The coolest baby by 800 miles.

Feb. 21, Roswell, NM.
Yesterday was travel day, and the circus moved from the southeastern corner of Texas to southern New Mexico, covering close to 800 miles.
Mostly deserted highway past San Antonio, interstate 10 west then 285 north though the eastern lower corner of New Mexico, cutting through an arid, desolate terrain, the occasional truck stop appearing like an oasis in the desert. Filling up west of what was announced as the town of Ozona on the highway, even though no sign of a town ever materialized, in anticipation to 200 more miles of unknown diesel refueling opportunities.
Fridman had to go on alone and leave me somewhere in the middle of nowhere near Junction, TX, at what I thought was midway to our destination and turned out to be only a third of a horrendously long trip. I watched his truck move on off, Dylan nursing on my lap, and something akin to panic came over me for the first time in my life. An eerie silence had followed Fridman's departure. An empty highway is not a reassuring thing; add to it a three-month-old baby to care for and a 36-footer to tow, and suddenly I wasn't sure I was up to the task.
Fortunately I soon joined with the Little Sisters at a rest area down the road, thanks to Fridman, who had called them. Quelle joie de les voir! Huge sigh of relief.
Priscilla kept me company me in the truck for a while, and then Ann Beth. We chatted away the endless highway up from Fort Stockton, TX, to Roswell, NM, a mostly empty stretch of road. At a stop to nurse the baby the sisters marveled at the starlit sky. With no lights anywhere near the stars were indeed magnificent. Huge gas refinery in Artesia; petroleum smells chasing chemical smells around that area and up until Roswell. Moving through the dark it was hard to decipher where they came from; you felt like a ship at sea. I followed Jo and she kept weaving to dodge rabbits (no casualties.)
The trip was easy, only impossibly long. With only short stops for lunch, and then a quick sandwich for dinner in the sisters' trailer, and to nurse the baby, in all we drove all day. Today everybody has to work, some as early as 8AM to raise the tent. Fridman had to stay up til the last trailer arrived in order to park it, and then had to go on with his other four jobs a few hours later... Sister Ann Beth: It's inhuman.

I was sick as a dog on Saturday and Sunday; threw up all night, diarrhea, the whole enchilada. Couldn't keep anything down but water and felt more miserable as the day progressed, wondering what I was going to do if I felt like this during the trip on Monday. Through all this I had to keep nursing Dylan, who, mercifully, didn't catch whatever it was that I had. I kept him in the bed by me and he was an angel by my side. In the afternoon Priscilla came over to see how I was doing and later came back with a home-made hot-water bottle (literally, she poured hot water in a small water bottle and wrapped it in a towel) and a chamomile tea.
The Little Sisters are the guardian angels of circus people, always there to mend cuts and bruises and care for all kinds of ailments. I remember them at the Carson and Barnes circus, where we met. It was love at first sight with Priscilla, maybe because we we share a common language and a common sensibility, despite the fact that I'm an agnostic and usually steer clear of anything religious in general and Catholic in particular. I remember the feel of their trailer, on these visits in the Midwest when I would sometimes drive a whole day to go see Fridman at the circus, the round table, inviting, and one of the sisters always keeping busy by the stove, offering a cup of hot coffee or tea, a cookie, the smell of the cakes they would bake for birthdays, Priscilla and her broken Spanish full of Italian words, Jo's soft voice, the barbed jokes of Monika, the German sister. I miss Monika and her sharp tongue. I'll miss them all when they're gone, by Easter.