Death Valley, 5 March 2026  The European mind cannot comprehend this

We drive into Death Valley and skip a gas station. The American vastness is a foreign concept to us.

We enter Death Valley with half a tank. We don’t think anything of it, that’s just how it is, as Europeans, you don’t think much about half a tank. We drive into Death Valley with half a tank and my father wrote that we should bring enough water, and that if anything happens we shouldn’t leave the car. I tell this to Mücahit and Lauri and we smile, it’s sweet that he says that, as if something would happen, as if anything could happen to us, but we have enough water, surely, it’s all fine.

So we drive into Death Valley with half a tank. It’s Superbloom, a rare event, once a decade, the last time in 2016. We take off our shoes, wade through the shallow salt flats in the setting sun, stare open‑mouthed at the breathtaking landscape. I pick a single flower even though it’s forbidden, and a giant sun‑ball begins to descend behind the mountains.

We set off to leave Death Valley with less than half a tank. We don’t think anything of it, we’re happy, exhausted, glowing, and the tank is down to a third, but that’s fine, we still have a range of 150 miles, that’s almost 240 kilometers, that’s how we reason as we pass a tiny place with three houses and a single pump with especially expensive gas—surely we’ll pass by a better gas station soon, we don’t need to take the first one that shows up, one must have options, we don’t have to settle for that.

So we keep driving, with much less than half a tank. The sun has set, darkness is sliding over Death Valley, we’re still in the middle of it, the route we entered earlier shows 160 miles to go. We turn onto an unpaved road. It is now pitch‑black night, the road bumpy, not a single light anywhere, our headlights illuminating the strip of road stretching into nothingness, 120 miles left in the tank, 190 kilometers, that’s a lot, really, that’s far, you’d think, surely there must be a gas station somewhere, this can’t be happening.

We have absolutely no reception, nothing to be done, we’ve already driven over a hundred kilometers and we’re still here, we say, haha, we laugh, but not freely anymore, no one is relaxed and I keep checking my phone but still nothing, no reception, absolutely none, SOS is all my phone shows, at least that, I think, at least that, but I don’t say anything, better not say anything, because I can feel my neck stiffening and my stomach turning, but it can’t take that much longer, how much longer can it take, how far can civilization possibly…

80 miles left in the tank. We turn off the AC. We unplug the phones. We dim the dashboard lights. We check for reception. Again and again we check all three phones for reception. A car overtakes us with a confidence we no longer dare to muster, speeding off into the darkness of the endless road, the starry sky is probably beautiful, but we can’t stop to take it in, and I’m sad about that, though the tension in my chest drowns everything else out.
The car beeps again and again, reserve flashing, our only reaction a quick glance, feeling naïve and stupid, the European mind cannot comprehend this vastness, the European mind is too small for these valleys.

60 miles left in the tank when the road begins to climb a mountain. I press my lips together so I don’t say how bad it is to drive uphill with so little fuel, that we’re burning even more now, that this was all so naïve of us, how could we be so stupid, what a ridiculous thought from a group of Europeans: Sure, in Death Valley there will definitely be another gas station soon, what were we thinking, what fools we are, I see us stranded here at night and wonder if a passing car would give us some gas and whether I’d have to suck it through a hose, something I’ve always wanted to try, actually, I think, but then of course they won’t have a hose, which means they’d have to drive to a gas station and then next…

We reach the top of the mountain. Before us stretches a landscape threaded with shining roads. I look at my phone, I have reception again. We laugh, briefly, shakily. Only at the gas station do we dare to breathe again.

The food at Denny’s afterwards tastes good, but maybe only because of the adrenaline.