There are twenty-two tribal communities in Arizona and the land that makes up the reservations is roughly twenty million acres, more than a quarter of the land in the state.  The Hopi Reservation which I was driving towards, is totally surrounded by the Navajo Nation.  Hopi refers to people who are civilized, polite, and well mannered.  They do not see time as a linear construction and often experience the past and present at the same time.  This ability keeps them closely in touch with their ancestors and the land around them.  Their goal is to maintain the balance between all things.

It was two hours to reach the Hopi Nation from Fort Defiance.  The sky was clear and the road was straight ahead.  The first place I reached was Keam’s Canyon.  There was a market beside the road with a painting of a California Condor on the side, soaring high above a canyon.  Next, I passed the Hopi High School, then Hopi Fine Arts.  Further down the road, I came upon a museum with a petroglyph out front.  Both it and the restrooms were closed.  I wasn’t sure if this was because of COVID or not. 

My destination that day was Monument Valley, and I was taking the long way to get there.  I reached a mesa where even the surrounding mountains were flat.  The road began to seem endless.  Then I found some abandoned buildings that had been turned into a street art gallery.  A woman in a COVID mask that had bluebird written on it.  Two elders beneath a psychedelic mountain.  Faces with red eyes that looked like skulls.  Another native woman in a gas mask.  A drummer.  A horned toad.

When I got to Tuba City, it was still almost a hundred miles to get to Monument Valley.  By now I couldn’t drive fast enough, and was twitching in my seat, speeding along the north 160, until I came upon a group of cars stuck behind a camper going 45 miles an hour.  There was too much traffic in the opposite lane to pass.  I almost went ballistic.  Inside I kept pushing and pushing.  I had to pull over and let them get far enough ahead of me, just to avoid a seizure.

When I got back on the road, the land and the clouds were like a painting, towers, chimneys, and mesas on both side of the road.  I was starting to get lost in the dreaming when I caught up with the RV procession again, somewhere around Kayenta, and immediately reverted to lunatic ravings, shouting out loud, slapping my thigh, praying to God to send a lightning bolt to earth to strike me dead.  That went on for the next twenty miles.

When I reached Monument Valley, I got lucky.  It was nearly five and they were about to close, but the woman at the booth let me in anyway.  A few minutes later and I would’ve lost my mind.  Monument Valley has been featured in a number of Western movies and may be among the most photographed destinations on the planet.  Its trademark is the three buttes that stand at the center of it; West Mitten Butte, East Mitten Butte, and Merrick Butte.  Thankful just to be there, I left my car in the lot and stumbled towards the overlook, my shadow leading the way.  The sky was still blue and the clouds above the buttes were spiraling like galaxies.  It was that magical time of day between late afternoon and nightfall, where all is calm and crystal-clear.

I went into the giftshop and there was a collection of souvenirs based on every tribe in the nation as well as every figure out of folklore that the Old West ever produced.  There were postcards, cowboy boots, T-shirts, dreamcatchers, keychains, puzzles, shot-glasses, you name it.  On one window ledge were a series of kachina dolls, looking like they were dancing in the sky above the three buttes.

When I left the parking lot, I pulled over at a statue of a Navajo family and turned off the car.  It was late enough to start thinking about a campsite, but I hadn’t even meditated yet.  My phone service wasn’t working and it was already cold out.  The sun was right behind me and the shadow of my car was right in front of me. 

All I could think about was where I would go that night.  Mexican Hat?  It was absolutely still until another car would pass.  There was a whirring to the left of me and a truck with a trailer went by.  My stomach growled so loudly it sounded like a bear in a cave.  Just then an Asian family pulled up right behind me.  The father jumped out and began taking pictures of everything.  He must’ve taken seventy-five pictures of the statue from different angles.  The mother and daughter got out of the car, both wearing COVID masks.

I’d had five perfect weeks.  Was my luck about to change?  What would happen next?  I wasn’t meditating.  All I was doing, was sitting there worrying about where I’d sleep that night.  It would be a shame if it ended up being in the car.  My nerves were so shot, and my back ached so badly, that I couldn’t even go there.

By the time I left Monument Valley it was almost sunset.  The sun was just above the road in the rearview mirror.  I seemed to remember a budget hotel in Mexican Hat, Utah, but when I got there it all seemed to be boutique hotels and resort-style accommodations.  I continued on to the San Juan River and drove down to a campground there.  It was packed out.  Every space was taken.  There wasn’t even room to pull off to the side and stay in the car. 

I continued onto Bluff, but it was the same situation, either expensive hotels or no hotels, and nothing that resembled a campsite.  By now it was pitch black.  There was a restaurant and trading post at a place called the Twin Rocks.  I pulled over in the parking lot and put the seat back, but that was no good at all.  How long before someone came driving up and hassled me?

There was a place down the road called Montezuma Creek that seemed promising, but then I never came to it or it wasn’t large enough to register.  Finally, I came to Aneth and had no choice but to give up and stop on the side of a gas station.  The last thing I’d wanted to happen had happened, but only for the second time on the whole trip.  I wouldn’t be sleeping as much as just sitting there waiting for the dawn.  That would mean a whole twenty-four hours in the driver’s seat.  Does Avis give out medals for that?  More than likely it would be a fine.  If they ever do need a spokesman and want to pair me again with the Mountain Bluebird, they know where to find me.  That would be a trip.

It was a good thing that no one came out to check on me.  I put the seat back and got under the sleeping bag.  Then I just sat there in a vegetative state, only my mind working, until four o’clock.  That was enough of that.  I put the keys in the ignition and got back on the road, driving in total darkness, dependent on my brights to cut through it.  At that point, the stars were only faint pinpricks of light.

When I got to Four Corners, where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado meet, it was still dark and the gate was closed.  I’d been there a few times, but it was still a setback.  There was nothing to do but park beside the gate, but I wasn’t going to wait for them to open.  Rather, I needed to calm my frazzled mind. 

Now I stepped outside and the stars were magnified.  Orion.  The Pleiades.  Betelgeuse.  Aldebaran.  Sirius.  Leo.  Ursa Major.  These were stars and constellations from my stargazing crash course during the pandemic.  They were bright in the black night, trinkets, and jewels, that shined through my eyes and into my foggy mind, clearing the confusion.  The cold air snapped me back to my senses.  The world was alive and well. 

I had been pushing so hard to get somewhere, but the stars were always above me, rather I recognized them or not.   I could feel my heart beating in my head.  My pulse steadily slowed down.  The four corners were sacred, the crossroads, where the red road meets the black road.  I thought about the Black Elk Monument in Blair.  Is it a cross or a tree of life that the lonely man clings to? Perhaps, they are one and the same.

Could it be that I was heading back east next?  Could I possibly be thinking of driving to Mesa Verde?  Why not?  It wasn’t that far.  When I left Four Corners it was still pitch black.  They probably wouldn’t be opening for hours.  Even though my phone service was out, and I didn’t have Karen from Google Maps to guide me, if I got lost, I could always look up at the stars.  They wouldn’t lead me to Mesa Verde, but I could still look up at them.

Mesa Verde National Park is the oldest archaeological park in America, with remnants of both ancient pueblos and small villages tucked away in rock faces left by the cliff-dwellers.  I’d been there three or four times in my life and knew it to be a place that captures the imagination.  Most people will tell you that the Indians lived in tipis, which some of them did, but they also lived in hogans, adobes, wigwams, longhouses, and stone houses lodged in crevices.  It was really only an hour away to get to Mesa Verde.  I’d started so early I figured I’d get there right when the park opened.

Along the way I passed the Ute Mountain Reservation.  The Utes were hunters and gatherers who began trading with the Spanish in the 17^th Century.  After the land was won from Mexico, the United States began paying the Utes five thousand dollars a year to serve as allies against the Navajo.  Eventually, they were confined to reservations. 

In 1879, a band of Utes attacked the agency on the reservation and killed Nathan Meeker and ten of his employees, taking the women and children hostage.  When the army intervened, the Utes killed a major and thirteen soldiers.  This was known as the Meeker Massacre.  In the treaty that followed, the Utes lost most of their land.  Millions of acres became open to be settled by the whites.

When I got to Cortez, I pulled over to gas up and get some coffee.  There were some interesting murals on the side streets, horse rustlers, three men breaking a stallion, kachina dancers, a team of pack mules, four men playing cards with death, as a woman smokes and another holds a hatchet.  By now I was only fifteen minutes away.

I must’ve been the first one at the gate, but then a few cars appeared behind me.  They accepted my National Park Pass, which had now paid for itself ten times over, and almost made up for the fact that they now require reservations to camp, almost.  In this bloated, overpopulated age, it might be necessary to prevent the parks from being overrun, but it is also a damning testament to what has happened to our freedoms. 

Is there any way to just go out there and be spontaneous anymore?  Of course, there is.  I was proof of that.  But it is an endangered way of life.  The pioneers came across open land and just took it for their own.  Now it is risky to find open land and even try to sleep on it.  You might get busted.

The ascent to the visitor center was steep and winding.  If any car got behind me, I just pulled over and let them pass, rather than endure the irritation of feeling pressured to speed up.  As an old principal of mine used to say … Your urgency is not our emergency.  When I got to Point Lookout I pulled over to survey the land below.  The sky was gray and heavy.  The fields, if that’s what they were, looked like mudflats.  The bushes in front of the car were dry and leafless.  I was getting into fall weather.

Leaving that, I passed through a long tunnel, the approaching light at the end feeling like a description of death.  When I burst through, I was close to the visitor center.  There’d be time for that later, if at all.  I was bursting with exuberance, almost bouncing up and down on the seat.  When I got to the first Pit House I leapt out and raced around that sunken divot like I was competing in a pig race.  Then I raced to the Square Tower House and nearly sprinted to the overlook.  This cliff dwelling contains eight kivas, or chambers, and nearly sixty rooms.  It looked like a city termites would live in, with a stone overhang for a sky.

Running as if I were being chased, I moved on to the Pueblos and Pit Houses.  I could hardly contain my exasperation as I got out of the car.  There was more to see ahead.  So much more to see.  When I got to the Sun Point View the village there was partly obscured by trees.  What I could see of it, once again did resemble a termite mound.  The Oak Tree House was closer and a better view.  There were three large circular rooms and a few adjoining ones.  The Sun Temple was right in the open.  You could get out and wander around it.

That was enough.  All I wanted was to drive.  All I wanted was to jump back in the Mountain Bluebird and go soaring across the land.  That’s what the trip had mostly been about, the movement, the little bit of freedom I could make for myself before crashing back down into a quagmire of debt and unemployment.  Flying back down the mountain now was like being on an alpine sled. 

Highway 491 had once been the original highway to hell, highway 666, but was changed in 2003 because many Christians consider that number the mark of the beast, and the many accidents that occurred along it gave some evidence that it could’ve been cursed.  They also couldn’t stop people from stealing the road signs.  It was highway 491 that I took then, in the direction of Dove Creek.  I didn’t care what they called it these days, as long as it got me to Moab.

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.