Morning at a rest stop in Montana (after a long drive that included a good view of the always-haunting-to-me spectre of the old Anaconda smelter stack, pictured above)…we pulled over near 9 p.m. last night to stop for the evening—I’d reached that point of exhaustion, after two nights of about six hours of sleep each, where I could barely be civil anymore. All I wanted to do was lie down, relax, and go to sleep. Earplugs in and blindfold on, I crashed into a weird dreamworld inspired by the television show Supernatural, in which I was a demon hunter, as was Kev, as was my neighbor, the musician. From this I awoke at 8:30 a.m., much refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to move on with our travels and the day.

Dumpy is so comfortable! And thank God, we stopped in Billings yesterday and got new tires—the old ones were cracked and practically worn through, and we were lucky to make it to Billings without a blowout. New tires on, we rolled onto the Interstate to start our journey, “toodling,” as we decided to put it, since this rig ain’t going fast anywhere. Jedi riding in the truck bed on the crash mat, drooling and panting everywhere but at least separated from us by panes of plexiglass and real glass, and Sassy chilling inside Dumpy, where she’s already much at home (helping herself to Jedi’s food at the moment, which he’s completely okay with).

Some hours later, pulling off here, and the only thing that woke me in the middle of the night was Sassy meowing on the benches; for some reason, she needs me to put her on the bed, not sure she’s allowed or something? Since it’s easy enough for her to crawl up there herself. I grabbed her and dumped her on the bed, and she curled up and went to sleep, as did I.

The smell of thick, fragrant piney evergreens saturates the air here, near the border of Idaho, and we’re out of the desert-ish landscape and into the more mountainous, higher elevations at the moment. Cold this morning here, turned the heater on and got it nice and warm here, despite Jedi’s suspicious glances and balks at the creaking metal panels belching out warmth for us. Made my coffee, and now we’re about ready to start our driving again…