#24. There was nowhere to go but everywhere
so just keep on rolling under the stars
If you read last week's post, you'll know that I went to a funeral. It was lovely and heartwarming and sad and hard. I had a wonderful time seeing so many old friends, some who I hadn't seen in three years and some who I hadn't heard from in twenty five. I feel immensely blessed to have been able to go participate and mourn with those that mourn.
The funeral, however, was 800 miles away. My wife and I knew we had to be there, priced flights, and decided to make it a road trip. And, let me tell you, it was delightful.
I don't always love a road trip, but I love a road trip with my wife. (Add the kids, and you get a lot of complaining, but when it's just me and Erin and the open road--bliss.)
Our trip went from where we live, in North Salt Lake, to Thatcher, Arizona--which is the very bottom part of Arizona. And, because of a stupid little thing called the Grand Canyon, there is no convenient road to get from Utah to Arizona. But: that was so much the better, because this way we got to go on small roads through small towns--experience things we've never seen before and never done.
And there were so many interesting things! We saw the Grand Canyon (it was our only out-of-the-way road we traveled), and we saw the glorious mountains of the Coconino National Forest (seriously--I want to live right there). We saw saguaro cacti for the first time, which was super weird and super neat--I've always pictured them as being a single cactus in the middle of the desert, but there are whole hillsides full of saguaros, cactus forests. We crossed many fascinating bridges (I like bridges), and we even saw a VERY cool train bridge (I love trains, and bridges, and train bridges). We traveled some weird roads that were in major need of infrastructure updates (the road between Page and Flagstaff is a roller coaster). And we saw crops that we couldn't identify, but they might have been tomatillos??? I don't know.
Our journey into Thatcher was adventurous. It was a place we had never been to before, it is EXTREMELY remote, and there is spotty cell service at the best of times. And, after nine hours on the road that day our phones' batteries were so dead, and the service so unreliable, that we had to make several turnarounds before we figured out which highway we were supposed to be on. We couldn't even find our hotel when we got there, because my phone was completely dead and it had the reservation on it--so we picked a random hotel, went into the entry and plugged in my phone long enough to determine it was NOT the right hotel, and we made it to the Comfort Inn successfully. (Yes, the next day we bought a portable phone charger for the return trip.)
Anyway, here's the thing: I adore my wife. And just driving and talking to her about serious stuff (like the kids' health) and silly stuff (like how we were going to start a fry bread truck and park it in the woods and get three Michelin stars) was amazing. We ate entirely too much beef jerky (and elk jerky and buffalo jerky) and held hands and had a wonderful time.
Our last night of the trip was a return to one of my favorite places: Route 66. I lived, back when I was with these people from Thatcher, along Route 66 in New Mexico, and I drove the entire original road from one end to the other end--in New Mexico. But I didn't know Route 66 in Arizona, so we stayed the night in Williams, which is the gateway to the Grand Canyon, and has all of the charm of a seventy-years-ago town.
In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck refers to it as the Mother Road:
"From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight."
For me, not living in the Dust Bowl, the Mother Road is not a road of flight--something you need for escape--but it is the destination--something to return to and savor.
Anyway, go on a roadtrip.
Bits and Bobs about Arizona:
#1. On our trip we went to the Grand Canyon (which is absolutely worth the drive, and pictures simply cannot comprehend it) but did you know that the most remote town in the lower 48 states is at the bottom of the Grand Canyon? It's called Supai Village, and is part of the Havasupai reservation. It eight miles from the nearest road, and it is proud of the fact that it is the only town in the United States that still gets its mail by burro. It is only accessible by hiking (or helicopter, in emergencies) and somewhere between 200 and 700 people live there, depending on who you ask and the time you're counting. Tourism is the major industry, as adventurous hikers will tromp all eight miles down, buy some art, and then clamber all eight miles back--in 105 degree heat. They get about 20,000 visitors per year.
#2. The Barringer Crater is the best preserved meteor impact site on Earth, and I got my wife really excited that we were going to see it because I thought it was on our route--and then it was about 30 miles out of the way, and we missed it. (My wife is a huge geology nerd.) The Barringer Crater is not actually operated by the National Park Service, because back in the 1880s, some guy (named Barringer) realized that he could make good money off this thing and made it his homestead. It's a little less than a mile across, and about 700 feet deep. Geologists figure it is a very recent impact (about 50,000 years ago) and Arizona's stark arid climate made it preserve very well. The meteor that hit, they estimate, was about the size of a 747.
#3. We passed Tonto National Monument, which--both times we passed it--I asked Erin to Google what it was, but we didn't have service out there. But Tonto National Monument is cliff dwellings from the Saldado culture, who are known primarily for their gorgeous pottery. (The less pleasant thing about the Saldado culture is that most of their archaeology is lost because the Theodore Roosevelt Reservoir filled in the valley where they all lived, leaving only these very-high-up cliff dwellings.)
#4. The saguaros are a uniquely fascinating plant. They only live in the Sonoran Desert, and if you see one that has arms--it's very old. These cacti grow to be 150 years old, but they don't even sprout arms until they're 70. The largest saguaro living is 45 feet tall with a diameter of TEN FEET. And the tallest saguaro is SEVENTY FIVE FEET. These are weird, wild plants.
Distractions and Diversions
I've talked before about one of my favorite channels, The Trek Planner--a guy who explores the southwest. But there was another guy who did the same thing, until he was in a tragic accident earlier this year. This is a video of him exploring some weird things in the Grand Canyon.
Our travels took us along the westernmost edge of the Navajo Nation. If you've never heard Navajo spoken (or sung) it is one of the most beautiful, and complex, languages. This is a tribal elder singing and talking about the song of survival.
And just to round out the day, here's Nat King Cole singing the Route 66 song.
