We were the only people in a Kaiser pharmacy designed to
handle several hundreds in a day, so we expected to be in and out of there
quickly. Seven in the morning didn't figure to be a busy time; the prescription
offered nothing of consequence to prepare, but the staff there demonstrated the
style of relaxed effort one associates with Post Office drones. They carried on
with a lighthearted banter amongst themselves behind the counter, wasting
little energy as they pretended to be busy. We sat in our chairs. Time passed.
More time. Even more.
Oh, they were so cheerful. One....two....three pills....
Working, working, working. See, we're working.
Count the pills. Put the pills in the vial. Let the computer
print a label. I've done that. I've done that a few thousand times. Every year.
I know what it takes. They must be paid by the hour. It was early in the day in
a hospital pharmacy, so no doubt they were tasked with first assembling the
morning doses for all those folks in the beds upstairs. They had all night to
do that, but likely some doctors were late with their orders. Time pressure on
folks only interested in not breaking a sweat. Five pills for room 213 bed A.
Three for 309, B. Don't give the anticoagulant anymore to the guy in 145 who
has the bleeding ulcer, so take the time to read the directions on the computer
screen. Oh, sooooo much to do. Can't stop to fill the prescription for those
two sitting out there. Anonymous, insignificant people. Let them wait.
That…. is real power.
Forty-five freaking minutes waiting for one prescription.
Good thing our time meant nothing. Good thing we weren't in a hurry. I watched
as the spider wove the web extending from my knee to the chair beside me. Back
and forth. Back and forth. The fly was caught and the spider leisurely finished
breakfast. Grass sprouted. Steel rusted somewhere. Mountains grew taller.
The limited time remaining in my life diminished palpably.
We were not cheerful. Cranky bordering on desperate might
better describe. Those people were burning our precious vacation time.
We'd hit the pharmacy on the way out of town. We REALLY
wanted to get out of town. It was well past time for a vacation, and we churned
that in our core. Too much pathos and tragedy. Too many people sucking the
energy out of us. For too long. We needed a break. We NEEDED a vacation. We
wanted it NOW! We really were not interested in listening to the cheerful
banter of the very people who were preventing us from leaving town. They were
building the Berlin Wall out of little pills, locking us away from freedom. We
did not like those people.
Walking quickly out to the car, we looked up at the mountain
trying to inject some calm and beauty into our morning. The first morning of
our vacation.
The East County was once a pleasant place, an expanse of
farms, pastures, orchards. Now it is a sea of roofs as far as the eye can see.
Identical roofs. Every intersection has a Starbucks, a Subway, a hamburger
place or two. The shopping center over there is considered a destination resort
by the local ants.....I mean, residents. Like, wow! It has an In and Out AND
Trader Joes. Movin' on up to the East Side.
The hospital pharmacy is on one edge of this scourge of
suburban sprawl. Our job, should we choose to accept it was to negotiate our way
out the other side.
Every intersection sports a set of traffic lights. There are
several intersections. On this Saturday morning few
vehicles sullied the scene. The road was wide open. We headed east. We should
have easily escaped.
First gear, second, third...stop for light. First gear,
second, third...stop for light. Repeat as necessary. Thanks, clever traffic
engineers. I could sense our freedom out there somewhere, but I could not get
there from here. First gear, second, third...stop for light. Every freaking
light. A thousand stoplights. My fingers were bleeding as I scrambled up the
hill only to slide back down. They've turned this place into hell.
We finally reached the Bypass.
Some folks think all this development is a good thing. I’m
happy for them. I think the Bypass is a good thing. The Bypass lets me,
uh...bypass the East County.
We crossed the bridge, heading north beside the river.
“Have you noticed? We haven't stopped for a stoplight for a
while.”
“There aren't any stoplights up here.”
“Yeah! That's it.”
Once past Reno heading east, I could feel the cloak of
oppression slip from my shoulders. Works this way every time. Behind us...Too
many cities. Too many people. Too much civilization wears me down. Love the
damn job, but it also wears me down. In front, as we left Reno in the dust, is
all that nothing.
I like nothing. Ergo, I like driving across Nevada.
There is nothing there.
This was so good.
The little German car tripped along on cruise control, just
a smidge beyond the speed limit. Nevada. Nothing but open road, mountains and
endless long vistas, blue sky with entertaining clouds, the colors of desert in
the autumn. The mountains were tipped with snow. The rabbit brush was yellow
and all over the place. The aspen groves on the mountainsides were golden. The
cottonwoods in the drainages had turned. We saw another vehicle every once in a
long while. Hwy 50. The loneliest road in the nation.
Perfect.
Ely is only a short nine hour drive from home, but it seemed
like the end of the world. The understatement of all time: Ely did not look,
feel, nor act like...California. It proved we were on vacation. Cheap old
motel. Decent take out Chinese food. Early to bed, and early to rise.
We awoke to a cold damp overcast hovering over the small,
quiet town. We would be “in between” for the bulk of this day, so I topped off
the tank with diesel. Still heading east. The first snowfall began in the first
hour of driving. Climbing into the sparse juniper/pinyon pine zone that we love
so much, we watched it snow. We were in heaven.
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, we came to a fork. We
chose one.
We drove past the entrance to Great Basin National Park.
Hadn't been up that road into the hills since 1979 and would have liked to do
it that day, but the sign said, “Closed because of Tantrum”. Or something like
that. Seems somebody elected a president who doesn't deserve a capital P in his
title. He didn't get what he wanted, so he took his ball and went home.
The president was feeling peckish. He does that a lot.
Barack is an angry man. He has succeeded in life despite having every advantage
handed to him. He advanced where others failed because his skin has more color.
He has benefited from everything that is good about this country, so of course
he hates this country, and its people. Like many others so blessed, he wants to
destroy this country. But, some stand in his way. Small wonder he is so edgy.
Sociopaths do that sort of thing. Don't know why Barack
does.
Closing the national parks hurts the little people, the
little people he feels should be kneeling gratefully before the throne. Some of
course, do (kneel, that is). No accounting for taste. But Barack knows that
many of those other proles stand in his way. In his vindictive mind, they
deserve to be punished. This president thinks a little flogging would turn them
to his way of thinking. Likely, he was surprised that they turned on him.
We passed by the park entrance and went on to view those
parts of the country not denied us by our president. We found some good stuff.
Highways 21 and 130 were simply wonderful, scenic and entertaining. We
especially liked the triangular warning signs along the roadside that showed
cows on skateboards. Gotta watch those counter culture bovines.
The road from Parowan to Brian Head was simply spectacular.
A short spur road east into the national forest presented red sandstone cliffs
and height of the season fall foliage. The top of the pass showed 10.2K on my
altimeter watch and featured a scenic viewpoint into Cedar Breaks, which the
president had also closed. We looked anyway, thumbing our noses at the falling
snow, low temperature, and arrogant chief executive.
Continuing to Panguitch, we enjoyed golden aspen groves,
pine forest, wondrous views off to the east, and the conspicuous absence of
people.
That president tossed us a crumb (thank you sir; may I have
another?), for when we reached Bryce Canyon National Park, the gates were open
and manned. That bit worked in spite of him, so the notion that billions would
soon go down the drain to plug the gaping holes in the president's failed
health care experiment slipped out of mind while we could still see some of our
country’s treasure. And Bryce is such a treasure.
Mommy Nature laid more snow on use, along with the cloud
show as we burned up pixels trying to preserve the memories. Beauty beyond any
description I might attempt to describe here was on display everywhere.
Cities and crowds, unpaid bills and taxes, biting dogs and
bitching clients left far behind, we enjoyed our vacation that day.
No comments:
Post a Comment