11 Oct 1997 - Chuckawalla CA to Guthrie AZ
G'z, all that and I haven't even had any caffeine yet. Ooh, what'll happen once I get caffeinated? Heh heh.
Of course, with this game plan, I'm not having any fresh coffee, didn't bring any burners with me, didn't want any of the infrastructure necessary to fix myself hot coffee. And I didn't get any of the discounted-because-it's-being-discontinued iced coffee they had back at Trader Joe's because I was already at the checkout line with a heavy basket by the time I realized they had that. So, on these self-starting mornings, even after a good bowl of granola and a swig of water, caffeine means a generic diet cola. Oh boy. Cola for breakfast. [grunt] [grunt]
Back on the interstate, the end of the Chuckwalla Valley Road but still very much in Chuckwalla Valley, next to Ford dry lake. Wow, it is flat here - this is a BIG, long playa. Coming up to the next rest stop, which is at Coachella State Prison - Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers. Huh. Anyway, the reason I switched on to make this note - let's see, Next Rest Area 25 Miles, I can wait - make this note 'cause back on the interstate and puttin' along at 57, 60 is NOT an option here. [I'm] doing 65, 66, and getting passed like crazy, like I'm a road bump. So I'm gonna stay about 65, 66, and try not to think about the extra fuel that's being consumed. Oh, poor Barbi, having to pay for this kind of stuff. Well.
[radio noise]
[Arizona 1]
Outa Blythe, going across the Colorado River - right - at - this - moment. Blue river, green shrubs alongside, coming into Ehrenburg, Parker, let's see how much cheaper the gas is on this side of the river than on the California side. Ummm, well, a little cheaper, not a bunch, 20 cents maybe - well, I guess that's a bunch. [mumble] Yah, hmm...
So I had a less than satisfactory breakfast in Blythe, but what the heck, I got my dose of cholesterol and fat, a 3-egg plain omelet with hash browns, biscuits, lotsa grease, lotsa coffee, so OK, I'm caffeinated now, so watch out world!
Ahead of me is Sawtooth Mountain and umm, they're all Sawtooth Mountains, OK. The terrain is still general Mojavean as we would expect. The elevation, what? about 500 feet says the altimeter. Too bad I couldn't see the altimeter last night to see how low I was around Indio, see if this actually DOES go below zero.
[different radio noise]
I started out this morning, I was playing the tape Dad left in the tape player, which was Linda Ronstadt, CANCIONES; I started playing that back around Banning last night. Ah yes, singing all those wonderful old Mexican songs, one of which was TORA TORA TORA! And this morning I started off with the same tape, same song; after a bit I shut it off, switched on the radio, and immediately got a station out of Mexicali, playing somebody else singing TORA TORA TORA! They seem to playing - seems like a pretty powerful FM station out of Mexicali - they seem to be playing lots of the classic canciones; now some good guitar music; so I think I shall stay with this station until it fades away.
Ah, the Ehrenburg rest stop - quite beautiful, with warnings of poisonous reptiles and insects in the area, and pictures of rattlesnakes and scorpions - scorpions, of course, aren't insects, but what the heck. Purple sage in bloom, ooh! it's pretty. Umm, back at, umm, da da da, where I camped last night, something springs? Corn Springs. On the Corn Springs road, the ocotillo were in full leaf! I think lots of the plants out here think that this is spring. I think it's been fairly wet. I think that's a valid conclusion.
And a minute later: my first saguaro cactus [on this trip]. It's a beaautiful morning, it's what now? 9:23, 9:27; after a good sleep, good breaakfast, good shit. And on the road with the window open; it is really temperate, The altimeter reads about 1000 [feet]. There's some more saguaros out there.
I'm on the stretch of road between Ehrenburg and Quartzite... ascending, 1100 feet now, or thereabouts... fortunately, this is not the season of the Quartzite Pow-Wow [Gem Show] when 700,000 people or so come, hungry for gems - though that'd probably interesting to hit the outskirts of. I'll have to check, see when that is - maybe, when Maureen's in Ireland, I can come to Quartzite next year. Hmm, or maybe I'll just come anyway. Hmm, we shall see.
In Quartzite - shop 'til you drop. A large open-air junk shop with large numbers of poor people picking over the detritus of commercial civilization. What a pile of junk! Except it does look like a good place to bring kids to pick out their own toys. It's a good thing it's a windy day and the temperature's moderate; otherwise, this could be one of the more excruciating shopping experiences I could think of.
Another stop in Quartzite, a used-book stall, I bought a few things real cheap, one thing not so cheap, but at a good discount: Carl Sagan's last book, on millenialism, I don't remember the title now, heh heh; and uh, a few free books. So a pleasant stop and some free iced tea, and a good ol'coot running the place. Yeah Quartzite, Quartzite is fun enough; at least it's a, sure looks like a place to buy *used* stuff. Much of the town appears to be a permanent flea market. Ah, the sky - fleets of fluffy clouds sailing over the blue mountains.
So, back to the coot in Quartzite - he wasn't *that* old, uh, skinny, very hairy bearded guy with great hairy legs, uh, soft-spoken,
Um, I was going to have him look also for the MAN, MYTH AND MAGIC books [my missing volumes 9 and 18], but I could tell he didn't have that set in there. Um, a decent fellow, offered me free iced tea. And when he saw the books I'd picked out, he said, "That's more like the kind of reading I do than what usually moves out of here." And I told him of my adherence to Sturgeon's Creed and Sturgeon's Law.
That website was www.icr.org - the phone number to ask for the Big Bang tape was 1-800-7-GENESIS. Wowee zowee. The radio program is downloadable from the website, and their assumptions and arguments and conclusions are extremely bogus. Just more of the usual cretinist distortions and intellectual dishonesty. Yow.
I feel a song coming on - see NEVER BEFORE.
Interesting. Coming into the outskirts of Phoenix, just about to pass Jackrabbit Trail; the last time I came into Phoenix was in the eye of a hurricane that had come up the Pacific and devastated the south end of Baja; now, from where I am I can see, there's a dust-devil right off the highway to my right here, like 50 yards over; there is a read BIG dust-devil ahead a couple miles... uhh... another one off to the left at about 10 o'clock looking very long and thin, like a dirty tornado, well, not dirty - uh, a tan tornado; umm, wow, the Dust Devil Days! Cowabunga.
Otherwise the sky is *full* of cumulus clouds, so it's not like the sky is overcast, or smoggy, or clear; it's like, lotsa scattered, scattered clouds, with dust-devils.
Now I'm coming up on a BIG dust-devil that was ahead - it's, the road's curved a little bit, it's off to the left some, I'll be passing it here - this is just past a state prison. And coming up to - oh, it looks like a big sports arena, uh, well lessee, is it State Prison, Wildlife World Zoo, or Camping, here at Citrus Road? That, if that's a prison, it's a very strange-looking prison, looks more like an arena. Umm, but here off to the left, this is, this dust-devil is really sucking and blowing a lot of dust up into the atmosphere; and a couple miles beyond it, at 10 o'clock, there's 1 or 2 more that're wider, although they don't look as violent. This one is uh, really whipping away.
I'm right here at state highway 303 and interstate 10. Yup, that's a strong dust-devil, alright.
Coming into Apache Junction now, uh, more dust-devils, and uh, at 10 o'clock the Superstition Mountains, clouded over, looming above the road - various purples and blacks, looking ominous here; and even more ominous maybe are the mountains back behind'em, which, I dunno, are those the North Superstitions? Ahh, strange, going along a freeway here on the outskirts of Phoenix, heading right up to the base of these fabled, devil-ly peaks... brrr...
Past the sign, Entering Apache Junction, An Arizona Main-Street City - but of course I'm not on the main street, I'm on the freeway bypass. Pity. Umm, I can probably fix that by taking this, Idaho Road? Let's see what happens... No, let's not.
To a certain extent this is rather a bummer of a way of travelling cross-country - I would like to do *nothing* but the blue highways, do *nothing* but the old main streets through the old cities; but I do have, uh, some obligation to Barbara in reasonable time and cost frames; and doing all the exploring I want just isn't going to achieve that. Bother.
Back around Apache Junction I was debating with myself over what route to take from here, or other, and I decided upon - O, it's raining now, hmm - I decided upon one that would take me through central New Mexico, past uh, thouough Elfego Baca country, and that is what I shall do. Meanwhile, I'm heading on - where are we? Gonzales Pass, elevation 2651, heading towards Superior, Globe and Miami; and I am concerned with finding [sniff] the next Subway Sandwich. Yes.
[garbled] If Maureen asks me what this leg of the journey's like, I'll say: "It's stunning!" I'm... just *stunned*. Ooh. I'm just past the point where I stopped to do a little bit of videotaping of the Superstition Mountains. I just passed through a little blooper of rain; boy, it's heavily overcast overhead, looks clearer off towards some horizons, and ahead of me new now as I'm going, it looks like north, there's a great mesa and at the base of it, a lot of houses. I wonder if that is Superior; could be. Superior's still probably 20 miles off from here.
Trying to describe the country here would be difficult, all the many cacti, the golden cholla and platyopuntia, opuntia basilaris it looks like; and some even floppier opuntias, uh platyopuntias. Mesquite and mesa [palo] verde and uh, it looks like pencil cholla over there. And suguaros, swarms of suguaros, uh, pointing up like every description everyone's ever heard of.
Hmm, going through a cut in the rocks here, lots of red sediments, then grey and white. Um, the hills around here are brown - well, the brown's because of the overcast. Sky's grey - everything is - this is primarily green. We have the red rocks, the soils's red, but everything is verdant. Helluva desert, heh heh.
Ah, no wonder it's so pretty, I'm at the Boyce-Thompson Arboretum State Park; and I'm only 3 miles from Superior, so yes, that's what that town up there is. Hmm, Superior Arizona, is that a municipality or a boast? [cackle]
OK, Superior is a *small* municipality, uh with a number of old buildings up here on the high side of town. As I crawl up through the red rocks, it looks like I'll have to get to Globe before I'll find a sandwich.
I'm in Miami, it looks like an almost-ghost-town, just barely holding on to life - almost every building in town is abandoned and gutted - eerie place. [wind noise] I'm parked next to a car with a jesus-fish on the back, and a bumper-sticker that says "For a small town, this one sure has a lot of assholes."
Driving east through the San Carlos Apache Reservation, the clouds overhead, the l-o-n-g downhill straightaway, umm, the colors on the mountains around, this looks like the cover of the Ry Cooder album INTO THE PURPLE VALLEY. Except it's bigger. Heh heh.
In Ft. Thomas Arizona, just east of the San Carlos reservation, in what many people would consider the middle of nowhere - actually it's the middle of, um, a great desert - in this miniscule village, a rather largeish well-tended park, beautifully trimmed, with a tall obelisk, a memorial park to the founder of the Lions Club, who was born here. Rose garden, um clumps of pampas grass, uh non-native pines, then the, and also a small white building attached to a large antenna, with a sign that it's the uh, it's a Ham club, the Hunting Lions of the Air. Uh. All rather unexpected out here.
[loud music] And a little bit beyond Ft. Thomas, near the village of Pima - let me turn this down [radio subsides] - near the village of Pima, what I see for miles and miles and miles, is cotton. With all the cotton puffed-out. Umm, well, the cotton bolls ain't rotten yet. They're ready to go. And there were big bales back there, looks like a lot of the harvest has already started. And these bales are immense rectangles, uh, big blocks, maybe 6 feet high, 8 to 10 feet wide, 20 feet long, 16-20 feet long, these are uh, big chunks here.
Alright, Saturday night, October 11th, about 7:45 PM, um, pacific time anyway. Ah, day is ending, the night is, um, it differs from last night. Instead of the sky being absolutely clear, the sky is very cloudy; mm, broken clouds, overcast to the west. I'm probably at, I don't know, 3000 feet? I didn't look at the - oh, maybe more than that, maybe 4000. Uh, didn't look at the altimeter.
Umm, up on a B.L.M. Backcountry Byway, between Safford and Clifton Arizona - this is the old road between the farms and the mines. Or so the signs say. Good gravel. Um, I need to find a, to find a fairly secluded turnout.
So here I am for the night. The wind is a-BLOWIN'! That, that sky, y'know it's ominous enough that I put up the rainfly on the tent. Um, nope, gotta get better tent stakes, these wire ones do not do well - I try to hammer'em into this rocky ground, hah, I guess I should've brought those metal and plastic ones after all. Damnit all! OK, so tomorrow, hit a camping goods store, make sure I'm ready for the next one of these.
From here on it's into New Mexico, up into the Elfego Baca country around Reserve and the San Francisco Plazas. And then, uh, that road connects on up with US 60 again, and I'll be up by the Very Large Array; and on into Socorro, and we'll see how long all this takes. Uh from Socorro I dip down towards Ruidoso and then Roswell. With any luck, tomorrow night I'll be camped out somewhere around Roswell, so I can go see the crashed flying-saucer crap first thing Monday morning! And that's the plan.
And then somewhere along the way I'm gonna camp someplace for TWO nights, and lay out for a whole day, rest and transcribe this tape.
8:12 the same night. Um, I have reason to regret the way I situated the tent. Heh. I regret having the tent at all, without those stakes. Um, dust is, despite my sealing-up the place as much as possible, dust is coming in in large quantities and the back is collapsing on me. I'm afraid that in the morning there'll just be a pile of tentage here with me smothered inside. Yow.
OK, a little better. Hydraulic pressure forced me out.
[record radio sound]
-"...friends and family. Again, the content will cover both the scientific and theological problems with the Big Bang theory. To receive your free tape, just ask for the Big Bang cassette when you get in touch with ICR. To ask for today's free offer, please call toll-free, 1-800-7-GENESIS. That's 1-800, the number 7, and the word GENESIS. 1-800-7-GENESIS. Or 1-800-743-63374. And you can address your letters to ICR at PO Box 2667, El Cajon California, 92921... www.icr.org. Science, Scripture and Creation - A Radio Journal, is a production of ICR." [Institute for Creation Research]
[end radio sound]
[singing]
"I'm in Phoenix Ariz-zona.
The sign says, Sidewalk Closed,
but there ain't no sidewalk there,
go figure."
[end singing]
[singing]
"So hold me in your lovin' arms, hold me in your nuclear arms, and shower me with your hot love..."
[end singing]
