utah, day ii

You open your eyes just minutes before the three alarms that you have set are to go off. It is 3:45am. You turn off the buzzer on the clock radio. And the one on the cell phone. And the one on your other cell phone.

To your surprise, you are wide awake.

On the road, there is nothing but a dashed white lane line reaching out beyond your headlights to where you can't see anymore. To your left, darkness. To your right, darkness and more darkness, which you assume is the murky expanse of the Great Salt Lake.

You wonder if the salt in the lake makes everything float.

At the gas station, you wait for the clerk to make change. He looks gruff, weathered. And you ask him how the drive to Dugway is. "Lonely," he says. You laugh at this. But then you realize that he isn't making a joke. And you walk back to your car with two bottles of water and a packet of trail mix with the realization that you are the boisterous city slicker in this picture. Just another khaki-clad visitor amongst the descendants of ancient, tired settlers.

Or, at least, you make yourself feel that you are.

The road to Dugway is not as lonely as you would like. Pickup trucks blow by in the darkness at 20 mph over the speed limit, even though there are signs warning you to look out for cattle. The trucks rush up behind you, their headlights growing brighter and brighter like full moons until finally they are gone, hidden just inches behind your rear bumper. They pass you on curves that are marked with double-yellow lines. You keep expecting to find a twisted wreck around the next bend, but, thankfully, you never do.

It is still dark and you wonder if there are mountains nearby.

At the entrance to the Dugway Proving Ground, you board the bus with the other reporters, glad to get out of the cold. Later, in the sweltering heat of the desert, you will wish for it to be cold again. But for the time being, you zip up your jacket and settle gladly into a window seat where you can keep an eye on the military guards and their machine guns.

The sun rises over the edge of distant mountains.

They set you up on folding tables in a hangar in the middle of the desert. This is where you watch the helicopters take off. And this is where you and dozens of others crowd around a television monitor to watch a close-up of the space capsule tumble out of the sky. It is 9:58am.

The capsule hits the ground like an asteroid, burying itself in a crater three feet deep. You think you a hear a thud when it hits, but you know that can't be. It is, after all, 30 miles away.

You file updates every other hour, calling back to your editors on the West Coast with the one cell phone that gets any reception. Between those calls, you sit. And you wait. And when the press conference starts, you frantically take notes and arrange facts into neat story updates. And then you sit. And then you wait some more.

What news? Is the capsule intact? Will the mission be saved?

You eat a $2 hotdog that looks more hot pink than light brown. You hold up your press credentials for the guards with the M-16s to inspect each time you return from the bathroom.

By 3:30pm, you know there are likely to be no more major updates for the day. You head home. Or rather, for the hotel an hour and a half away. The drive is lonely.

All the news channels are replaying the capsule's fateful drop. Fight Club is on F/X. Tomorrow, there will probably be another press conference. Early.

You are tired, but you can't sleep. You close your eyes and try to sink, but you only float.

utah

Landed in Salt Lake City earlier in the day. Maybe I'm missing something, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot to do in this town in the summer, especially once you've walked down to the temple and back. (If anyone's got any ideas, let me know.)

Of course, I should be working on my article. But who wants to sit in a hotel room when it's sunny and 80 degrees out? Besides, the WiFi only works in the hotel lobby.

At least there'll be some excitement tomorrow -- I'm due at the Dugway Proving Ground in the middle of the desert to cover this. Let's just hope I can get up at 4:00am for the two hour drive.