SouthWest Exposure X
^{Across America, 2005}

Tuesday 15 October 2005 - ADIOS BISBEE!
_{Heading to Railroad Pass or Wherever, NV
And oh yeah: Happy Birthday To Me}

* HAPPY BIRTHDAY to everybody who rates one!

NOONISH: We roll out of Bisbee. I'm just 39 years young again today. [Maureen laughs.] Another damn bright sunny beautiful day. I just about recovered from our wonderful party last night. Such a happy happy time. At the party we hear that David and Dora in Taxco are doing well — a baby on the way, employees now. Insert plug here for Dora's Cafe.

We stop in Sierra Vista to fuel up. Gas is the cheapest in what seems like years, only US$2.28 per gallon. Wow. And we have a my-birthday lunch at Filiberto's on Fry Ave. Ah, wonderful Mexican food. Seems expensive for Mexico but an awful lot cheaper than Canada. Sure tastes good.

As we roll north out of Sierra Vista we're buzzed by a small delta-wing fighter jet. Just another day on the desert. I've described this desert a few times before. We're lost amid mesquite fields, chollas, burrobush, and rugged scraped-bare mountains. Halfway between Sierra Vista and I-10 the military-immigration checkpoint is closed for the first time we've seen in a long time.

We make it through Tucson alive. On the far side, approaching Casa Grande, the air gets murkier. In Casa Grande the fuel is the cheapest we've yet seen, just US$2.25 per gulp. Beyond, the air is murkier yet. Phoenix and its rush hour approach. We tremble.

A billboard advertises PLAY SLOTS AT HOME and gives a phone number. Impoverish yourself without even leaving your desk.

And further, in Chandler, right beside the freeway is an extended carnival with multiple ferris wheels and little roller-coasters and all the other flotsam and jetsam of rides and attractions. The carny spreads for about a mile along the roadfront, with Xmas decorations strung upon many items. A Xmas carny, Maureen sez. Well sure, Xmas is only 42 days away.

LATE AFTERNOON in Tempe we see a mountainous Ikea store beside the freeway. A huge full moon rises on the horizon, almost blood-red. Sacre bleu! As it happens, there are a few Ikea items we need to acquire, to finish our shelving at home etc. We enter. We stare at the bright colors and patterns. On the sound system there's Blondie, with Debbie Harry singing "One way or another, I'm gonna find ya, I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha!" We're already familiar with the contents at Ikea, so we don't loop the entire store, which is larger than the historic seaport of Amalfi, Italy. That would take all night. As it was, we emerged in darkness and traversed Phoenix in darkness. This is best. Phoenix should be driven by night so you needn't look at it, nor at the brown scuz they call air.

We loop around Phoenix to the northwest corner of freewaydom and catch the non-freeway road towards Wickenburg and Kingman, old US 60. We slice through Sun City, Del Webb's big retirement community, and Surprise Arizona. At night they look like Anywhere USA, the commercial strips have the same stores, the same logos, the same designs. Is this Folsom or Hillsdale or Peoria or Pasadena or what? We're anywhere, in Anonymousville.

Out of cities, away from the streetlights, the full moon does its best to illuminate the dim desertscape. Shadowy mountains in the distance. A straight road ahead for a couple hundred miles, very little in the way of turns, or so it seems. The horizon so immense, it's hardly to be seen. We cross the Gila River but there's no river and no Gila monsters. Bother.

We pass another squished coyote by the side of the road. We've passed almost a half-dozen today. Maureen suggest they're breeding dumb ones this year. I'm thinking it's either that or they're suicidal. "Hey, I'm the delta dog, I'm never gonna get laid. This sucks. Might as well end it all, what the hell." [Maureen laughs.] Then they leap out in front of traffic, SMACK! And there you have it.

EVENING, Circle City Arizona, not quite to Wickenburg. We saw a thin road leading off the highway, turned off across the railroad tracks through an open gate to a flat piece of land. Decided, this is it for the night, started to configure the coach for stability. A few minutes later there's a knock on the door. A young guy stands there.

He: "Hi, would you be sure to close the gate when you leave? Just twist the wire on the chain."

Me: "Certainly. Uh, the gate was open when we pulled in; I wouldn't go through a closed gate."

He: "Yeah, I've been going in and out to my place over there." [Gestures at gravel roadway.]

Me: "Say, is there any problem with us staying here overnight? We'll be gone in the morning."

He: "There's no problem with me, but you're not on my land. You're on another ranch. They have cattle around here."

Me: "Well, if there's a problem, I guess they'll come to tell us about it."

He: "Just make sure the gate is closed in the morning, OK?"

Me: "Sure, I certainly will."

Nice trick with the gate. It's chained and padlocked. But one chain link is just a piece of twisted wire. That's on the inside of the gate, not visible to passerby, who'll just see a locked chained gate. So those who know, especially if they've lost their key, can enter at will. Heh heh.

Dinner is easy. Plenty of leftovers from last night. I somewhat recreated the meal I made at Marsha's a few weeks ago (and received praise for). But better pasta — I used organic whole-wheat fettuccine. My special marinara sauce, a mix from two distinct cans. My special blend of dead-animal flesh and vege­tables sautéed with savory herbs. Maureen's garlic bread. Even with seven of us working on it, plenty remains. Mmmmm...

Wednesday 16 November 2005 - ON TO NEVADA!
_{Circle City AZ to Bullion Spring NV}

MORNING: We evacuate Circle City Arizona. The fresh-burnt sun rises over a mixed landscape of mesquite, creosote bush, sahuaro and opuntia cacti, next to the highway and train tracks. A few trains went by last night, more than on our sojourn beside the Canadian Pacific some weeks ago, but we were mostly too tired to care. There's the sound of the same dove's voice as we hear in Bisbee, but only one. We depart before the corporate cowboys come around to evict us. I secure the gate.

Wickenburg looks exploited-frontiersy, tolerable except for the smog. From here the highway number changes; we're on US 93 now.

Out beyond the Prescott turnoffs, we're in a splendid Joshua Tree forest, with smog blowing in from Phoenix and Los Angeles. A sign proclaims this the Joshua Tree Parkway. The tortured JTs indicate that we're at some elevation, maybe 3000-4000 feet. And we're also surround by creosote bush and pencil cholla and low platyopuntia and grey mountains. More roadside death memorials, crosses covered with fading plastic flowers. The odd ranch with spinning windmill. And in the center of the road is crushed animal, maybe a coyote. The body is totally flat but there's a fluffy grey tail sticking straight up in the air a couple feet.

Occasional sahuaros. Hmm, this is a mixed JT-sahuaro-creosote forest — I don't usually think of those growing together. Favorable microclimate here maybe? This is the first time we've ever driven the old Phoenix-to-Las-Vegas road. Except for the smog, occasional powerlines and many big trucks, it IS pretty scenic. And then major roadwork: reconstruction, widening. Before long this will be a four-lane expressway from the center to the northwest corner of the state.

And now with the sahuaros and creosote bush and JTs we're also seeing lots of ocotillos and encilia (brittlebush), the latter's grey leaves topped with bright yellow sunflower tops. And of course the toloache, the datura. A very beautiful route, upon which high-speed travelers can zip through without even looking at. And Rock-O-Rama, great heaps of piled boulders, likely granite and quartz monzonite.

We rise higher, into junipers, with plumed yuccas and scattered big barrel cacti. It's a regular Sonora-Mohave wonderland. We take a little side road a short ways to a wash for a stretch and look-see. Here are the strangest ant-hills we've ever seen, rough sand maybe eight inches across and three inches high with huge craters in the middle of each. We've never before seen them excavated to such an extent.

And now we approach Nothing Arizona, elevation around 3300 feet. We've gone from Surprise to Nothing in a matter of hours. A sign at the gas stop says that the hard-working citizens of Nothing are full of Faith, Hope and Believe. They have Faith in Nothing, they Hope for Nothing, they Believe in Nothing and they Work Hard for Nothing. Sounds to me like they're true existentialists.

NOONISH we roll through Kingman, set in a wide desert valley, nestled under low dry hills and lava-topped mesas. Then west across creosote bush scrub, then across a range of gnarly colorful rocky buttes, green and pink and white and more. Then down a long steep grade to the Colorado River, to cross at Bullhead City and Laughlin. I wonder if any of sister Barbi's artworks still stand in Laughlin?

Laughlin contains the southernmost concentration of Nevada casinos, a surreal construction of building that look like something else. Those aren't really a train station or a huge sidewheel paddleboat or a monstrous pillbox. The best odds are still long odds. The friendliest house in town is still purposed to remove your money from you. Have fun.

We cut north towards Searchlight Nevada through yet another wide creosote bush scrub, flanked in the distance by barren mountains. I am reminded that crossing lower elevation Mohave landscapes at speed is very boring. Walking such slowly may be more interesting, for survivors. Think about other things.

MID-AFTERNOON: At Searchlight Nevada (higher elevation, 3500 feet) we turn west on yet another officially designated Joshua Tree Highway. We climb into an unnamed pass at the north end of the New York Mountains, turn off around Bullion Spring on a gravel road in the midst of a great JT forest. And this is it for the night already, a nice level spot with no animate neighbors. Tomorrow: Death Valley, California.

And later, what's left of a full moon shines down brightly on the great speckled landscape. Venus is brilliant in the west, Mars brilliant in the east. No UFOs visible and the coyotes are hiding. Coincidence, or ??? As Venus sets, Orion rises. Must be winter in the northern hemisphere.

Now it's like we're at sea again, the RV our small boat. We're anchored in a starry calm cove with gusty cool winds rocking us. Our boat RV is even more jammed than usual, with the entire dining banquette area (table and seats) stuffed with our packed Bisbee gear, as is the tiny bathroom. Only outside showers on this leg of the journey, folks. Watch for sharks.

Thursday 17 November 2005 - DEATH VALLEY DAZE!
_{New York Mtns NV to Panamint Valley CA}

MORNING: We extract ourselves from our Bullion Spring camp and slide down the steep grade into the great Ivanpah Valley, across the California border with no welcome nor warning. We go through the 'historic town' of Nipton which is just a railway crossing with less going for it than the smallest Mexican village. On up to I-15 and over the next pass as the north end of the Mescal Range. Didn't see any mescal up there but who knows, ya could get lucky, en? We're at elevation, going through Joshua Tree forests all along the way, even down into the next great valley.

We turn off at the Cima-Excelsior Mine road, thinking to take a short cut over to Tecopa and Death Valley, but we need fuel. Gas here is US#3.69 a gallon, about 10% more than in Skaguay Alaska. We're just not buying it.

We slide into Baker California. It's still a nasty roadside pitstop. More billboards than buildings; more gas stations than anything else. Prices at the fuel pump and in the market are about at Canadian levels.

Oh, Baker has funny places too — there's the Bun Boy restaurant with the world's tallest thermometer; and the Mad Greek's with plaster statues stacked around; and Alien Fresh Jerky, with horribly overpriced jerky and olives and honey, absolutely no match for Hadley's Fruit Orchard down the road by the dinosaurs. They must subsist on tour buses filled with Japanese visitors — nobody else would pay their prices. And the jerky wasn't even very good. But they had lots of nice alien posters and T-shirts, and out front is a flying saucer on a pylon with an alien waving his cowboy hat. Oh yeah, hold me back.

The drive north from Baker to Shoshone cuts across the grain of the Mohave Desert, through narrower valleys with more color and texture and shape and form. We pass Tecopa and the fabulous public-access opal mines and strange sculpted alkalai forms. Shoshone looks almost lush: green trees, fields of reeds beside the road. Not what you'd expect in the high desert. Shoshone also looks about as it did ten and twenty and thirty years ago. A timeless space...

NOONISH: After Shoshone we cut west to cross the Calico Hills into Death Valley itself. We'll run the length of Death Valley, at least up to Stovepipe Wells. From our lunch stop at Salsberry Pass, a high narrow cut through gnarly rocks, we drop precipitously thousands of feet, to Jubilee Pass and further yet, to the Armagosa River as it flows towards Badwater, lowest spot on the surface of the Western Hemisphere. Badwater is lowest only because it's not covered by water; with an appropriate mid-continent drying spell, the bottom of Lake Superior would be far deeper.

As we get lower the creosote bushes start to fade away. They now only grow in the alluvial fans. Down near the edge of old Lake Manly at the bottom of Death Valley, a dry lake formerly some 90 miles long and 12 miles wide, there grows just saltbush and not much else. The steep rocky mountain slopes rising just above us are bare of vegetation, just rock, scraped clean. Colorful, though.

What Death Valley looks like when you're driving along next to it — it looks like a monstrous salt lick, in size about midway between Manhattan Island and Long Island. It's a nice place during ice ages.

AFTERNOON: We skirted past Mormon Point. We stopped above Badwater, I ran down to the salt flat, tasted it — yeah, it's salty, all right. We drove on up to the Devil's Golf Course, so named from all the great ragged halide blocks you can easily break a leg on while strolling across. Then up Artist's Drive to Artist's Palette, multi-colored rock faces and the road in a deep slot. I feel less like a slotcar than a slotcar's flag, deep within the groove. This is not unlike (except for the angles) the slot ravines in old Lake Cahuilla at the edge of the Salton Sea in Anza-Borrocho, California.

And I'm reminded that kids these days get to play with video games. When I was their age, I had to build and race slot cars. The only other electric entertainments were television and pinballs and juke boxes. Oh, the bad old days. Working with slot cars meant one actually had to learn to put things together and improvise. Not just thumb candy, although slotcar controllers sometimes functioned thusly.

I'm also reminded of the time we were driving our old 1969 Chevy longbed stepside pickup somewhere northwest of here in a slot canyon around Saline Valley, and had a head-on collision. We came around a deep hairpin and saw an oncoming pickup. We stopped. He didn't; he was towing a trailer. The impact wasn't too rapid but did manage to bend our front end and hood and smash up his radiator. Poor Athena the dobergirl ate the dashboard but recovered. He suffered more damage overall than we — not that anyone could afford it. Our Chevy stayed smashed for the rest of its life.

As we left Artist's Drive with just a few miles to go to Furnace Creek, I mentioned that our day's adventure was about over. Not that we were going to stay around Furnace Creek, but that's where the road stops being adventurous. From there past Stovepipe Wells and on westward, the terrain is no longer quite so sublime. Still rather impressive, with tall mountains containing the valleys and alluvial fans. But without the great saltpan and desperate colors, the fascination diminishes.

EVENING: It's a long steep climb west from Panamint Valley to Townes Pass, then down sharply and over to Panamint Springs. The mountains are rugged and scrubby. We might think we're in parts of desert-central Mexico but there's more green vegetation there. The hasty drop takes us into Panamint Valley, once free for camping but now restricted as part of the expanded national park.

Ah, but we find a legal squat-camp site just outside the boundary as the sky turns indigo and our energy flags. We last camped around here a couple decades ago. We recall lying about on a sunny day and being buzzed by two VERY low-flying supersonic fighter jets, probably out of China Lake Naval Air Station down the valley a ways. The sonic boom was tremendous. I'm still deaf. What'd you say? Huh?

Friday 18 November 2005 - ACROSS YOSEMITE!
_{Panamint Valley to Pilot Ridge CA}

EARLY MORNING: We leave our sparse Panamint Valley camp. The valley is a dry blasted flat wasteland — this is NOT a Joshua Tree forest. There's hardly any shrubs at all. Sand and various fragments of volcanic black basalt scattered around. As I said of another context, not much else. But it was quiet and peaceful overnight.

We climb through Panamint Springs and its Canadian-priced fuel, up into the mountains past Darwin. This is more high dry country, over a mile-high pass, deep in the rain shadow of the looming Sierra Nevadas. Down below is what must be Owens (Dry) Lake and the imposing Sierra Nevada megalith beyond, with almost no snow topping. Just about bare; no snowpack visible. Will there be a drought, water shortages for California next year? I hope not.

We drop down into lower Owens Valley. Owens (Dry) Lake is a huge mostly-white blot across the landscape. It was probably pretty back when there was water here, before it was drained dry by Los Angeles. Luckily today the wind is not blowing, so the air is not full of alkalai dust clouds, scouring lungs and eyes and engines.

MID-MORNING: We pull into Lone Pine, set against the brown movie-set Alabama Hills in front of the grey-white Sierras. The town looks larger, cleaner, more prosperous than in previous years, more construction underway. One new project: a movie cowboy museum. Yippie tie one on!

Lone Pine is good for refueling, lowest price south of Bishop. The gas stop is also a fast-food joint, naturally. Our early meal of oats wasn't entirely satisfying so we head inside for breakfast burritos. We sit a small window-front table, look over at Japanese tourists munching away at a mystery meal. The father wears hip-looking dark glasses. The mother has very strange hair, teased out and banded and constricted. The teenage son looks like an absolute dork.

A high school field trip group enters, busty girls and pimply boys and a fat coach-chaperone, all the youngsters grab-assing and chortling. As we leave we notice that someone left a big fat roach on our table, not the kind with legs. But who knows where it's been?

Northwards up narrowing upper Owens Valley, looking lusher: trees and shrubs along the marginal river. Westward the face of the High Sierras is still bare, just a dusting of snow on Mt Whitney and its immense kin, some slight icepack. And we pass the old Manzanar concentration camp. Then through Independence California, the same remembered wad of old cottonwood trees sheltering homes and businesses in the heart of The Land Of Little Rain at the base of Mt Whitney.

NOONISH: After more interminable Owens Valley miles we reach Big Pine, a forlorn scattered town, the gateway to the ancient Bristlecone Pines area. Beyond town, a radio-astronomy observatory, four big white dishes poking into the sky, set against the grey-brown White Mountains. And then through Bishop, which is quickly becoming a big blight upon the land. But the cheapest gas around (by a couple cents) is at the Indian joint on the north side of Bishop.

The High Sierras loom over Bishop to the west, high dry and lonesome now. The northbound highway climbs a long steep grade, up towards Mammoth and June Lakes. Off to the east, across a cracked volcanic tableland, rise the equally tall and snowless White Mountains, stretching on up Nevada's leading edge. Beyond here the route is oh-so-familiar: Mono Lake and Bridgeport and almost up to Carson City, then west over Carson Pass. But we won't do that this time! No! We'll ascend Tioga Pass and descend Yosemite and scoot north on the edge of the Central Valley. We have our reasons.

Finally, as we approach Mammoth Lakes, more snow is visible on the high jagged spires of spiny peaks ahead, but still not a whole bunch of the white stuff. North of Mammoth the visible snow again diminishes. Around Mammoth Lakes, US-395 passes through high forests, the road running up to 8000 feet. Why am I reminded of the southern Chiapas highlands? Then we drop down into sere sagebrush of the Mono Lake basin; the Mono Craters slumber deceptively to the east. They and the June Lake caldera could POP at any time. Mono Lake's water level looks low. Are the two volcanic-cone islands now connected to the mainland? Do any bird nesting areas survive there? When the islands aren't isolated, wild dogs wreak havoc upon migratory birds.

AFTERNOON: As we get up into Tioga Pass we see remnants of snow on the ground and patches of ice on the lakes. This *IS* winter, right? Then over the pass, cresting above 10,000 feet, and we're on the downside. I don't think we've been this high since Alaska Guatemala (highest point on the Pan-American Highway). Above Tuolumne Meadows we pass layers of famous Yosemite exfoliated granite. At the meadows, there's black ice on the road, sand atop that. Yeah, 'tis winter dry.

Beyond The meadows, which are rapidly filling in with small conifers, we traverse miles and miles of trees and trees. But we know what's ahead. There's long thin blue Tenaya Lake, nestled in glacier-sculpted granite. And beyond is Olmsted Point, from which lookout one can gaze down into Yosemite Valley far west and below, eyeing those massive granite cliffs and domes with a deity's-eye view. And more exfoliated granite outcroppings along the way.

At Olmsted Point, Maureen logs her first pika sighting of the year. A pika is a sort of short-eared rabbit, y'know. Last time we came through here the forest was burning even unto the roadway, which was grotty and a bit frightening. We ran like bunnies. Right.

LATE AFTERNOON: Enough is enough. We skipped Yosemite Valley, of course, and continued through and out of Yosemite park. A few miles out, we take a side road onto Pilot Ridge and positions ourselves under a humongous canopy of conifers swarmed with clouds of mosquitoes just waiting for us to bare out flesh. This is it for the night. Just don't go outside.

The light fades early at this winter latitude. Maybe forest smoke and valley smog contribute to the sky's darkening. Radio reception is good here. That's bad. I've noted an inverse law: the more and better radio that's available, the less livable is a locale. Nice places are stuck away in remote canyons or whatever with bad reception. That's how it is.

Saturday 19 November 2005 - END OF THE ROAD!
_{Whereupon this long strange trip finally concludes}

MORNING: We eject from our Pilot Ridge camp and drop (mostly) down the Sierra Nevadas' long western slope through areas less-watered than the Alpine region above. Down here it's jackpines and oaks and lots of manzanita and madrones. The oaks and maples and poplars are almost all in color, from yellow to red-orange. Other than the color change this could still be summer — blue sky, dry, very little mud.

We slide down through the quaint portal-and-resort town of Groveland with its century-plus-old architecture, maximally tarted-up for tourists. Most vertical surfaces are wrapped in tinfoil and red ribbon, to indicate the Xmas shopping season is in full sway. And below is Big Oak Flat, not nearly so quaint. The great Central Valley opens out beneath us, topped with a layer of gray sludge. The hillsides here are fuzzed with manzanita chaparral scrub. The grade is steep and twisty, like a pathway to war, gnawed from the sides of dirty fractured rock.

We descend to the valley's margin. We decide against driving the narrow twisty steep MotherLode GoldRush road, Hwy 49. Instead we take a lower parallel road through Copperopolis to San Andreas. So we skim the foothills through dry oak woodlands, across low-lying reservoirs and developments, private domain ticky-tacky, and back up through bumpy rocky folds and hills, all fried and dried and hog-tied.

It's a textured rural domain with old barns of faded wood and rusty tin roofs, dark cattle scattered among the pale grass. California in summer is golden because the grasslands turn bright yellow. Now it's more of a dusty white gold under a relentless clear blue sky.

From Copperopolis Road to Pool Station Road into San Andreas (no fault there) we've drifted into Old California, that 1940's feel except for the white lines painted on the road edge. The landscape is rather primeval. The road wiggles a lot horizontally but not so much vertically. This would be a beautiful springtime drive in something small than this 22 foot RV. Along the way we see herds of goats, cowboys riding the line, and a girl powering an ATV down this tertiary byway (which is not as straight or flat or orthogonal as the map would have us believe). But it's certainly quieter and less crowded than driving Hwy 49 through numerous tourist traps this Saturday morning.

NOONISH: We take the MotherLode loop from San Andreas through Mokelumne Hill to Jackson, stop to resupply (foods are MUCH cheaper down here than uphill) and then head up the Carson Pass route towards home. It still looks like midsummer here. We left four months ago and temperatures are just a bit cooler now, around 70°f instead of 100°f at 2500 feet, and there's more tree color, and the air isn't as smoky. But the fundamentals remain. And highway drivers haven't improved any. What a load of morons! More dead deer beside the road. Fraught with horn, unto death. What a way to go.

We screech across the narrow gravel path to our driveway at half past noon, elapsed distance just short of 9500 miles. This trip is OVER. And out. We'll contact people tomorrow, I'll write some sort of summation, but mostly we'll rest for a few days. Whew.

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