Feral Field Notes 008: Falling Apart, A Tow Truck, A Pink Moon

Day 8 of 100: From joy to irritation and back again thanks to moons and music.

Jul 04, 2025

Welcome to Feral Field Notes, a series where I’m documenting my 100 day writing pilgrimage across the US (begin here).

Pilgrim Passport

Start

Edison Rest Area, Shafer Lake, CA

End

Lodgepole campground, Kings Canyon National Park

Feral Field Notes

11:38 pm, Lodgepole Campground in Kings Canyon National Park

It’s nearly midnight and I just arrived at my site in almost complete darkness. It felt so good to get out and get hit with the fresh mountain air and then look up to see the Big Dipper and North Star nestled between the silhouette of Sequoias.

This majestic welcome made it a little harder to crawl back into my car to get ready for bed, especially once I took off my shoes and socks and stunk up the car something fierce.

What. A. Day.

Earlier

Time for some (delayed) morning pages! Except a huge chunk just separated themselves from my spiral notebook. I kid you not, the first sentence I read on the first surviving page was: “This binder is barely holding it together.”

I’m barely holding it together this morning.

The magic of discovering the gem of a rest area wore off when I woke up to beeping sounds and peeled back a sun shade to see what fresh hell wanted to wake me up now.

When I saw that it was a tow truck backing up into the otherwise empty parking lot, it was like the equivalent of three coffees taking effect at once.

It was one of my worst fears unfolding in front of my eyes. I always read the signs in spaces where I’m considering staying overnight because not all rest or service areas (or businesses) allow that. I’d been positive that this was not one of those places after everything I saw online and then in-person on signs here, so why was my newest neighbor a menacing tow truck?

Thankfully, I didn’t let my panic get the better of me and decided to just observe and wait—they wouldn’t hook up my car and drag me away still in it, and in my jam jams, nonetheless, would they?

A few minutes later, and the driver (who I’d somehow missed getting out to use the bathroom) returned to their vehicle. And drove away.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. All that worrying, and it was just someone who needed to pee, who also happens to work for a towing company (or maybe it was a mean little ritual or joke they enjoyed whenever they saw this rest area had just one car in it.)

In any case, there was no going back to sleep now, not after that adrenaline rush.

I didn’t feel like setting everything up on my tiny camp table to make a coffee, so I changed and then drove to a nearby cafe, hoping to have both my caffeine and WiFi needs met there since I’d gone most of the past four days with almost no connection at all.

Though the coffee wasn’t great, it was strong and came with free refills for customers who stayed long enough to torture themselves with it. I had three over the next four hours as I plugged away at a WIP (work in progress).

When the cafe closed at 2, I still had more to do, so I drove to a park by the lake, put a chair by it, and plopped down in it for another four hours.

Every now and then I’d look up and see some ducks and ducklings float by. I occasionally had to re-locate a bug that found its way onto my paper or body, but it wasn’t too distracting overall, which I’d been worried about. I think it’s because I was so lasered in now and determined to finish what I was working on before I had to leave.

I’m happy to report that I did, and what a wonderful feeling it was to be done.

I celebrated by taking a photo with a giant pine cone in the way a man might with a fish he catches.

It was time to go. And though the rest stop from the night before was a magical find, I knew I wouldn’t be staying a second night. Besides it not being intended as a campground in the first place, it also isn’t particularly convenient for things like cooking or feeling calm in the morning.

Plus, a friend was coming up to join me for a couple nights back at Kings Canyon, so I’d booked a site at the place a park employee had told me there were showers so I could hit two birds with one stone (but only the birds that wake you up before 6 am).

I was practically euphoric during the long drive down the mountain—a reminder that completing a WIP feels really, really good, even if didn’t feel good most of the time you wrote and revised it and even when it’s still not where you want it to be (because it probably never will or even could get there).

I listened to a bunch of high energy and bouncy music as I descended the mountain with the sunset, trying not to think too much about how this meant I’d be driving up another one in the dark when I returned to the park.

For this reason, I needed to charge my car again, and as soon as I re-entered civilization—in the form of crazy traffic mixed with construction—I felt my elation evaporate and morph into irritation and frustration as I navigated the chaos.

By the time I was done charging and running an errand, it was dark-dark out, and I hadn’t even begun the 90-minute climb back up into the park. The closer I got to the base of the mountain, the fewer lights lined the roads, and then they disappeared completely.

I’d put my phone on DND and turned down the music so I could pay better attention—I’d really wanted to avoid this exact scenario not only because of the sketchier driving conditions, but also because I knew that this is the time critters like to come out and scavenge because of the cooler temps.

Little did I know that this would be one of those moments where I thought I’d messed up that actually resulted in a trip highlight. Because as I started driving up the mountain in the pitch black, I suddenly noticed a bright, giant orb in the distance and audibly reacted when I realized it was the moon!

Even though I’d recently put it on my calendar, I’d forgotten that tonight was the peak evening to view a Strawberry Moon—which explained why it looked so huge and why it was orange-pink. (Later, I read that this particular moon was notable for being the lowest full moon in nearly two decades).

Thankfully, there were few others on the road at that time, so I slowed way down and took my time for the remainder of the drive. As soon as I could, I stopped at a pull-out and just gaped at the moon til my heart’s content—it’d already moved up so much in the short time since I’d first spotted it and was losing some of its color but seemed to be getting brighter.

Music Detour

Before I got back in my car, I’d remembered an album I used to listen to over and over but hadn’t thought of in years. Suddenly, because of this moon, it slammed into me: Pink Moon by Nick Drake.

I looked to see if I had service and couldn’t believe that I did, so I downloaded the whole album (11 songs but just 28 minutes), got back in the car, and felt my entire being just melt and ignite and dissolve somehow all at once as I listened to the whole thing, driving with the Strawberry Moon coming in and out of view all the while.

(Though I don’t want to link much in my posts as I personally find it distracting when reading, I’m making an exception because it feels too special not to share. I also appreciate that my nostalgic ties to the song—combined with the present-day moony moment—are what make it so great to me. The songs Road and Horn are my other two favorites. Horn has no lyrics but makes me feel more than any other song on that album, maybe any album. Anyway, here’s Pink Moon.)

The album ended around the time the mountain’s edges curved into the woods, and once again, another album came to mind (a rare case of one that I’ve listened to regularly over the past decade and already had downloaded): The World is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky.

It seemed to just… fit. I want to say something annoying like, “It pairs well with ethereal-feeling evenings.”

I listened to most of it as I finished the drive, but not before I stopped at another pull-out to hang out with the stars for a while (and bump into the moon again), which resulted in the following captured moments.