COEUR d’ ALENE, ID.—Over the weekend I was driving south on 395 from the Canadian border along the Kettle River in northern Washington.

I saw a trailer with two empty lawn chairs side by side.

The chairs overlooked a ravine filled with lush pine trees and a distant river that twisted like a question mark. I determined this scene to be romantic.

I pulled over to take a picture. It was around 10 in the morning and there was a jig to my rig after a nice Friday night meal of trout and rice and a good night’s sleep in Grand Forks, B.C.

As I approached the van from at least 30 feet away, an elderly, heavy set woman in a scraggly nightgown peered out through the lean front door. She was tough. She inquired about my intentions. I didn’t have any fancy camera equipment, just my cell phone. The space was open and lush, void of any “No Trespassing” signs.

Suddenly a large man emerged behind the woman. He wore a scraggly tee-shirt and had the chiseled face of Garrison Keillor gone bad. He looked over her shoulder, looked me in the eye and shouted,

“You keep taking pictures and I’ll blow your head off!”

This is the sense of place I’m getting at as I travel around America for my next book:  Here was a remote stretch of highway in rural Washington, two people tightly wound together and they’ve drawn a line around their trailer. This is their section of the world.

Maybe this is how you react when you feel the world closing in on you.

It has been a grueling couple of weeks and this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and collect my thoughts. I’m at the Coeur d’Alene RV Resort, which is actually in Post Falls, Id.—between Spokane, Wash and Coeur d’ Alene (named after a Native American tribe who were skilled traders, i.e. heart of an awl.)

 

It’s a beautiful night and the Summer Solstice skies are crisp and blue. I’m getting a kick out of people smiling at Tony Fitzpatrick’s birds on my van Blue Bird, although tonight some new friends I met remembered my ride as “the one that looks like an ice cream truck.”

I went thrifting in Coeur d’ Alene on Sunday afternoon. I have been to Sandpoint, Id. but only knew of Coeur d’ Alene from an Iris DeMent song.

Lake Coeur d’ Alene is beautiful but the vibe was too dressy and upscale for my tastes. The town felt like Traverse City on steroids. So tonight I opted to stay in the camper van.

Unplugging the van and locking down stuff  just run an errand gets to be cumbersome. So I passed on some of Coeur d’ Alene’s fine restaurants and walked over to a nearby Wal-Mart to fetch a frozen dinner and Diet Mountain Dew.

I’ve never been much of a Wal-Mart guy but now I know why they are such a big deal with wheel people. I’m to the point now where I’m conditioned to buy sidebar stuff for my van every time I walk into a Wal-Mart.

On this visit I purchased  a stapler for only $2.79, a George Strait CD for $11 and a tiny miner’s head lamp I used to laugh at when I went tent camping with my ex-girl friend. Now I have a tiny miner’s head lamp and it only set me back a dollar.

As the light fades away I find myself going to bed earlier than I do in Chicago. I brought along lots of stuff to read and picked up Willy Vlautin’s “Northline” at Powell’s Books in Portland. Vlautin’s crooked and elegant “Lean on Pete” is one of the best road books I’ve read in recent years. But after long days of driving, fiddling with my van’s inverter and setting up interviews, I haven’t had much time to read.

Of course I brought John Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley (In Search of America)” along for my trip. I love the appointed heart and plain speak of that book and the stop at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, Ca  is one of the highlights of the initial stretch of my research trip. I don’t want to get to deep in my re-read of Steinbeck’s 1960 travelogue because I want to maintain the clarity of my voice.

But I am forever indebted to museum director Susan Shillinglaw for granting us rare access inside Steinbeck’s beloved Rocinante camper van. Photo journalist Jon Sall made some great Rocinante pictures and shot video.  My interview with Susan will air this Saturday night on Nocturnal Journal, WGN-720 AM in Chicago.

Steinbeck set out on his journey to listen to the rhythm of speech in America. He wanted to listen. He thought he was old but he was hungry to hear new ideas. Although Steinbeck was a fan of television and radio, he believed the rapid development of communication was destroying regionalism.

As I learned very clearly over the weekend, each place can still have its space in America.  All you have to do is look someone in the eye and listen.