We were still at the Econolodge in Rock Springs, Wyoming, this morning when I checked my voicemail and found out that my grandma died on Monday afternoon. Bob left the message after I'd returned his call the day before. May had left messages, too, but cell coverage was intermittent. I called her this morning, and she filled me in on the details.

Wyoming Arches

It was a wretched place to hear the news. Years from now I'll tell it like, "I was in that hole of a burg in Wyoming when I heard."

But I wasn't alone, and I don't know whether it would've mattered being alone or being anywhere else, see, because we've been expecting this for months. And now, even though it hurts, we can all breathe. Sweet Andrew held me until the first crying eased. Gradually, it started to feel like something that was caught has been freed and things are a little lighter.

The memorial is planned for Monday. We'll continue with the trip, but we'll skip the foray into New Mexico.

After the memorial we'll have a family-only reception. We're going to sit around, eat, and talk memories. It's a great idea. Gma would like this.

When I asked if any family members planned to speak at the memorial, May said no. She said that we're all shy wussies, which I loved, because it's true. We're all shy wussies. I'm a shy wussy!

May also said she hoped it would be just the four of us sorting through gma's belongings because we are her only beneficiaries. It made me feel important, and the feeling was a little strange. I've always felt motherless, but I take my mother's place at her mother's death, and mourn my gma, who parented me longer than my mother did. Sometimes I'm the granddaughter, sometimes gma and my aunts and uncles have forgotten that I'm not the daughter. Sometimes I don't know how extended my responsibilities are: whether they are the preordained responsibilities of the child, or the whimsical ones of the grandchild. But when she said that, I felt solidly in place and not in-between.

Long drive today, through southern Wyoming, northern Utah, and a sliver of Colorado. We are in Moab tonight, at the Inca Inn, where the old clerk emigrated eons ago from some European port to wind up two-days-from-anywhere, USA, speaking French and German to tourists. She's lovely.

(Andrew is quietly playing his electric guitar on the other bed. I like the soft playing; it's romantic.)

In the daylight, Wyoming was as ugly as I knew it would be and so I didn't feel at all bad about driving through much of it the night before. It was better to have the firmament stretched taut. (Andrew was like, "Yech, that's what this looked like?" It's fun to see his first impressions.) We followed 191 through Flaming Gorge, which had seen a recent and thorough fire. The hillsides were blackened for miles. Then through Vernal to 64 and Dinosaur, and on 139 through oil areas where the cricket machines pumped. We saw pronghorns and lots of cows as we climbed the mountains and descended the bookcliffs to reach I-70. From there it was long, flat, and boring. The temperature climbed (it has been cold the whole way) and we turned on the air conditioner.

Utah arches (I'm changing pants in the Volvo.)

Andrew was driving when we approached Arches. I saw the rocks in the distance but he was unsuspecting when the road flanked sheer red walls as tall as skyscrapers. This evening we drove all the roads and walked to all the lookouts in the park. It's the same as I remember it from my first visit in 1994. Last year, I biked only a part of the way and did not venture out on side trips.

It's beauty too immense to photograph and so we just watched as the setting sun turned the sky the same color as the rocks and caused the rocks to glow until they darkened to a deep violet, and so we turned to face the star in the west and saw a reflection in the sky, with clouds the shapes and colors of the arches pinned against a pristine blue.

Dinner at Bandito Grill in Moab. Their motto: There are no cans in our Mexi-can. It was the best Mexican food ever, so I ate everything on my plate. The guacamole was chaste: thick with avocado and tomato and spiced with lime juice and salt. It beats El Gallito's guac by a mile.