Sandra Neily here:

Recently, I unearthed a journal I kept long ago when I traveled alone with my dog Harry, across the country and into western states I wanted to explore. Today I think I was looking for clues to my author and my nature-writing self.

I’ve selected just a few bits here

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Sept 12, 1977

I should have taken off in the early seventies after college. After those four years (1967-1971) of prime Paul Harvey material: drugs, co-ed living, demonstrations against the war, student rights marches, the women’s movement.

I’m fairly sure that little can be said of those years. At least not precisely as I feel language did not function well during those years. It’s the revenge of that inarticulate and thrashing space. No one can adequately explain the first time you rolled on the grass in a wind of Mescaline energy, or the night of snow and wind when your roommate was gone and you finally got to wake up shyly with your first lover, or the rage of that one picture of a girl kneeling over a dead boy, her mouth stretched in a Kent State silent scream.

Right after college I wouldn’t have paid my car insurance ahead in one lump sum, alert my bank and credit cards about a new address, and check my files for legal papers that should go with me. Seven years ago, I might not have vaccinated by dog and seen the dentist before I “split.” Although I will travel light, I do have a very used Volvo wagon that holds my black lab (about 74 lbs. of Harry), 25 lbs. of dog food, skis and other light jock equipment, back pack, sleeping bag, tent purchased with books of Green Stamps, cooler, and a roof rack with duffels of winter clothes and suitable work clothes. (I will run out of money soon.)

And books. An entire compartment of them wedged around my spare tire.

…

Tomorrow, I drop off the edge of all that I have known for most of my life and head west. Now I know there will be nights alone in campgrounds and parks. Nights when I curse the wind that makes lighting my stove a trial and nights when Cup-A-Soup is a poor substitute for a simmering beef stew. Yet I hope there will be days and nights when the exhilaration of being alone and choosing my route or trail of even the flavor of soup will reward me for my courage.

…

Timber Creek tent site. (There are over 200 RV sites just over my shoulder….)

(Note: Some journal entries are just quick notes, but they call up details that I remember so clearly.) Timber Creek, CO campground. Harry lands on flock of ducks in front of a ranger. Elk whistles and antler crashing wake us. Jerry and the motorcycle boys from Indianapolis invite us for steak dinner. Hiking into Arapahoe National Forest, Harry dismantles a beaver dam while I sleep.

…

Up through the last arid valleys of Idaho, the Tetons parked themselves just beyond the wheat. Ringed in clouds like frosty breath, they are cold and dark as I near Teton pass.

…

the Grand Teton

I sit, shirt open, boots off, bandaids on toes, butterflies on knees, before the most beautiful mountains yet, the Tetons. Perhaps they’re so impressive because you can almost drive to the base and the Grand scowls at you from 13,770 feet. Yesterday I hiked around Jenny Lake which mirrors the peaks and up into Cascade Canyon. Passing moose, deer, rabbits on route, I left the trail when it began to descend into the river. I climbed straight up over small cliffs and elk droppings until I could face the Grand and hear the snow rustling off its ice walls.

The altitude and sun have attacked all my bodily functions and all I can do is pant and reach back into my sea-level lungs for energy. (My car is having the same trouble; must get my carburetor adjusted!)

…

Last night the air was filled with delicate bugs who fell as couples onto the map I opened.  They never fell as singles but always locked together. Thousands, all coupling frantically before they die or freeze or fall to earth on someone’s map to lie helpless over the topographical green of the Teton Mountains.

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Jenny Lake and the Tetons

I haven’t commented much on the people. I have met so many everywhere and have usually never lacked for company if I want it. Here follows a brief catalogue of those I met while camped at Jenny Lake. I usually approach people to ask about hikes and bears and local info. I met Mark and Grey from Oklahoma this way.  In long luscious southern vowels, they traded stories about Alabama and Mardi Gras and traveling. We took a short hike together, but the freezing wind sent us back to collect firewood. They bought me batteries on a trip to town and later I joined them for hotdogs at their fire.

Chris was waiting at my campsite when I returned from getting water. He hung around through my dinner, got out my Volvo manual, and gave me instructions about batteries, water, brake fluid, and carburetors. He was quick to admit he’d lost his job as a meat cutter, and later, after I walked Harry, I heard his soft drawl in the dark beyond his coals tell me he could show me Ohio if I wanted a passenger. He wasn’t offering a relationship, but he did say I was a “fox.”

 Note: (I sometimes slept in the car with Harry if I felt a safety issue developing whether it might be a Chris or bear country.)

There were two young women from Augusta, Maine who showed me pictures of their yurt, stable, outhouse, and pasture fence they had built by themselves. They assured me they knew nothing beforehand and encouraged me to keep going … no matter what. They were inspirational.

…

I’ve discovered (while reading “Lolita”) I’ve been sitting on a pile of elk droppings. The muse works in mysterious ways. Perhaps the Greeks had it all wrong. The muse does not arrive on celestial wings but ferments under your rear as you write; the manure is transmogrified into your system and works like compost on your pen.

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Mirror Lake unfrozen (Pacific Crest Trail)

I eventually made it to the Pacific Crest trail with the help of gentle and patient, and amazing Steve, who was on leave from being a government inspector on a tuna boat. We camped up through dripping rain forest to Mirror Lake, which was totally frozen by the time we got there. A few weeks later, I turned around after a November visit to the San Juan Islands (Washington) where I stayed with a classmate running a salmon farm. Fabulous dinners and a ferry boat rescue after our sailboat’s mast snapped in half. (Not all bad. While we waited for rescue, sea otters pressed around us, lying on their backs and cracking open seafood with rocks they held in their paws. Ya just never know.)

Later on, as I wintered and worked in Salt Lake (where the skis got used), gentle Steve and his buddies would come get Harry and carry him off to a camp in McCall, Idaho. For a vacation. Harry sent me postcards from a McCall bar.

  The entire journey would not have possible without my loved-so-much Harry, who composed a book while we hiked, “Places I Have Pissed and Swum in the Great Northwest.” My job was to chant and sing the short chapters as we marched along.

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Sandy’s debut novel, “Deadly Trespass, A Mystery in Maine” won a national Mystery Writers of America award, was a finalist in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association “Rising Star” contest, and was a finalist for a Maine Literary Award. The second Mystery in Maine, “Deadly Turn,” was published in 2021. Her third “Deadly” is due out in 2025. Find her novels at all Shermans Books (Maine) and on Amazon. Find more info on Sandy’s website.