
Yesterday, after leaving Saline, we had a relatively easy journey. We stopped off at a few roadside destinations, the little scenic points you could spot while driving–even make a quick u-turn if you had to– and spend half an hour fucking around on the rocks. If you take a moment to really breath it in, each offers a unique view of what moon was to come.
At the first stop, Salt Wash, natives spread their cheap jewelry over the white stones, a secretive trap, well-laid for tourists to meander through. The lizards basked on the early morning rocks, which we bounded over to get a good view over a little canyon. It was the most dry land and scrub I’d seen up close though, the spectacular views from the night before had been too high and vast to feel this close to the terrain. We could see the road ahead, winding about behind the largest pillar, and knew we’d have to get back to it without delay.
The next point was called Ghost Rock, and here we took longer to enjoy the view. Ghost Rock itself was a large, prominent outcropping that towered the road beside it, and it’s aptly named for looking like it were draped in a sheet. Brick spotted a strange plant I’d never encountered before and we spent a half hour searching for more bizarre flora. When our search turned up empty, we returned to inspect it, only to find it was a plastic piece that belonged in a terrarium. When we’d shaken off our embarrassment, we noticed we could observe great views off both sides of the point. One side offered an angle on the way we’d come, the other laid out the path before us. We stood a moment trying to imagine the plains that dinosaurs once populated in all their glory.
Spotted Wolf was an interesting point, especially since I couldn’t see why it was named so. From the parking lot, a peninsula ridge ran between two depressions, leading to a larger sink valley, like a giant, sandy “Y”. If you could brave the wind sheering across the top of the narrow path, the view down through the valley and beyond was incredible and endless. The two valleys that met were wrapped by two giant, jagged walls which seemed to sink into the middle where the road weaved and disappeared into the rocky land on the other side.
“You remember those pictures from my trip last year, right?” Brick was almost shouting to be heard of the squall. “This is that one I did the 360-shot at, you know?”
“I do,” of course I recognized it, “but the pictures did nothing for it.” It was really something to behold up close, and we couldn’t help but spend a while staring it.
Within the hour we were turning off the main route and approaching Arches Park, one of the dark side’s more prized tourist destinations. The erosion effects on the different levels of basalt and sandstone, and other sediments, have caused looser stripes to dissolve away beneath tougher ones, leaving behind a rigid layer above exposed to the wind. Large enough to walk through, enough to stand up straight in. Even wide enough to drive a big rig right through. More hoodoos, walls, pillars and dangerously balanced rocks delighted us on the way to the view point we figured we’d have to time to reach.
“Our batteries are so low anyway, we’ll be back soon enough. We don’t need to put on any block or even bring a water bottle” I remember saying before wandering around the point for an hour and a half.
“One of these is the South Window and the other the North Window,” Brick said, reading off the map supplied to us at the gate.
“That’s real convenient,” I said looking up at the sun, seeing that it was directly above us in the sky and dead in between each of the massive arches. “Well I guess it couldn’t help us either way…”
“Yeah, plus you don’t know anything about Luna,” Brick kindly reminded me. “That one’s the South cause it’s closer to Turret Arch on the map, which is right…there,” he pointed to our right.
“Huh…didn’t even see that one.”
“That J on the drive in may not have been a good idea, good sir.”
“Hush, you know it’s making this so much better,” I said snatching the camera from him. “I need to waste some more battery.”
Each window was a strange portal, one offering a view to a greener land, the other to a field of petrified dunes. The third arch gave way to an impressive natural amphitheater, and I suddenly wished I’d brought my guitar from the crawler. There were arches within arches mounted on top of arches they called the Parade of Elephants, visible from the back rows, if you turned around. There was also a spot with a whole bunch of strange pillars, like a mini Ingenii, they called the Garden of Eden.
“Alright, nice as this is we really need to be getting on the road,” the PDA was chirping off in Brick’s pocket, we knew it was sounding the hour.
“That’s four?” I asked, looking away from the view finder for a moment.
“Yeah,” he answered, inspecting the device. “And we’re barely a third of the way for the day.” I looked back to the camera to watch just as it powered off.
“Good timing, lets get the fuck out of here.”
Once we got back on to the main road, we cut north along the Lunarado river, watching get smaller and smaller as we went along. High walls dwarfed us on all on sides, and a murky green water flowed against us for miles. The striated cliffs eventually bowed to either side and gave way to a flat plain lands. These too melted away into foot hills of a great mountain in front of us.
Before it could get dark, we began to ascended this rocky mountain range. Steep grades to both directions beset us as we weaved in and out of slower freight traffic. In less than an hour we had reached an elevation of 10,000 feet over sea level. I’d have never known to check our altitude if my jaw didn’t feel two sizes too large all of a sudden.
“So we’re still taking the shortcut, right?” Brick leaned over, rubbing his eyes while he kept one hand on the wheel.
“It’s all we have directions for…I mean, I could-” I started.
“No, no. We’ll just use what we’ve got, there might be traffic on a Saturday night,” he cut me off.
“Alright, take a right in three exits.”
The canyon we pulled into turned out to be another death drive of a winding road. The darkness engulfing us suddenly cut off light from the stars and all Earthshine, making it utterly pitch black within the sheer walls. No street lights in here, the only illumination was from our headlights, which was absolutely negligent compared to the high beams shined upon us from every oncoming vehicle. Mantra: look to the other side, don’t take your eyes off the right line! After the second potentially fatal late night drive, we were glad to finally be at our destination of Crater, Luna.
This is when our directions turned on us. Crater is apparently a very un-google-friendly location, adding an extra hour of driving through the residential streets of this suburban community. It was a really nice place though, lots of trees and little houses that reminded me a lot of where I grew up. Though people seemed younger and more active; a lot of athletic gear on with back packs, and waterbottles, like everyone was constantly prepared for a hike.
We eventually found our hotel, after having to call a few relatives who were much closer to a computer screen. We checked into our room, near identical to the one we’d spent the night before in, but this one with the scars of murphy-beds on the wall and ceiling. We stole the same sample portions of hand soap and shampoo that we’d snatched from the last place and cursed those same unstealable coat hangers. Then we went out for some stoner pizza and passed out after gorging ourselves on it.
«←→»
When looking for a good place to eat breakfast, a tip is to see where the locals gather. In the middle of the rush, we looked for a slightly busy restaurant that bore the sign of a local crowd. The one we’d looked up on my workstation turned out to be stuck to the walls with yuppie, tourist families.
“45 minute wait? Yeah, put us down for two under ‘Pied’,” I said turning away from the host and nodding to Brick, who followed, slightly confused.
“Pied?” he asked me.
“Long story…ex-girlfriend.”
“Ah…so then we’re not going back. Alright, where to now?” he inquired.
“Uh, not sure. Let’s just keep walking, it’s a rather nice day,” I said, blindly leading the way through the town square.
Around us they were setting up for some sort of cultural festival that we had no interest in wasting our money at. There were a multitude of craft shops about, the same kind of wind chimes and iridescent knick-knacks we’d seen at every tourist town we’d passed since we’d left Mars. But here in downtown Crater, we also counted 5 boutiques specializing in athletic shoes with all sort of support and springs. A café around the corner had a patio filled with the same people you would expect to buy these shock absorbing sneakers. It also had prices that looked promising, so we entered eagerly.
When we got on the road late this morning, it was only a short roll through the industrial bit of Reiner. Crater is a suburb of the mile-high city, located within Reiner Gamma, and just about as far away from the metropolis as my hometown is from the capital of Earth. The city was an ugly smear of silver and grey that luckily disappeared quickly. In moments we saw the last of the mountainous terrain we would for days. The scenery flattened out, rocky outcroppings dissolving into rolling, grassy hills abruptly emerging to take their place.
“Get used to this. It’s all we’re going to be seeing for a while,” he muttered, glancing out his window.
“It’s just so gorking flat,” I was beginning to become disappointed with the moon.
“You know, it’s kinda like a huge wave function. The amplitude will steadily decrease and the wavelength stretch until there aren’t any more peaks to get in our way.” His mind was knee-deep in an old physics lesson.
“Kinda like a rubber ball bouncing half as high each time?” I interjected.
“Yeah, like that… but not so uniform.”
“And probably not in one direction either,” I attempted to correct myself.
“Nah, it’s actually pretty much a straight line from here. If I just set the cruise and avoid touching the steering wheel, we should be fine until the hotel,” he said confidently.
“Seriously?”
“No. We have to adjust our course at some point,” he half-scowled at me.
“Oh right,” I felt awkward for a moment. “Number one?” I asked as I retrieved the compact ashtray from the armrest compartment.
“Might as well, it’s not going to get anymore thrilling around here without it,” he confirmed, checking his phone and heavily sighing when he realized we hadn’t even been on the road for a solid hour.
“Who knows, today might be the most exciting,” I suggested.
Of course, it wasn’t. But what to expect that from boring, old Luna? The ‘seas’ of flat terrain stretching off for miles and miles were poorly named by early Earthling astronomers. Oceanus Procellarum, the so-called “Ocean of Storms” was superfluously devoid of anything worth observing, besides that Adult Superstore, of course–overly hyped by the hundred ads we saw along the way. And Mare Imbrium actually stood up to it’s name with a slight drizzle, meager as that was.
The most amazing spectacle all day was the rainbow we spotted before entering Mare Serenitatas. It was gigantic and endless, and seemed to avoid our pursuit for miles, running on ahead of us for the better portion of an hour. It was truly the biggest I’d ever seen in my life, as large as the limb of the Earth itself, which made an equally impressive sight as it too emerged, over the pale horizon. The rainbow suddenly vanished, as if we overcame it and passed it without noticing.
“Well that was sure neat while it lasted,” I lamented.
“Aghh!! We still have another 75 miles to go,” he growled angrily at the dashboard. “We need to get out of this god damn place.”
