Epic Trip Out West: Final Budget Stats

Hello from Missouri, my dear blog readers.

The past few days have been a tranquil madhouse of learning to Be Home for the first time in two months. Bits of cactus still working out of my skin— worried conversations with my mom— endless wardrobe choices— lunch dishes— the guts of my backpack spilled across my room— impossibly lush trees and grass— catching up get-togethers with best friends— muggy heat, distant Midwestern sun— all signs that I’m back home, if only for a couple weeks.

In these whirlwind days, I’ve taken the time to sort through my receipts and give you a run-down on my budget for my Epic Trip Out West. If you’ll remember, I had decided not to count the plane tickets to Denver and then Utah in my overall budget, but I’ve added them in just to give a fair account of the entire trip. Also take into consideration that I was given $36 from kind people on my trip, and I spent only about $10 of it. 

As you read these stats, keep in mind what I got to see for free: Zion Canyon, Antelope Island, Temple Square, Flaming Gorge Recreational Area, several concerts and a dance recital, a seminar on suburban gardening, Saguaro National Forest, Grand Canyon, Petrified National Forest, the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and the OU History of Science Library. That’s only listing the places and events— it didn’t cost anything to meet the awesome people who shaped my life forever.

So, with that in mind, here are the final stats for my Epic Trip Out West. 

Number of days on the road: 59

Total money spent on this trip: $841.91

Transportation: $523.50 (mostly Greyhound tickets: I walked where I could and only used the city bus once)

Food and supplies: $315.41 (I had trail mix, energy bars and a whole jar of peanut butter left over, and next trip I shall be sure to avoid the budget-breaking purchase of a book of stamps. Also, much of this is food that I bought Amanda to thank her for carpool in her RV.)

Entertainment: $3 (workshop on healthy cooking. Everything else was free or given to me.)

Lodging: $0

Average per day on transportation: $8.88

Average per day on food and supplies: $5.35

Average per day on lodging and entertainment: 5¢

Final average per day: $14.28

The point? I got to see the great American west on only $15 a day, including every single expense, with a few bucks to spare. I didn’t starve myself, I didn’t sleep in homeless shelters, I didn’t beg for money, and I didn’t put myself in danger. I was smart, sensible, hard-working, and accepting of the incredible gifts given to me on the road (with the intention of paying this generosity forward). I leave it up for you to decide: What could you do with $15 a day?

~Lisa Shafter

Epic Trip Out West: Day One

Something I’ve learned in my time of unconventional life choices: whenever you do something crazy, you need at least one naysayer to spur you on. People fear things they don’t understand, such as hostels, Greyhound buses, and the idea of a young woman traveling by herself. My well-wishing friends assure me that mugging, kidnapping, murder and rape lie in wait just around the corner of every trip, and perhaps if I watched the news, I’d become paranoid as well. But in the meantime I don’t stare at the reel of horror zapping across the boob tube, and instead I travel. I meet people, I meet places, I learn about the world and about myself. And I take a little piece of Home with me wherever I go, to share with the souls I encounter and remind myself who I am.

When I announced to the general populace that I was taking an Epic Trip Out West (from St. Louis) on $10 a day, everybody seemed to think I was perfectly capable of it. Lo and behold, I have developed a reputation as a “world traveler,” which is ironic, since I’ve never been out of the United States. At first, I felt accepted and happy. Soon, though, I got nervous. Where was the opposition? Where was the person telling me that I would end up dead on the side of the road or sold into the sex trade if I ventured out alone? I thrive under loving support, but much more nervously than if one or two key people are telling me I can’t do it.

At last, two days before I left, someone asked me, “Why are you going out west? I thought you were broke.”

“I am,” I said. “Sort of. I had just enough money for the plane ticket.”

“Yes, and then what?” she asked, her forehead knit with concern. “Will you have any money once you get out there?”

I shrugged. “Not really. Not much.”

She gave me the Face: a familiar expression that seems at first to say, “You’re crazy,” but really means, “I don’t understand.” All she said was, “Not the wisest decision of your life.”

I shrugged again, and relief flooded my thoughts. Going out west when taxes just knocked my bank account to its knees, taking a two-month trip at a time when stability at home is far from guaranteed— was it a wise decision? Maybe not! Maybe it wasn’t! But I knew, and I still know, that it was the right one.

I flew out to Denver with my challenge firmly in my mind: ten dollars a day. I decided to bite the bullet on the plane tickets to get me from St. Louis to Denver, then Denver to Salt Lake City. Those (and rent back home and health insurance) are the only expenses that won’t count. Everything else, I have to get by on $10 a day. Less, if I can help it.

Today, aside from my plane ticket and thanks to the generosity of my cousin, I have managed to spend exactly $0. Welcome to day one, dear reader. Welcome to my journey.

~Lisa Shafter

Happy 10 Years to The Traveling Mandolin!

Summit, Utah, 2011

St. Charles, Missouri, 2021

 A decade ago from last Monday, I sat down and typed out my first real blog post as The Traveling Mandolin:

Epic Trip Out West, Day Twenty-Five: A Battle of Wills

I’ve been away from St. Louis for three and a half weeks now, and at every turn, I see my picture of “out west” in a more dramatic manner. Today, the M’s took me on a road trip to see some of southern Wyoming’s landscape, and from the moment we left the familiar sight of white-siding-covered suburban homes, I found myself in an alien world.

Wyoming so far had struck me as huge piles of gray sand dotted with scrub and scoured with horizontal lines, but the scenery took on a life of its own as the van zipped out onto a highway surrounded by mountains and plateaus. “Vast” doesn’t even begin to describe the millions of acres of open range that spread out on either side of the road, ruled by cattle, deer, antelope, and a few cowboy souls brave enough to face the land and themselves under an omnipotent sky. The landscape rose and fell dramatically, marked with rock formations that resembled sand carved by a stream, or tremendous brick walls, or ancient statues corroded away by the wind. Bluish-gray scrub and olive-colored juniper trees, twisted and tough and squat, gripped the cliffs, bracing against the wind.

We paused at the edge of the Flaming Gorge Lake, bathed in sunlight that made the waters sparkle brilliant blue, as if it was the only colorful piece of landscape when the rest of the world was seen through a sepia filter. The lake trails its way down into Utah, branching off like a river, bringing life to a valley below the “high desert,” where the deer and the antelope play.

Leaving the lake behind for the moment, we climbed higher into the mountains. Hills of snow were piled up along the roads, and a misty group of clouds hovered around us, dipping down into the valleys, shrouding the distant mountains so they appeared in soft focus. We wound through miles upon miles of road with no sign of civilization other than the curving asphalt in front of us, past herds of white-tailed deer and between rugged cliffs.

I’m used to a certain kind of earth, covered in soil and clothed with forest and cornfield, where rivers flow freely and the sky and wind take little notice of what is happening below. Out here, the earth’s bones show through, jutting out of the silt like a skeleton raised to life. The sparseness is unnerving, and the sky hovers uneasily over the open ground, its clouds mirroring the jagged rocks beneath it. The wind is merciless, scouring down the stone with each passing year in a constant battle of wills, and the water is furtive, sneaking along in rills and creeks that carve the Grand Canyon before the rocks know what’s happened.

Our final destination was a lookout over the Flaming Gorge Reservoir, just past the Utah border, and I sat back in my seat and just breathed in the West— fir-covered mountains washed in snow, open pine forests with floors of tumbled rock, marmots and white-tailed deer picking their ways between the trees, moss and multicolored lichen and tough scrub bushes scraping out a living among the stones, and a vast canyon, bright red-pink even with an overcast sky, plunging down to a blue swatch of water, rich as molten metal.

On the way home, we got caught in a snowstorm that drove huge icy flakes against the windshield, wiping blank all the landscape around us. I gazed out the window, watching the snowflakes swarm by, and stared into a world of white. The snow, feeling inadequate, had decided to give the ground a good beating to remind it of its power.

I’m lost in this world of west, in a place where land and sky and wind and water are in constant tension, a place where if you look up too long, you’ll find that the sky has swallowed you up and you simply don’t exist anymore.

~Lisa Shafter

Money spent today: $0

Leeway so far: $186.05

Epic Trip Out West, Day Fifty-Three: Sunrise

May 28th

Not three hours after I fell asleep, I heard someone banging on the door and realized it was a cop throwing us out of the parking lot… and then I woke up. The trailer was dark, the wind blowing ominously outside. Jack was silent, which meant no one was nearby, so I rolled over and tried to get back to sleep. I had little luck until about 4:15… and we got up at 4:30 to see another daily phenomenon that we might not see again for a long time: sunrise on the Canyons.

Amanda has an amazing wake-up time: from fast asleep in bed to driving with perfect coherency took her less than two minutes. Groggy and glad I wasn’t driving, I sat in the passenger’s seat and zoned out. Fortunately, because of where we’d parked, the entrance was only a couple miles away. We ended up driving to a lookout called Grandview Point, which we only had to share with a handful of visitors. Amanda walked Jack while I found a slab to sit on, bundled up against the nighttime chill, and watch the flaxen sky for the reappearance of the sun. 

As I sat, I realized this was my last good view of the Canyon. Amanda was ready to hit the road again, and quite frankly, so was I: there were friends to see before I got home, and my time out west was winding down. The Canyon will always be there, and perhaps when I return my mind will be stronger, rebuilt from the sense of scale that has shattered my mind several times since I’ve been out west. In the meantime, I gazed out at the horizon, and felt the nippy breeze on my face, and waited for the sun.

The indigo nighttime retreated back into the canyons as the light grew stronger, and I watched it with eyesight that sometimes blurred with tiredness. But at last, gold overtook the blue and the sun leaped into the sky with a flood of vivid light. The light shook off the chill of the night and the wind felt warmer, as if to say to me, “Godspeed. Don’t worry, you’ll be back.”

And so I said goodbye to the Grand Canyon, and within the hour we had hit the road, with music blasting through the speakers, but barely to be heard over the sound and the rattle of the wind, one last parting shot from Arizona’s wonder of the world.

~Lisa Shafter

Epic Trip Out West, Day Thirty-One: Wake Up

Today, for the first time in a couple days, I took a walk. James had to make a run to the local bookstore, so I tagged along, taking the time to look presentable instead of the run-around-in-my-pjs look I’ve been having since I got sick. After he continued his errand running, I hung out at the bookstore for a while, then fashionably tousled my unbound hair, zipped up my hoodie low enough that it displayed the Watching Judas logo on my t-shirt, and strode out the door into windy sunshine with a bounce in my step, feeling very hardcore indeed. I love the feeling of emerging into the real world after holing up in sickness.

I trekked over to the Greyhound “station” (a tiny office tucked away in a strip mall) to purchase a ticket for Monday— I’m headed to Fort Collins, even though I haven’t quite figured out what I’ll do once I get there. This was the second ticket I booked today: I’m officially going to be on my way home from Norman, Oklahoma on the morning of June 2nd. It’s good to have a solid date of when I’m going home, at least in this point in my life. At my insecure moments it reminds me when I’m going to return, and at my fearful moments it reminds me that I must return.

The moment I stepped into the Greyhound office, wonderful memories of my trip to Florida wafted in, disguised as the smell of cigarettes and body odor. I actually like riding Greyhound— but that’s a blog in an of itself. The late-middle-aged woman at the Greyhound office desk wore a printed shirt that reminded me of nurse’s scrubs and had a tangible tension hovering about her. When I asked her how she was, she replied, “Trying to take deep breaths. Sometimes this job is scary as hell.” I laughed in sympathy, she gave me my ticket receipt, and again I was out the door.

As I was walking home, listening to DC Talk on my iPod, I began grinning like an idiot, as if often my habit when the sunshine lathers my skin and a brisk wind refreshes each breath. I also grinned because I’m in Wyoming, and because I’m out west, and because it’s incredible that I get to be here. 

That got me thinking, partly of my own volition, and partly in response to an essay by G.K. Chesterton. Isn’t every day amazing, regardless of where we are? Every day I wake up at home, I should take the time to remember… that I’m in Missouri, in a town called St. Charles that was settled by the French over two centuries ago, in a house that somebody took the time to build out of raw materials, surrounded by these insane plants that begin as tiny seeds and grow to be a million times their size by eating water and sunlight and dirt, and that I’m lacing up shoes that have carried me hundreds of miles, and that soap bubbles shimmer with rainbow colors, and that everyone around me is immortal, and that the computer I’m typing on right now is a marvel of engineering so incredibly advanced that no one in the past would ever believe it, and that there is gum stuck to the sidewalk, and that the squirrel scampering across the grass is descended from a creature that lived in the garden of Eden, and that the fragrance of cherry blossoms tickles my nose, and that I can eat an apple and my body turns it into energy, and that woodpeckers can split their tongues in half, and that there is this crazy thing in the world called Love.

Wow.

It’s too easy to forget, too easy to slump into a jaded acceptance of everything around us. Wake up, dear readers. Wake up, as I woke up today. Imagine the way the world would change if we’d only open our eyes and see.

~Lisa Shafter

Money spent today: $138

Leeway so far: $104.05

The Grand Gallivant: Arriving in Portland

(Before I get started, here’s a little preliminary info about our budget for the summer. Like my Epic Trip Out West in 2011, the basic budget for each day of travel is $10 per person. Unlike the ETOW, this budget is caused by necessity rather than choice— and as such, we’ll be willing to spend a bit more using “cheats” such as money from family and friends, old gift cards, and so on. I won’t be posting daily counts, although I hope to post a general budget at the end of the trip, seeing how our finances turned out, for those who are interested in such things. The main focus of the trip isn’t the budget, but maximizing our experiences with the resources we have.)

Our trip began with a delayed flight. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to wade through the lines to check our bags, tossing our backpacking packs on the conveyor belt, along with two huge suitcases that we were checking on Christian’s behalf (he was flying standby, and arrived in Portland several hours before we even reached the airport). It felt weird to have so many bags! Even without Christian’s luggage, we were packing heavier than I’ve packed since I traveled solo for the first time. But our trip is going to encompass so many different kinds of activities— namely, camping and farmwork— that we ended up packing what feels like an obscene amount of stuff. But now it was all packed away, and it was time to sit in the airport and wait. And wait.

We dined like princes, budget-style: almond-and-m&m trail mix from home, quesadillas cobbled together from some of the last ingredients in our fridge, and Starbucks coffee thanks to an old gift card. 

The days leading up to our departure had been so harried that the excitement hadn’t hit me at all; I was lost in a flurry of details, just wishing that the packing and planning were over. And now at last, here they were.

Our first flight was an hour delayed, and by the time we arrived at our layover in Las Vegas (11:30pm central time), we were both exhausted. We soon realized that our second flight was delayed by an additional two hours.

And so I slept in an airport for the first time! I tied a bandana over my eyes, snuggled into Zach’s jacket (the air conditioning was blasting in there), and curled up on the carpet, tuning out the sounds of flight announcements and the rattle and bing-bang of slot machines. Turns out I was able to sleep for nearly an hour.

We arrived in Portland at 2:30am Pacific time (4:30 central), and Zach’s dad Gary woke up in the middle of the night to come pick us up. We crashed hard that night!

Yesterday, despite being kind of sleepy and out of it, we (Zach, Christian, and I) managed to pack in a lot! We hung out with Zach’s family, then took a hike up to Multnomah Falls. all the way to an outcropping of rock called Angel’s Rest, where we caught a great view of the Columbia Gorge. Christian sprained his ankle on the way down from there, but we met some nice women who gave Zach and me a hitch back to our vehicle so Christian wouldn’t have to walk the last three miles on the road. (He’s been icing his ankle ever since, and we have high hopes it’ll be back to normal in a couple days.) 

Today is our errand day, where we buy a month’s worth of shelf-stable food and some last-minute supplies, although we’re hoping to make some time to show Christian around Portland a little bit. Then tomorrow we head out for Yellowstone. I can hardly wait!

Hope you have a wonderful week, and I’ll write again when I can.

Cheers!
Lisa

Epic Trip Out West, Day Thirty: Tug of Home

I have officially been out west for a month, and today has been suitably stressful to commemorate the occasion. I was 1,117 miles from home, passed out in my bed trying to sleep off my cold, when back in good ol’ Missouri my family was aflurry with panic and rushing my dad to the ER— again. Although common sense tells me I wouldn’t be much more help at home than I am in Wyoming, I feel a tug on my heart tonight. I love being out west, and I love travel, but just for one night, I wish I could hold my mom in my arms and tell her, with my undying optimism, that it’s all gonna be okay.

~Lisa Shafter

Epic Trip Out West, Day Fifty-Four: Albuquerque

May 29th

My overall impression of New Mexico was that I have never paid enough attention to it. For some reason, in my head it was a desolate landscape of nothingness with a couple of cacti and cattle skulls. I’m not sure how this image ever came into my head, because New Mexico’s landscape often reminded me of home: craggy limestone cliffs pockmarked with caves, and rolling plain with clumps of trees to signal the presence of water. Of course, there was sand instead of grass, and aridness instead of humidity, but all in all it bore an inner life that I would like to explore more someday.

We rolled into Albuquerque’s historic district around one in the afternoon. The hot sun beat down on the adobe buildings, giving us the cue to dress like smart tourists: I pulled my hat down, slathered sunblock on my face, and wore a sarong over my shirt to cover my shoulders, which were lightly sunburned from half an hour of sunlight the day before. The next few hours we wandered around, sometimes together, sometimes apart. I ate ice cream (I counted it the three dollars as “splurge money” still left from a gift given to me in Utah), called my sister, and hung out in the town square marveling that there were deciduous trees and grass. The buildings were eclectic and old-looking in the most well-kept way possible, color-coordinated into a sweeping Southwest theme. I enjoyed details that kept showing up in the motif, such as bouquets of dry chili peppers hanging from doorways, and wooden and clay working in harmony to create the flat-roofed buildings. I talked to an artist who sat outside his store, bringing a prickly-pear cactus to life with acrylic on canvas. He was from Michigan, he said, but moved to New Mexico because it was the best place he’d found. “It’s the people,” he said. “The people here are great. I’ve never found anywhere like it.”

Musicians were also stationed throughout the area, and I listened to a group of Navajo flute players, who delighted me both with traditional songs and classical (such as “Time to Say Goodbye,” which made me cry). Then I found an accordionist sitting on the gazebo, talking to a group of about fifty nuns and postulants clustered around him on the stage. Then he began to play Amazing Grace, and all the sisters joined in. I promptly sat down on a nearby park bench and joined in the singing; I had missed church that morning, so it was a welcome blessing. Next they sang “When the Saints Go Marching In” and danced around the gazebo, hands held to the sky, some waving their wooden crosses in the air, some clapping with better rhythm than I have ever heard from a Catholic (or Lutheran or Presbyterian, for that matter). It was good to be reminded that nuns can have fun, too.

Around five, we drove to Nob Hill, a section of Route 66 that stays alive through tourism. We walked around and talked about politics and education and the war in Iraq and socialism and propaganda and a host of other subjects, weaving in and out of the southwest murals, kitschy shops, and restaurants converted from old gas stations and auto-repair centers. We paused to explore a dead motel, still garnished with metal and tile decorations, its doors boarded up with copper numbers hanging sadly on the wood. 

I bought Amanda supper one last time to thank her for her time, her company, her generosity, and the use of her RV, food, driving ability, and National Parks pass. Without her, I wouldn’t have been able to visit the Grand Canyon on this trip. We sat down at Orchid Thai Cuisine and ordered different kinds of curry, and when we had finished feasting on our respective dinners (mine included bamboo shoots, noodles and bell peppers in coconut milk with green curry), we headed back to the RV.

After much misdirection, nearly running out of gas, and making a few wrong turns, we ended up at the Greyhound station, which looked as deserted as a southern Arizona landscape. So it was that I was stressed when I gave Amanda one last hug and rushed out the door, only to find the station alive and well. I got my ticket, I boarded the bus, and I was off to Oklahoma City, leaving the Grand Canyon part of my Epic Trip behind me in the sand.

~Lisa Shafter

Money spent: $20.22 (supper)

Deficit: $153.31

Epic Trip Out West, Day Fifty-Five: Oklahoma City

May 30th

I spent a fairly sleepless night on the bus, even though the middle-aged woman sitting next to me was quiet and pleasant, with well-tamed hair, fake eyelashes, and a t-shirt stretched tight over her bosom that read “Look But Don’t Touch” (in the morning, she read a King James Bible borrowed from another passenger, which I thought was an interesting dichotomy). No, my reason for sleeplessness were long layers at regular intervals, most notably in Amarillo at 4:30 to 6:00am. Finally, I drifted off into a shallow but adequate sleep, and when I woke up and looked out the window to get my bearings, my heart sang for joy. I saw a field, and in that field was grass. It was green. It looked like it was healthy. And here’s the kicker: it was growing entirely on its own!

Only then did I realize that a mere week and a half in the southwest had left me starved for a landscape that looked like home. I was euphoric at the sight of grass, and even more as the scenery developed: winding streams, groves of deciduous trees, wide stretches of cultivated land that actually didn’t look like they were about to die. The sky was full of fluffy gray clouds, offering the possibility of rain, and the land gently rose and fell, without a hint of spectacular cliffs or unexpected canyons. I was getting back in range of home, and that made me immeasurably happy.

Who can resist taking photos with a paint-splattered bison?

My Uncle Kerry and Cousin Rachel picked me up from the Greyhound station, and I fairly melted into the seat, feeling the comfort of lifelong friends wrap around me like a blanket— the Magruders aren’t actually related to me (except for a distant ancestor in the 1800s), but they’ve been some of the most supportive family I’ve ever had. Uncle Kerry first checked to be sure I wasn’t too tired to do some sightseeing, and I assured him I’d crash later. We were off to explore Oklahoma City.

We spent most of our time in Bricktown, a former ghetto that transformed into a charming historic district with a clear canal running through the middle. We walked along the water, and I exclaimed with delight when I saw two mallards and their ten fluffy little ducklings (I also exclaimed with delight every time I saw grass, and once when I took a breath and realized that air was humid). Uncle Kerry took us to Abuelo’s Mexican Restaurant for lunch, a building with three-story ceilings, waiters who dressed in all-black uniforms, and a delightful southwestern motif. The chicken and avocado enchiladas didn’t stand a chance against my appetite, and neither did the coconut-flavored frozen yogurt at the Peachwave we visited afterward. 

Given a few options, I decided upon the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. Uncle Kerry used his membership pass to get us in for free, and then we set off to make sense of the massive winding halls. He directed us to the art gallery, and for at least an hour we explored it, savoring each piece of western-inspired art, both old and new. 

My favorite painting was a one-by-two foot canvas of the Grand Canyon, created by a modern artist. A common compliment for a realistic painting is “It looks just like a photograph!”, but I have never liked that one— it’s like saying, “This homemade cake tastes just like it came out of a box!” This painting looked nothing like a photograph, even though it was unquestionably realistic. A photo can never capture the essence of the Grand Canyon, but this painting did. Arrested by the transcendence of the image, which put me back on the South Rim staring out at the majesty of stone and time, I stared at the painting and felt my eyes brimming with tears. I had been there. I had actually been there, and perhaps for the first time, that fact came home to me.

The museum contained a lot more than art: one of the sections was the set of an old west town, complete with a school, barber shop/doctor’s office, church, blacksmith, telegraph office, and a few more buildings fully furnished with 1800s supplies. The town was lit up as if at night, and recordings of noises and conversations drifted through the air. The uneven floorboards even creaked under our feet as we walked.

The final exhibit we saw were five triptych panels in a massive conference room. When Uncle Kerry and Rachel talked about “the murals,” I imagined a typical wall covered in images. Instead, I stared up at the triptychs whose side panels were 10 by 16 feet, and whose center panels were 16 feet square. Each of the murals was a landscape painting of a southwestern state, huge and bold and stunning in a twofold way: first for the image itself, and then for the transcendent painting style. I wandered the room with my mouth wide open, seeing an image from each of the states I had visited: Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Arizona (I appreciated the one for California as well, even though I didn’t visit there on this trip). Here, near the end of my trip, I was presented with massive postcards to remind me of where I had been and what I had seen. Though my journey has a couple days left, I’ve already accomplished the main thing I set out to do: see the west.

~Lisa Shafter

Money spent: $0

Deficit: $143.31

Epic Trip Out West, Day Thirty-Seven: Colorado Springs

Today has been a leisurely stroll through the hours, wandering around Colorado Springs, popping in and out of coffeeshops, sitting on park benches reading “The Hobbit,” buying stamps and sending out letters, eating a ridiculously large double hot-dog topped with a gallon of chili, and finally meeting Beki, the owner of the farm where I’m going to be volunteering for the next week.

The drive from Colorado Springs to Cañon City gave me a panorama view of Colorado in all its glory: a tapestry of mountains, cobalt in the distance and russet dotted with evergreen in the foreground, with ruffled cumulus clouds overshadowing them. Behind the nearest “foothills,” I caught glimpses of the snowy peaks that entranced me when I first came out west. Even after more than a month out here, I still get chills when I see the Rockies.

~Lisa Shafter 

Money spent today: $17.92 (acai-blueberry-pomegranate shake, book of stamps, and massive hot dog)

Leeway so far: $75.11

Epic Trip Out West, Day Eleven: Antelope Island, Temple Square

Today was a day for tourism, again thanks to Naaman, this time with his sister, Trieste. We piled into his tan car and sailed off for Antelope Island under a sky washed with cumulus clouds. Antelope Island is a nature reserve, a haven for bison, pronghorn deer, and a host of birds. We drove out to the island on a road built on a levy, with stretches of the Great Salt Lake’s water reflecting sky and snowy mountains on either side. 

The Great Salt Lake is the remnant of a prehistoric lake that spanned most of western Utah back in the day. Fed by three mineral-rich rivers (the Jordan, Weber, and Bear), the lake only loses water through evaporation, so the water gets saltier every year. The largest creatures that inhabit its cloudy waters are brine shrimp the size of fingernail clippings. These, coupled with vast amounts of brine flies, draw a host of birds. Avocets, black-and-white wading birds with orange shoulder and upturned bills, feed in the shallows while American coots, duck-like birds with black plumage and white bills, paddle around in the deeper areas. “Deeper” is a relative term— although the Great Salt Lake covers 1,700 square miles, on an average year it barely gets deeper than 30 feet.

The visitor center boasted a dizzying amount of information (Antelope Island contains rocks older than the bottom of the Grand Canyon, apparently), but my favorite part was a clip from a silent film shot on location on the island. Mostly a bloodbath of bison hunting and dramatic scenes of pioneers getting caught in quicksand, it contained such thought-provoking dialogue (written neatly in white Times font) such as “If Brigham Young, the Mormon leader, could get out west with all them wives, then I can sure ‘nough do it with my wagons!” We also visited a working cattle ranch with historical buildings that showed the history of the ranch from the first white settlers in the mid-1800s up until present day.

Our day wasn’t done yet, and we left Antelope Island behind for our next destination, Salt Lake City. The city name is deceptive— I expected it to have a waterfront, but it’s set far away from the lake itself, probably because the size of the lake fluctuates so much from year to year.

After supper at a fast-food restaurant called Greek Slouvaki, we headed to Temple Square. The LDS temple is a huge white stone building, a mix of castle and cathedral-like architecture that focuses more on geometrical beauty than ornate decoration. Loud tourists with cameras and LDS missionaries with name tags bearing the flag patterns of their home countries clip-clopped along the sidewalks beside neatly-planted flower beds. Our tour guides were two young women from Finland and Taiwan, respectively, and I couldn’t pronounce either of their names. They led us up a spiraling ramp inside the visitors’ center to a room painted floor to sloping ceiling with breathtaking murals of a night sky wreathed with clouds, planets and stars. In the middle of the room, sharp white against the backdrop, stood a twelve-foot marble statue of Jesus, his arms spread wide, his face, Arian and Roman-nosed, gazing down at a row of benches where tourists and pilgrims alike sat in contemplation.

By this time the sisters, as everyone called them, had discovered that I was Protestant (I usually just refer to myself as “Christian,” but so do the people of LDS), so they focused on sharing their testimonies with me. I always answered as neutrally as possible. We marveled at the acoustics of the tabernacle (you could clearly hear a pin drop from a hundred feet away) and I took pictures of the organ that boasted over 11,000 pipes. In the south visitors center, a to-scale model of the temple gave me an outsider’s view into its hotel-like furnishings, and my cultural sensitivity went out the window when I asked Trieste, “Why are there cows in the basement?” (The oxen around the baptismal fount represent the Twelve Tribes of Israel.)

After a tour of the LDS conference center, we wandered out into the nighttime air and back to Temple Square. We looked up at the temple, flooded with lights. A hazy moon, nearly full, hovered beside the white edifice. I’ve never seen the man in the moon: she has always been a woman to me, her eyes dark and shadowed, her mouth open in a wail of horror. The temple was silent, and around us, Salt Lake City dwindled to shadows, with nothing but the soft rush of cars of the murmur of tourists, settling in for the night like birds.

~Lisa Shafter 

Money spent today: $10.12

Leeway so far: $60.22

Epic Trip Out West, Day Fifty-Six: Rivendell

The transition from travel to home is often jarring, a change in metaphorical (and sometimes literal) temperature so abrupt that I often find myself curled up on my bed unable to function for the first few days back in St. Charles. Hence, I’m grateful when I get a chance to taste home just before I actually reach it, to find the first homely house from my journey in the wild. This happened on my last trip to Florida, when my best friend drove to meet me in Nashville on the way home. Without those days of hanging out, I would have been dysfunctional for a week or more upon my return, but thanks to her, it was a smooth transition. I’m hoping the same to be true of this trip, only this time, that segue is courtesy of the Magruder family.

In a much earlier blog, I mentioned that I meet lots of friends on my trips, but never family. Now, I’m back with the extended family I’ve known all my life, and for the first time since I left home, I feel myself letting down the careful boundaries that I put up when I travel. I’m not a guarded person, generally, but I have a part of my mind that constantly tries to maintain my balance, to make sure my feet are firmly planted on the ground. How does that worldview conflict with my own, and what can I learn from it? How will this particular small action affect the way other people understand who I am? How exactly does our theology differ? What paradigm do I take for granted that they don’t? What do they mean by “the meaning of life,” and how is it similar and different to my own definition? That part of my mind gets tired, and usually takes a break when I’m alone. However, there are few greater comforts than, after a long absence, coming into the presence of people who actually Know you— your past, your personality, your parents, your perspective. For the first time in eight weeks, I can completely let down my guard.

Last night, the whole family— Uncle Kerry and Aunt Candace, Rachel and her husband Stephen, Hannah, and Susanna— sat around the dinner table and asked me questions about my travels. I gave lengthy answers between bites of hot dogs and baked beans and salad, knowing that they actually wanted to hear “the long version” of my trip. I’m already rehearsing the answer I’ll give back home to most people who ask how my trip was: “Eye-opening.” If people want to know more, they’ll ask. Otherwise, the single-word answer will satisfy them. 

Right now, I’m sitting in a spacious living room with huge windows looking out into a forest (an actual forest, with trees— deciduous trees— and grass, and the air’s a bit humid— oh! did I mention the grass?). I’m curled up on an overstuffed chair, rocking gently with my feet bare against the finely-textured tile, wearing shorts and a clean borrowed t-shirt while the rest of my clothes are in the wash. I spent the whole day catching up on my blogs, working hard but at a leisurely pace. The Magruders have given me the chance to gather my thoughts, to consolidate all the themes that have run through my life in the past eight weeks. I have one more full day tomorrow, and then on Thursday, refreshed with a Rivendell along the way, I’m heading back to the Shire.

~Lisa Shafter

Money spent today: $0

Deficit: $133.31

Epic Trip Out West, Day Fifty-Eight: There and Back Again

June 2nd and 3rd

“There is a long road yet,” said Gandalf.

“But it is the last road,” said Bilbo.

The final day of my Epic Trip Out West is a blur of color and memory, verdant, gritty, shot through with a headache that split down the roots of my neck into my whole body. A final walk of the OU campus with Aunt Candace amid the humid air: statues cast in bronze, vivacious dancer, giant half-submerged in grass with hands behind his head, Cherokee warrior with serenity written in his hawklike features. Weeping willow strands. Rose garden, vibrant blossoms without any smell. Final goodbyes, hot concrete curb at the gas station, chewing on a banana-bread energy bar. 

Right on time, the Greyhound arrived, with its gray seats and its gray floors and the man with I LOVE JESUS stitched onto his ball cap, who sat next to me. Michael was his name. Michael was a preacher, he said, talking to me through a grizzled white beard that almost glistened against his skin the color of coffee grounds. He was going to write a book and found the title in St. Louis when he was thrown in prison for being a troublemaker. “They took all my clothes and threw me in the cooler,” he said. “And I was curled up, butt-naked, and that’s when it came to me: ‘The Butt-Naked Truth.’ That’s the title of my book. That’ll get folks’ attention.” He gestured with his hands as he spoke, leathered but with a silken quality, etched with thin lines of mocha-colored flesh. We talked from Norman to Oklahoma City, and before we left he clasped my pale hands in his dark ones and prayed that God would grant me a safe journey, guidance in my life, and a young man who would be my husband.

The twelve hours that followed (it was only supposed to be ten) grow even blurrier in my mind, with splashes of vivid memory. Joe, a middle-aged man with a sneering smile and a booming voice, sat at the front of the bus and talked at everyone around him. “I only follow the Bible,” he said. “Not a word added, not a word taken away. I only follow the Bible.” He then went on to misquote and add extravagantly: “God says, ‘David scourged you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions.’ That’s what he’s doing in Joplin right now. The wrath of God. Scourging us with scorpions, leveling out the field… I don’t take no money. Money is the root of all evil. If you’re taking money for your ministry, then you’re cursing God. You don’t wanna curse God. If anyone insults my God, I defend him. This lady I talked to, she said her God wouldn’t cause the tornadoes and the earthquakes. I said, ‘Well your God might not, but my God does, and who’s gonna stop him?… All religions are right, they’re all good. ‘Every knee will bow…’ When God came into my life, it was a total change, overnight, 360 degrees.” He also mentioned that Jesus was incarnate at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and that the Americas are what God is referring to in the Bible when he mentions “Jacob.”

One of my first sights of Missouri after nearly two months on the road was Joplin, a town ravaged by the recent tornados, the houses splintered to fragments, facing torn off, siding thrown all about: a heap of misery that I had never seen before. Joe got fidgety as we approached his stop, slavering like a dog on a short leash. He was eager to preach his Gospel to the people of the city, to let them know why they should be grateful for everything that they had lost.

For the whole journey from Oklahoma City to St. Louis, Heather and her three-year-old son Aaron sat in front of me. Heather was petite, despite the appearance of her baggy Mountain Dew pajama pants, with a t-shirt and blonde-highlighted hair. She was beautiful when she smiled, with catlike eyes and a glow about her face, but she looked worried ninety percent of the time. This was because she was deaf, and had to rely on the people around her to figure out what the bus driver was announcing, and couldn’t tell that her son was making noise and disturbing people unless she was looking right at him (and sometimes not even then). I could only finger-spell, but she gave me a smile of gratitude for the only person in range who could at least speak fragments of her language. Later, she and another mother used their cell phones to show each other typed messages— the best use of texting I’ve ever seen. She could speak her son’s name, with an artificial sound that told me she had been deaf all her life: “eh-Rahn!” she would exclaim when he acted up, rolling her R with impressive dexterity.

For a while, I became happily lost in the scenery that flew by the window, and I was reminded once again that Missouri is truly beautiful. The landscape undulated in subtle hills and bluffs, clothed in trees in a million shades of green, exquisite, thriving from the rainy spring. Limestone cliffs often hugged the highway, Missouri’s grand canyons overshadowing the river of the road. I forgot my headache for a while and I intermittently watched the scenery and read the final chapters of The Hobbit. My eyes stung with tears as I read the ending, even as I approached the ending of my own journey.

My bliss, however, was short-lived. The bus was packed from Joplin to St. Louis, ever taking on more passengers until there was only one seat left, and this was a noisy group. I was hemmed in by children— behind, in front, and two to the side— and the parents all seemed to think that slapping their children was the best way to make them quiet, which was not, as you can imagine, the best idea. A couple rows behind me, an ignorant close-minded conservative and an ignorant close-minded liberal started up a barely-controlled shouting match about homosexuality. My ears buzzed, my head throbbed, but none of the conversations were close enough for me to interject the comments that pounded at my thoughts. I plugged in my earphones, clapped my hands over them, and tried to bury myself in music. Snatches of songs wound through the conversations I still heard through my fingers, from behind and in front.

Some may pray to their mirrors, some may kneel before the sun. Me, I say there’s a mirror in the heart of everyone…

“So if Eve was created from Adam, that means they were related. That means the Bible says incest is okay!”

And on my best behavior, I am really just like him. Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid…

“I’ve always just thought, if the Good Lord wants my husband to beat me, then I have to be okay with that.”

I hope you understand that I, tried to make a move just to stay in the game, I tried to stay awake and remember my name, but everybody’s changing and I don’t feel the same…

“Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. When you read the Bible, it all becomes clear.”

There’s a road, calling you to stray. Step by step, pulling you away. Under moon and star, take the road, no matter how far. The Road goes on…

The last few hours were an agonizing wait marked with flashes of light, low cloud cover, and children screaming as the fight about homosexuality turned to religion in general. For perhaps the first time, I realized why people don’t like riding Greyhound. I just wanted the ride to be over. I wanted to be home.

The last half hour was torture. The landscape was familiar as my own face, and yet we weren’t to the airport stop yet. Finally, finally— we pulled up to a parking lot lit with harsh florescents. Everyone asked if this was the downtown St. Louis stop, and I grabbed my bags and rushed off the bus.

I stood alone under the street lamps, listening to the roar of traffic, the sidewalk painted golden-orange with the buzzing lights. Then I pulled out my cell phone, and dialed home.

My friend Ryan drove to pick me up, along with my sister Mary and my mom. I collapsed into the seat, feeling off-balance, hearing and feeling their greetings through water. I acted like a stoner the rest of the night, as I saw the rest of my family, felt the familiar countertops and tabletops, warmed up some chicken in my favorite iron skillet, smelled the fragrance of home on every chair and nook of the house, and felt the stickiness of the St. Louis air on my skin. I crawled into the bed I had slept on before I left home, and I remembered no more.

Today, I woke up at 6:00am to get ready for a friend’s wedding. I walked to my dresser and opened up a drawer. I stared at the dozens upon dozens of clothes combinations I could try, all with clean clothes, and the possibilities dazzled me. I grabbed a pair of torn jeans decorated with phrases in several languages, written in Sharpie by my sister three months ago. I pulled on a purple shirt that didn’t have holes in it, that hadn’t lived through a Greyhound ride, that didn’t smell like stale socks. For a moment, I just stood— in my room, in my house, in my state, in my Midwest— and felt my clothes on my body. Clean. The feeling of home. The feeling of a weary traveller come to rest at last.

~Lisa Shafter

(Final stats on the trip’s budget coming soon.)

Song quotes, in order of appearance:

A Mirror in the Heart by Duncan Sheik

John Wayne Gacey, Jr. by Sufjan Stevens

Everybody’s Changing by Keane

The Road Goes On from Lord of the Rings: The Musical

Epic Trip Out West, Day Fifty-Two: Kaibab Trail

May 27th

Amanda and I got off to an intentional late start that Friday: we both were worn out from the day before, not only from sheer physical activity, but from the overwhelming feel of the canyons, the sensory overload of something so much bigger and older than ourselves. She smoked a bowl of weed, I charged my electronics, Jack brought his tennis balls to me so I could throw them down the narrow RV hallway for him to chase, and then we were off again on the hour-long commute to the canyons.

After arriving at the park, we ate some trail mix sandwiches before hopping the free shuttle to our destination: the Kaibab Trail, which winds a strenuous path all the way down to the river, a good 16 or so miles. Amanda and I, however, understanding our limitations, decided to opt for the rest area a mile and a half down. Loaded up with water (I had two bottles and she had a gallon for us to share) and trail mix, we picked our way between a construction site and began the zigzagging descent into the Canyon itself. 

Again, the weather was perfect: stark sunlight, a bracing wind, and a vivid sky broken only by a few clouds on the horizon. The trail was covered in pebbles and pinkish-colored dust, a combination that exercised our reflexes and adrenal systems— there are few things more exciting than your feet slipping out from under you next to a hundred-foot cliff. Still, it was easy to walk downhill (carefully avoiding the mule droppings), and immediately we were treated to a vista of the canyons, framed by ragged cliffs on either sides. Occasionally I looked up at the canyon walls that soon soared above us, but I easily got vertigo, and had to watch my footing.

We descended about a mile and a half worth of trail, an elevation drop of 1140 feet. The path hugged the canyon wall, shaded only occasionally by a tough little tree or two. We reached a flat spot at the 1.5-mile mark, scattered with trees living and dead, slabs of boulders, and tourists hoarding the shady spots for picnics. Amanda and I hung out in the sun and talked to a woman who lived in New Zealand (but originally came from Germany) who was on a year-long trip around the world. She was 45 years old, and had quit a teaching job for her trip. “There is no perfect time to go on a trip like this,” she said, munching on a Clif bar. “You just have to go.”

The hike back up was, as expected, grueling. We chugged nearly the entire gallon, and I began to feel a little shaky, and remedied this with almonds and the shade of one of the cliff faces. The sun is a slow killer, even in the spring: I can’t imagine visiting the canyon in its summer zenith. 

We reached the trailhead at a reasonable hour, and both agreed it was time to get some real food. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, then strolled toward the shuttle in search of another sunset.

This time, we decided to head toward Hopi Point, the most popular sunset spot. We ended up going on to Mohave Point instead, because the entire bus emptied when we made the Hopi Point stop. Mohave is a limestone outcropping with a few metal railings between the tourists and the canyon edge, and I sat next to one of these with a handful of quiet tourists, and watched the sun make its daily journey to meet the horizon.

The sunset was much like the one before: how I could describe the difference in the tapestry of light between one place in the canyons and another, I don’t know. We watched, and we enjoyed, and we watched condors circling in the evening-lit sky and took pictures of the way the sunbeams played in the canyons, last vestiges of playfulness before the menacing vivacity of the night. The most stunning moment of the evening, however, was just after the sunset. Stratus clouds glowed with molten gold, and below them, the thin ribbon of the Colorado River lit up in the same color. I stared at the reflections of the sun, above and beneath. “And God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters, to separate water from water…’”

The shuttle bus back to the visitor’s center was so crowded, the tourists were crammed together like pickles in a jar. I held onto the smooth metal overhead railing and listened to the accents and foreign languages of the people around me, smelled their sweat, which should have stunk, but instead smelled wholesome, like a remnant of sunlight. Outside, the air grew dark, and the shuttle windows became glossy black, and my feet began to throb. Another day at the canyons, another set of memories that my mind couldn’t comprehend. Once again, we drove out of the park in the darkness, but this time, we weren’t headed back to Koa. But that’s a story for my next blog.

~Lisa Shafter