I’ve been traveling from dawn to dusk. Dusk on the road is a magical time of burning skies and strengthening shadows. There is a surreal blur of exhaustion mixed with the security that I am not far from my destination for the night. As a child on family trips, this was often a glittering world of colored neon fast food and hotel signs beckoning from the highway.  But now I am escaping all that. The bus is heading east into the foothills. The sun is setting behind us. We drive under a double rainbow. The northern end is long but faint against dark clouds and golden hills. The southern side is short and bold, an eerie patch of flames. The approaching darkness makes the trees into dark mounds against the light gold grass of the hills. A metal windmill next to a water tank slowly turns. Cows are dark specks in the fields. Behind us the clouds are molten. Rose seeps across the sky.

At the crest of the hill, I can see the last tip of a scarlet sun before we turn and go down the hill. Mist dissolves the tops of trees, but I can see the thin pine needles in the silhouettes of trees.