Full Moon

My dog and I were out for our usual walk around the neighborhood this evening. We rounded a corner a couple blocks from home and the light of the moon, two days from reaching its fullness, caught my notice. The sun was down beyond the hills to the west, and dusk would still linger for another thirty or forty-five minutes. Yet the moon was like a searchlight, demanding my full attention.  

At last month's full moon I slept beside my sister Susan in the open air, somewhere south of Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevadas. We'd spent the day meandering down Skyline Blvd (Rte 35) out of San Francisco, and various other twisting two-lane highways, and not driven up into the mountains from the Central Valley until well after 10pm. Despite the late hour and our desire to find a suitable place to pull off and sleep, periodically we were compelled to stop and take in the sight of the cliffs bathed in the otherworldly silver-blue light of the moon. A strong wind was blowing down through the gorge, adding an element of thrill to our late-night sensory experience.

Finally we discovered a narrow two-lane blacktop off the main road, from which we turned onto a forest road that was barely more than a dirt track through the woods. We drove in until we came across a wide spot where we could park the Jeep without blocking the road. 

It was too late, and we were far too weary, to worry about setting up the tent. We spread one of my tarps on the ground immediately behind the Jeep, rolled out the sleeping bags, and pulled the other tarp over us to block the breeze and hold in as much heat as possible.

The wind died down considerably, but occasionally it would stir the boughs of the giant pine trees that surrounded us. Otherwise the night had that deep quality of profound silence the wilderness provides. Cocooned in my bag with only my eyes left uncovered, I slept in spurts: doze, dream, wake to the silence and the moon coursing across the sky, snuggle happily into my sleeping bag, doze off again, repeat.  

At ten thousand feet elevation, it can get quite chilly at night - even in late May. When I awoke just before dawn I could tell the edges of the sleeping bag where I had drawn it around my face were damp. I thought the dampness was condensation and pulled the drawstring tighter, determined not to expose myself to the cold air until a few rays of sun struck the trunks of the nearby stand of trees. 

Eventually my full bladder would not let me lie there any longer, despite the nip in the air. When I unzipped myself from the cocoon I realized the moisture was not condensation: it was frost that my breath had melted. My sleeping bag and everything around me was coated with a sheen of the white icy stuff. 

Immediately I was grateful - again - for my zero-degree down sleeping bag. I stood up and dug my shoes out from under my legs. Sus was a vaguely human shape under her side of the blue tarp. As quietly as possible I let Tanner out of the Jeep and we wandered up the road in search of an out-of-the-way spot to do our business. I relished the bite in the air, knowing that we'd be spending the better part of the afternoon driving through the Mojave Desert with no air conditioning.

There was no way for me to know, as I stretched and walked off the cold and stiffness from the night, that that would be the last full moon adventure I would have with Albert, my trusty Jeep of fourteen years. 

View from the driver's seat. May 25, 2013.