Reno: the real West

This entry is part of my journal from Semester in the West. For all SITW journal entries, click here. For all SITW posts, including blog posts I wrote while on the program, click here. To learn more about the program, click here.

camp: outside Reno, Nevada

Finally, I feel like I’m in the West. I mean, we’ve been west since we left, but this is West. It’s a quality now, not a place. For me, West is defined by an awkward balance between wilderness and civilization, and I mean this on a purely personal level. When I’m in the West, I’m traveling in cars with iPods, a phone with patchy reception and sometimes a computer. I go through places with electricity, running water and free-standing houses. But I’m always half-wild—a shower within the last week and a half, but more than three days ago. A dirty, dusty sleeping bag to call home. I’m exploring, playing in the dirt and I’m in school, taking notes on forestry. I’ve grown to love these contradictions. A gas station stop on the way from A to B does nothing for me. But the same stop on a trip, a roadtrip in the West, holds so much promise. Bathrooms, not cat holes! Toilet paper! Candy! Mirrors! Everything is cause for celebration. Everything could be your last chance for a day or a week. Last chance for running water, for ice cubes, for processed snack food! And we pile back in the suburbans, still dirty, a bit tired, but so incredibly alive.