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We are piled on top of each other. An arm rests over my shoulder; something soft is pressed to my ankle. Through a gap in the slats on the side of the truck, my receptors follow one stripe of the outside world as it passes.

From Houston, we continue west. I follow the rush: bright green, brick red, flashes of turquoise. A few sleek cars purr past our truck, but the highway is mostly abandoned. Through the slats, I follow segments of signs proclaiming development entrances, palm trees lining the drives, walls dividing subdevelopments. Then, abruptly, the last buildings slide out of sight, replaced by a stripe of pale, jagged horizon.

We move past outcrops lined with dead cedars, white branches bare against the blue oil vault of the sky. At first, some clinging leaves, Spanish moss, suggestions of green. An occasional wandering goat. But now the cedars thin out. The highway cuts through striated rock: silver, rose, deep red, and gold. The hills give way to desert interrupted by occasional mesas.

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