Everyone knows about the Grand Canyon.  It is the biggest of the many canyons scattered across the Southwest, but not necessarily the most interesting or scenic.  I was just getting into that region now, one I’d been through before, but never fail to get a thrill from, as it is always shifting and changing, depending on the season and the light.  You could spend a year in the Canyonlands and still never run out of new discoveries.  At the moment, however, I was racing towards Moab, the base for Arches National Park.

The sky was a rolling ocean of clouds, the blacktop straight and narrow, as I sped along the 191 north.  There was an exit for Canyonlands National Park, both a good memory and an adventure for a later date, a maze of spires and painted rock, dissected by the Green and Colorado Rivers.  Down the road a way, I pulled over at Wilson Arch, which resembles a huge eye in the sky, tourists struggling up hill to have their pictures taken in the natural frame.  Right past that was a home and trading post built into the stone called the Hole in the Rock.

When I got to Moab I stopped for gas and bought a sandwich.  Then I drove to Arches National Park, a huge sculpture garden of fantastic rock formations, that on this day was totally sold out.  It had been like that at many of the National Parks over the summer.  You’d had to make reservations to get into the most popular ones.  That’s why I’d waited until after Labor Day to take my road trip.  So far, I’d been lucky to get into everything I’d wanted to see, barring the Taos Pueblo, and now Arches.  There were hundreds of miles of canyons ahead of me, so that was further consolation. 

I continued on then, past Jackass Joe’s UFO Jerky, where a green Mystery Machine with deflated tires sat out front.  Passing that, I got on the 70 west for a short stretch, before exiting on the 24 south, a road I had all to myself.  There is no way to measure the heights I reached, barreling towards the backdoor of canyon country.  The great white clouds were so low to the road that I could almost hear them speaking.  The white hole of a sun shone like a beacon of encouragement on a tranquil blue sea. 

I was rising up out of my seat in anticipation, knowing that the Capitol Reef National Park and Grand Escalante-Staircase National Monument were still ahead of me.  Then it was Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park, all leading up to that great granddaddy of them all, the Grand Canyon, although this time I planned on doing it differently and seeing the north rim.  A few raindrops spattered across the windshield, but quickly evaporated.  The color of the rocks changed, from red, to black, to sand. 

In Capitol Reef I pulled over to view the Freemont Petroglyphs, an early expression of street art, tagging a canyon wall with stick figures of people and bighorn sheep.  Only a few miles later I reached the Dixie National Forest and was suddenly driving through pine trees and snow.  Then it was crossing the Grand Escalante, a narrow highway built high on a winding ridge.  It was the greatest, most diverse, drive of the trip so far.  Red rocks beneath the blue sky.  White snow beneath the white clouds.  A black road and yellow stripe dividing green trees.  Now here came some cowboys, leading a herd of cattle on a drive.  They tried to keep them to the side of the road.  I slowed down anyway and waved. 

Just when it came time to look for a campground, I reached the town of Escalante.  A hotel called the Prospector was advertising rooms for seventy dollars.  I ducked in to check it out and managed to snag the last one.  My trip had been a stunning success.  Like leading 40-0 in the fourth quarter, I knew nothing could ruin it now.  If I had to pay for a hotel room every night for the rest of the trip, that was fine now. 

The trip wasn’t over, but I was already moving into the celebration phase of it.  There was a food truck parked just down the street.  I walked over and got a chicken torta.  Then I laid down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.  The world was spinning in front of my eyes.

Even after driving relentlessly for over five weeks now, really sixteen-hour days behind the wheel, it was still hard to sleep in my hotel bed in Escalante.  I was dizzy and my head was spinning, but I was still ready to jump up and hop in the car again as soon as the smallest light of day appeared at the window.  In the meantime, I lay in bed and watched old TV shows, Mayberry RFD, Gomer Pyle, Green Acres.  Finally, I slept for a few hours with the sound turned all the way down.

It was an hour to Bryce Canyon and the morning was cold, like winter cold.  I needed to warm up the engine before I drove the car, and then use the heater for the first twenty minutes.  I was on the 12, heading west.  When I was close to the park, I headed south on the 63.  There was no one ahead of me at the entrance, and again my National Park Pass proved gold. 

There was just one place I wanted to get to and that was Sunset Point.  The sign in the parking lot was frosted over, and I was almost right on time to see the sun rise in the east and begin to light up the pinnacles.  Since I was there, I also drove down to Inspiration Point and began to walk up to the viewpoint.  It was so cold that my fingers and toes burned.  I hurried back to the Mountain Bluebird, and wheeled out of the parking lot.

The next destination was Zion National Park, which was an hour and a half from Bryce.  I got back on the 12 west and then took the 89 south.  On the way I passed through a natural rock tunnel, and when I reached the Mt Caramel Junction, I stopped at the White Mountain Trading Post.  It is a colorful place. 

There was a wooden Indian at the door and a mural on the side depicting a buffalo hunt.  On another wall were big-horn sheep, high on a canyon wall.  Next to it was a grouping of forest animals, deer, wild turkey, a racoon, a skunk, a coyote.  A little way off was a mountain lion in a tree.  The back wall featured a cowboy and Indian, sitting next to each other on a bunch, mad-dogging each other beneath a sign advertising Bud Light.

When I got to Zion, there were buffalo at the entrance, as well as two tipis, and a herd of white-tail deer that went bounding across the road in front of me.  Once inside, I drove straight through as if it were just one long roller-coaster ride.  I’d been there before, and on this day didn’t want to stand around waiting for a shuttle bus, which you need to do if you want to see certain sections of the park. 

There were some long tunnels, a few sections of road where you felt like you were in a raft going down rapids.  Before I knew it, the ride was over.  The cars waiting to get into the park from the other side stretched a mile along.  Again, I seemed to be skimming over, under, and around most every difficulty, and really couldn’t take any of the credit.  Sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t.  I’d needed this trip to work out and was beyond grateful for all the blessings that had come my way.

Outside of Zion, I stopped at the Virgin Trading Post to take a look around.  There was a small-scale Old West town out front.  By now I’d been through a dozen trading posts.  I still got a kick out of them.  They all smelled the same, like moccasin leather and hard candy.  What did we have here?  A coiled rattlesnake in a glass snake.  An Indian mannequin with a braid and a badge on his vest.  By the door of the cafeteria were a wooden cowboy and wooden Indian standing sentry.  Say hello to Pappy the Fortune Teller, with a deck of cards and bag of gold in front of him.  There on a rack were postcards of all the Old West legends we’d come to know and love so well. 

In a backroom there was a life-sized cutout of John Wayne, one of the greatest cowboy heroes of all, and right next to him, the Lone Ranger and Tonto.  Now that was a strange couple, a masked vigilante who roamed the countryside with his trusty Indian companion, solving crimes and righting wrongs.  Clayton Moore had played the Lone Ranger in the old TV series and Jay Silverheels was Tonto. 

One story that I’ve been led to believe is true is that long after his prime, Clayton Moore continued making public appearances as the Lone Ranger.  When the studio that owned the rights to the character sued to stop him, he switched over from the black mask to a pair of dark sunglasses and kept showing up everywhere.  That I would’ve paid to see.  You can’t keep a good man down.

From Zion National Park, I took the 9 west to the 15 south, then at Hurricane veered off on the 59 in the direction of the Grand Canyon.  Along the way, I pulled over at the Kaibab Paiute Indian Reservation.  The place I stopped was called the Pipe Spring National Monument. 

The Pipe Spring is a natural spring that helped flora, fauna, and Natives Americans to thrive in what otherwise would’ve been unlivable desert conditions.  When the settlers discovered it, they started a cattle ranch and then built a fort to protect.  Talk about spoiling the party for everyone.  There was a small museum I rushed through, but my primary concern was getting to the Grand Canyon while it was still early enough to get a good view.

I’d been to the main attractions on the south rim a handful of times, but this was the first time I’d be visiting the north rim.  Now I was on the 89A, taking the 67 south at Jacob Lake.  It was another hour to get to the north rim.  The day was clear and the sun was shining brightly through the windshield, but there was snow on both sides of the road, with pine trees sticking out of it like dark green cocktail toothpicks. 

Sometimes when my mind is open songs come to me.  So far on this trip I’d come up with was the Ballad of the Mountain Bluebird.  In the time it took to get to the canyon, I came up with a simple new folk song called The Slaughter.

There was snow on the roof of the entrance booth and snow in the parking lot that was turning to slush when I got out of the car.   There wasn’t any breeze but the air was brisk.  There was a COVID mask required to get into the Grand Canyon Lodge, and I could live with that, as long as it was open.  Inside was a statue of a famous mule and a piano with a large kachina doll above it. 

When I walked outside, the canyon was deep and dark, lined with scrubby conifers and patches of snow.  I walked over to Bright Angel Point where you could almost look into the canyon.  There were so many tourists lined up there that you had to wait in line for a turn. 

My idea was to meditate somewhere along the rim, but I felt conspicuous amongst such crowds.  When I returned to the car, a family with about eighteen members was having a picnic in the back of a pickup truck right next to me.  I went walking off into the woods, through crunchy snow up to my calves, to reach a private stretch of canyon, and sat down on a cold, damp log. 

Now, of course, the wind decided to start blowing.  The branches in the trees above my head began bobbing up and down.  I wasn’t far enough away from the parking lot.  I could hear car doors slamming and people talking.  My hands were cold.  I shut my eyes but could still sense the shadows of the trees, falling to the left and right of me.  When I opened them, I could see pine needles on the ground.  That was the smell the air was full of, cold pine needles.

That tribe of hillbillies back in the pickup were having more than a picnic.  It sounded like more of a keg party.  Either that or they were wrapping another episode of Alaska Bush People.  I could no longer concentrate.  My trip was coming to an end.  It was too cold for camping.  I was inhaling junk food like oxygen.  The race was on now just to make it to the finish line.

Getting back in the car after acknowledging my rowdy neighbors, I lit out of there.  It was already late afternoon and it was almost four hours to Flagstaff.  My hope was to find something before then, but if worse came to worse, knew there were a lot of hotels in Flagstaff.  All I needed to do now was just drive.  If things eventually came back into focus, that would be a plus.

After leaving the north rim of the Grand Canyon, I was driving into the enchanted land of Navajo Land once again.  Here I came across more cliff dwellings, large boulders balanced precariously on one end, houses made of stone.  One of the strangest things I discovered was the Navajo Bridge, completed in 1928. 

The Navajo Bridge is over eight hundred feet long and spans a ravine nearly five hundred feet deep.  What is even stranger is that there are two of them, one for vehicles and once for pedestrians.  Just stepping out on it, gave me vertigo.  Halfway across it, a few people were looking at something through binoculars that turned out to be a California Condor, crouching under the arch of the second bridge.  Women were selling jewelry on the opposite side.  I circled around and made my way back to the car, dizzy every time I looked over the rail at the Colorado River below.

After passing through Tuba City, I came across a cluster of abandoned buildings that had been turned into another impromptu art gallery.  The message on the first one stated that American Rent is Due.  There were large eyes looking out of pyramids and between balconies.  One dark woman wore large gold earrings.  Another had long hair that flowed like lava.  There were black and white pictures of a girl rocking out on a guitar.  Beside her was a condor with its wings spread wide.  A painting on a tank showed a clutched fist and the words Power to the Patient.  Beside it was a stack of red birds.

By the time I got into Flagstaff it was well after dark.  I ended up driving along a strip of hotels along route 66, before pulling over at the cheapest looking one.  They wanted over a hundred dollars a night.  If I was going to pay that much, I’d prefer to throw in a little more for a better room.  One called the Western Hills Motel looked more appealing.  It wasn’t far from the Chinese Star Super Buffet.  It appeared a night out on the town was about to happen.

After I parked in front of my room and put a few things inside, I drove down to the Chinese buffet.  It was packed and once I got in, realized most of the people eating there were Indians.  In the past six weeks I’d driven to reservations all across the land, and this was the first time I’d gathered with them in any way, shape, or form.  Apparently, we had at least one thing in common.  There’s nothing more American than a good Chinese buffet.

When I got back to the hotel, there was a long train passing by.  I sat down hard on the bed and turned on the television.  There was an episode of Gunsmoke on, which seemed appropriate.  There are so many ways the trip could’ve gone wrong, but they hadn’t.  I know because I’ve been on a few trips where they have.  It’s almost like watching a movie.  You can often tell from the onset if you’re going to like it or not.  On this one I’d known ever since laying eyes on the Mountain Bluebird, that everything was going to be just fine. 

Now it was getting cold everywhere.  A few early winter storms were shutting down sections of the country.  Some of the trees would be bare.  The grass would’ve been turning yellow.  A lot of the campgrounds would be closed until the spring.  It had been an epic road trip.  No one could take that away.  In less than a week, all the worries of the world would come crashing back down on me, but for one more night, at least, everything was OK.

Trains passed by the Western Hills Motel in Flagstaff all night long.  If you couldn’t hear the whistle and the clacking of the wheels on the rails, you could feel them vibrating through the wall.  I was up at six, not quite ready to give up the comfort of the bed so quickly, now that I was close to home. 

I turned on the TV and the Today Show was on, all the guests facing each other with broad smiles and exaggerated emotions.  In between, were commercials for Botox and various pharmaceutical drugs, the reality of the present world, not the imaginary past that I’d just come traipsing through, or the future, which would probably just get worse.

There wasn’t much connection between people and nature anymore, and very little with other people.  These days everyone is star in their own universe, with their social media and earbuds.  Liking and sharing, two of the kindest actions a human can take have become debased, meaning something more akin to conquest and propaganda.  Were there some hurt feelings involved?  Sure, I’d always hope to get the respect that comes with recognition, but I’d been living in my own personal Siberia for so long, even that didn’t matter anymore.  The only way to escape crushing anxiety was to fly to the moment, expand on it, fill it full of meaning and wonder.  Easy on a road trip, harder back at home.

The news came on.  The anchors and reporters were all polite, earnest, civil people, quick to break into laughter when the opportunity arose, yet able to put on a pained, mournful face when discussing a more somber topic.  They were saying the reported cases of COVID were higher than ever.  How long would this go on, outside of the rest of our lives?  I’d seen little evidence of it on my trip, just museums that were closed instead of gift shops and places where they still required masks.  What they were predicting was a new variant.  How many of those could they spin into eternity, knowing that they’d learned how to shut the whole world down inside of a week?

A light was beginning to show at the window.  I could hear another freight train throttling past and the skimming by of cars out on Route 66.  There were birds that began to chirp, as a commercial came on.  The Cardinals had a home game coming up in Phoenix.  Then there was something regarding the magic of Christmas and a third one plugging the Disneyland Resort in Florida. 

It was an age of miracles we were living in.  It was possible to be happy all the time.  Take your medication, go to the game, buy presents ahead of time, and then go on a big vacation.  What about money?  Well, it didn’t hurt to dream.  Start small.  Get a job.  Open up a savings account.  In the meantime, put it on a credit card.  You could always pay for it later.

There was a fire north of Phoenix a at Tesla Repair Shop.  It was deemed not accidental.  It had accelerated and spread too fast.  They had a dog there wandering through the debris.  The moratorium on evictions had also ended.  Thousands were facing evictions.  Across the country that number was even higher.  Up to fifty-thousand people could soon lose their homes.  And what was this latest breaking news?  The coach and general manager of the Cardinals had just tested positive for COVID.  How would this impact the game? 

The toilet had been running all this time.  I finally had to get up and jiggle the handle, but doing so ruined my concentration.  The whistle of a train blasted so loudly then it seemed like it was in the next room.  I went and opened up the door and was nearly blinded.  It was an immensely bright day. 

Once the car was loaded, I decided to cruise through downtown before hitting the road.  I’d put almost fifteen thousand miles on the car.  It was hard to imagine that going over well when I returned it.  What could I say?  It was bad enough the last time when I’d returned a rental car that reeked like salsa.  The guy had gotten in to check the mileage and come out with his eyes watering. 

This time it would be more like tears of rage, that is if he was in any way invested in the company.  I was hoping that they wouldn’t notice.  Fat chance of that.

From Flagstaff it was just thirty miles to Sedona, famous for its red rocks, spires, and pine forests, as well as the New Age seekers that it famously attracts.  I’d been there before and was just passing though.  My real destination was a monument in southern Arizona, and that was a long-ass drive, over four hundred miles. 

It was another beautiful morning.  What could I say?  On this trip those had been a given, only three or four days impacted by rain and no storms strong enough to keep me from staying in a tent with no pegs.  Two nights I’d had to use rocks to weigh down the tent.  That’s the windiest it had ever gotten.  Now I drove south on the 89A, arriving in Sedona to find galleries and boutiques, places for yoga and renewing.  It was so early still almost no one was out, just a few couples out looking for coffee.  On the way out of town I passed a mall, with a statue of an Indian, looking like he’d just put up the sign.  That was telling.

I’d just gotten onto the 17 heading south when I came upon a sign for the Montezuma Castle National Monument.  This ended up being a cliff-dwelling residency, which viewed from underneath resembled the mud nests that swallows build beneath freeways and inside of caves.  The monument was next to the Yavapai Apache Nation Reservation, which housed the Cliff Castle Casino Hotel.  If all went according to plan, I would be driving through the Fort Apache and San Carlos Reservations later that day.

The Apache are a group of tribes from the Southwest that are distantly related to the Navajo.  They have a long history with Mexico, both as foe and friend, and spent their time trading with some villages while raiding others.  They sided with the US in the 1842 war against Mexico, but conflict began when the war was won and they began to be placed on reservations.  Although skilled warriors and strategists in battle, their outsized reputations for blood-thirsty savagery, in many cases were attempts to justify the brutality that was inflicted on them.

Because I wanted to drive through Fort Apache, I took the 260 all the way to Show Low, through the Tonto National Forest, and then headed south of the 60.  The White Mountain Apache populate the reservation, so named because of its use as a military outpost during the Indian Wars. 

When I got to the 70, I headed east, and soon came across the Apache Gold Casino on the San Carlos Reservation.  Some kind of motorcycle rally was going on in the parking lot.  Once described by an army officer as Hell’s 40 acres, it appeared a few of the visitors were eager to fan the flames and get the fun started.  I got gas and looked at some posters for upcoming events.  It looked like there was an upcoming fair and rodeo, and also a Miss San Carlos Pageant.

By the time I reached the 10 east, I was heavily zoned out.  I’d been driving so long and so hard, it appeared the nerves in my lower back might be permanently pinched.  The highway seemed to go on forever.  At one point I glanced down and saw I was going a hundred miles an hour.

By the time I got to Road Fork, I was back in New Mexico.  I got off on this tiny country road, the 80, and started heading south, still zipping along.  At one point I saw a vehicle parked on the shoulder of the road ahead of me, and thought I should probably slow down.  A little further and I knew I should.  I jammed on the brake a hundred yards from passing a police cruiser.  Then I looked in my rearview mirror and saw it do a U-turn and hit the red lights.  All this driving around the country without an issue.  Why now?  How fast had I been going?

The officer came over and asked for my license and registration.  He’d caught me going sixty-five in a fifty-mile-an-hour zone.  Fifty miles an hour?  What was that all about?  There were tumbleweeds going faster than that.  I slumped and stewed until he came back to me.  He was willing to knock five miles off my recorded speed, making it a slightly less egregious offense.  I could use their website to pay the fine.  He went back to his cruiser and I drove off at a crawl.  Less than five minutes later, I crossed the Arizona state line.

Why do people sometimes yell Geronimo when jumping from a great height?  It was a practice that was adopted by some paratroopers in the US Army and may have come from a movie they’d seen or a song that was popular on the radio at the time.  Another origin story of the tall tale variety is that the famous warrior once escaped capture from a posse by jumping his horse off a high cliff and simultaneously calling out his own name. 

The monument I was about to visit, outside of Skeleton Canyon, is said to mark the spot where Geronimo finally surrendered to General Miles in 1886.  What a place to finally get a speeding ticket, in the twilight of my epic road trip.

Geronimo was a medicine man of the Bedonkohe Apache band who carried out raids in northern Mexico and Arizona and New Mexico.  He was a great leader who sometimes led up to fifty warriors.  The Apache resented the confinement of the reservations and Geronimo escaped from them three times.  After finally surrendering, he was put on display in fairs, exhibits, and parades, about as demeaning as keeping a mountain line in a cage, until he finally died at Fort Sill in Oklahoma in 1909.  Since then, he has gone on to symbolize resistance, being the last of the great Indian warriors to give up the fight.

It was late in the afternoon when I reached the monument, out in the middle of nowhere.  I parked the Mountain Bluebird and got out.  There were concessions I’d made along the way, and others ahead of me.  That is what happens when you grow old.  It would’ve been easier to go out in a thunderbolt of youthful impetuousness, but that wasn’t the hand I’d been dealt.

  How much of the future would involve remembering and embellishing upon old battles rather than waging new ones?  I’d had very little in the way of support and no followers.  I would’ve been happy to jump a horse off a high cliff, but no one had ever been chasing me, outside of my own fears and doubts. 

What was the war that I’d been fighting all these years?  Only this.  That life should mean more than what we’ve made of it.

The sun was setting as I posed for a picture.  Yes.  This would be a good time for a selfie, the dying sun in my eyes, my shadow falling on the scripted pillar at my back.  Now a picture with my great valiant steed, the Mountain Bluebird, parked in front of it.  If it could talk, what tales it would tell, how it had been freed from its little pen in Huntington Beach to roam the country far and wide.  I got back in and started to drive, only the whirring of the tires on the blacktop as my soundtrack.  Clouds came down, first golden, then turning red.  They created a firestorm in the heavens, looking as if they could touch down and scorch the earth to sleep.

I was close to the Mexican border.  The Mexican state of Sonora was just across the other side.  When I got to Douglas there was a wall separating it from Agua Prieta.  I turned right and followed it a half mile.  Then I took another right, saving Mexico for my next journey.  A mile away, I came across a Motel-6.  Fifty-nine dollars a night.  Not great, but I could live with it.  I still had two more long days ahead of me. 

It was just like the good old days, slumming in a Motel-6 on the Mexican border.  I remembered my last extended stay in one, with my front tooth missing and the engine seized up in my pickup truck.  Ah, the glory days.  Don’t get me started.