Back Into the Desert, Feeling Like I Finally Belong as the Sun Sets on This Van Trip
The initial plan was to head back up to Seattle and spend more time there, and finally end the trip sometime around late November. Then I realized how close the Grand Canyon was to Las Vegas, and so off I went, east instead of north. An ostensibly one-day journey turned into three; exhausted, I’d scope out public lands for a quick nap, wind up someplace mind-blowingly gorgeous, and spend hours longer there reading or working on stories.
Winter comes up quick in the west, and by late October, it had already dusted the higher peaks of California, Oregon and Washington, with more snow in the forecast. Even further south, it was getting cold at night, high 30s or low 40s. There are many words that can describe Marsha; insulated is not one of them. Seattle was now off the table, especially because I still had a couple imminent flights to arrange for more work trips. From the Grand Canyon I kept going east, perhaps to catch a plane from Albuquerque or Tucson, where I could at least dodge the weather and find plenty of places to camp. But as I drove into the night through the Navajo Nation, waiting to finally get to the public lands on the New Mexico border and watching the temperatures continue to drop, I finally just decided on a hotel.
The night’s abode was the historic El Rancho Hotel in Gallup, NM, on one of the more vibrant remaining sections of Route 66. The neon signs drew me in and the hotel bar kept me there. It had been a tiring week, so I had a few drinks and contemplated my course of action. As I agonized over the path to take, I began talking with a couple at the sparsely populated counter who had a Volkswagen van they were traveling in, and so we hit it off. Things went well until one of them made a joke I didn’t love. When the topic of who I am came up, I started getting the usual, tired “I identify as” humor. It was nothing that indicated a threat or harm to me, but also the last thing I was in the mood for. Making connections with strangers has been a common theme on this trip, but so has me grinning and bearing it as people try out their Chappelle-esque new material on me.
My usual response is to smile, stare at my hiking boots, and pray I can change the topic. But this time, I didn’t just hope for a conversational shift. I rebutted. I told them, I do not want to hear your joke. I don’t think it’s funny. If you would like to keep telling it, leave me alone to drink in peace instead. I don’t know if it was the lingering alienation and intense stares of Vegas, or the solidarity and kindness of journeying with the Rebelles, or just having existed for the last six months in public, but it was the first time I’d ever actually told someone to either respect me or leave, even gently.
And because they were genuinely nice people, they apologized, we got back to discussing the wide open West and our vans, and we had a truly lovely evening talking until the bar closed. It was exactly what I hoped for by speaking up, and I was truly glad I did instead of stewing in my dysphoria about the liminal space of gender I inhabit. And as I went to bed that night, insulated from the cold, trying to figure out airports and parking and logistics and how to keep myself from freezing as the temps drop further, I realized I can just… go home. I do not need to be the gamblers in Vegas, sitting at the slot machine waiting for it to hit at 7:00am. There is no pride in sticking it out to the bitter end.
I want to rest. I want to give Marsha some maintenance and love. The main thing I set out to accomplish—to develop who I am as Victoria Scott, the writer, the woman—will never be complete, but the past few weeks have been a culmination of sorts for the first part of my journey. Ending this on a note so decisively victorious and fulfilling feels like a divine gift I would be a fool to pass up. Perhaps this trip wasn’t long or grueling or challenging enough—after all, someone chronicled their road trip for this very site that was over twice as long as my own—but I feel satisfied, and ultimately, that is enough for me.
There will be a few final updates to my journey, but for now, I have made the one and only duplicate stop of my trip. As I write this in my van, I’m parked in my favorite place on Earth: 9,200 feet above sea level on a mountain in Cibola National Forest, there’s a shaded turn-off under the pines about 50 feet from the best vista of the desert I’ve ever seen. I had to return one last time to it. When I visited last I had been on the road for only a few weeks and it was my first mountain I’d ever summited to camp on. I had to return, if for nothing more than to make sure that my travels haven’t jaded me.
