Last Sun Dance of 1977
Lisa and I recently came back from a trip to the desert, Southwestern US to be exact, and Northern AZ to be even more specific. As usual Lisa figured out all the logistics in advance and the trip itinerary was chock full of natural wonders. We flew into City of Sin, Las Vegas, and spent a night in a shamelessly over the top hotel, stuffed our faces at a ridiculous complimentary breakfast buffet, then headed out to AZ in a rental car. The following few days were spent driving from our rented base of operations in Sedona to different geological attractions 2-3 hours away, then back "home" to eat and drink.
Sedona was more developed than I expected, and once the weekend rolled in the town was revealed to be a full on tourist trap, with lotsa college kids, new agers, and rich hiker types. Many of the people we were surrounded by in public spaces seemed to be really enamored with the town itself, soaking up the vibes that we couldn't really feel, and gushing over the energy and the beauty of the place, etc. Casual eavesdropping at dinner and the like revealed a lot of spiritual talk, perhaps more than I have ever heard at any other time/place. Everyone we interacted with was really, really nice and it mucked up our people-reading processes, built as they are around social situations on the cold and hard East Coast. By the 3rd day in, we agreed on the term, "aggressively positive." Leaving a restaurant on our last night in town, a guy sitting on the sidewalk with his dog said "you had both better put a smile on your face." It was then that I worried about how sullen I must have looked this whole time, walking around with stony indifference in an environment full of people laughing, nodding in agreement with one another, peacefully gazing into space with wry little smiles. I impulsively laughed at the guy's threat, which gave him the smile he demanded.
I 'spose a few special things did happen while we were there. First of all there was this long stretch of road that we had driven down a 3 or 4 times and it displayed many Elk X ing signs, which were at this point becoming familiar to me. I was always looking for Elk but had not seen any. Then, on this 5th drive out of Sedona, I saw them in the rain at the very moment I finished saying [paraphrasing] "you never see anything looking intently in the woods for it". I was especially thinking about this time that Anthony, Åsa, and myself were driving around in Sweden looking for moose while Åsa's sister was at horse lessons. I was staring out the window, the silent forest and bordering muddy terrain blurring by, shadows of clustered tree stumps rippling over stony hills as the sun hung in purgatory. And I was tricked, I think, into seeing a moose. Or maybe I did see one, but it must have been running by, a brownish 4-legged shadow. This is what I was referring to in my passing comment, and at the end of my sentence a group of elks whizzed past the window, standing in the woods just off the highway looking out at the road (at me, a representative of the delusional monkey realm) and eating their breakfast. Lisa caught sight of them at as well. We thought we wouldn't see elk again but they were all over the place at the Grand Canyon.
Besides elk, we both saw lots of cows/steers, a bald eagle, some hawks, ravens everywhere, 1 live coyote and 1 dead coyote, 1 skunk ripped into 3 pieces and smeared onto the asphalt, a jack rabbit, a fox, herd of mule deer, the night sky, 2 shooting stars(me only), a roadrunner on asphalt, mini dust storm, a tumbleweed we tried to avoid, lots of homo sapiens gambling in their pajamas, or sitting at slot machines in a drooling stupor while holding on to baggage as if en route to the airport, but during the entire time we saw absolutely no javelinas.
I caught a real fever for the javelinas. They are these pig-like creatures, peccaries proper, and they are apparently a plague upon Sedona and other places in the SouthwestU.S. During our first trek down winding Oak Creek Canyon into Sedona, Lisa and I caught awhiff of this musky pungent odor. We thought it was probably skunk, but it smelled different, and later on that night we read about these rodents from South America that had been emigrating to the USofA. Naturally I had to look up good spots at which to find them in Sedona. I couldn't find too much in terms of a recommended sightseeing area, but I did find one comment to a question similar to mine, and it said to keep away from the javelinas. Turns out, according to a lot of people (including Sedonians) that javelinas are unwelcome pests. Over the next nights I did a little more reading on the javelinas,and got around to looking them up on youtube. They make an awful human baby type scream that sends chills up the spine. This made me want to see them even more, and Lisa was similarly intrigued. We saw their tracks, scat, and detected their odor, but even on our 1 venture out onto the red rocks, never caught sight of the damn things.
We did see a lot of colossal amount of rocks, and we looked into the meteor crater, which,while cool to see, was not worth $16.00 a head with stupid interactive museum, sorry US Park Service. We went through a couple of tribal lands during our travels, one a scabbed and rusted section of dusty fields, and the other looking like the last 2 or 3 former mining towns that we'd just driven through - just a bit more flat and less inhabited . On our way back from these obscure poppy fields, which Lisa was willing to drive 5 hours total to gaggle at, I had to urinate as usual and passed up the chance to go pee in the bathroom of a casino on the reservation. Instead I went at a Wal*Mart that appeared in the small town of Miami, or Globe, or somewhere between them. It was outside of the bathroom, waiting for Lisa, that I observed these 2 janitors. They had been mopping up a mess someone made in the men's room when I was in there, and made some remark in conversation that people who shit in urinals are really confused. The urinals looked fine to me. Outside the bathrooms waiting for Lisa, and standing opposite of these 2 janitors. They're waiting till the female bathroom is empty so they can go in and clean it, but they are very nice and keep letting one more person in. I busy my eyes by looking at my phone and posting on Instagram, for the first time in awhile.
My favorite thing to see was the landscape, out the car window, or directly. It was so unlike any place I've been on earth, and for seeing it I am very grateful. I did not take a lot of photos because it is such a hassle to do with my phone (I am smartphone-challenged). I hate trying to be a movie director, or a memory documentation agent. It's all about that disappearing present moment sans thought (for me). I was clambering up these hills off of the highway, loose rocks tumbling down into a sloping ravine divided by wire fencing. A constant influx of vehicles were making their way up to the parking lot/lookout area, and some of their passengers were probably catching sight of me, thinking "what a fool,climbing around in rattlesnake territory, could just take a piss at the side of the highway in some cowfield." But nope. I scurried up there on an urge I'd felt while looking at it from the passenger seat in the car. A desire to climb down (rather than up) into a little cave-type area. Once I had gotten out of the car at the rest stop, and tried to go down there, I realized it was obstructed by a fence.
I eventually bailed outta rattlesnake country and relieved myself at lower elevation; the longer it took to find a place to go, the higher up I went, and the more I kept imagining snakes shaking their tails at me, popping out from behind bushes and boulders. Climbing up the red rocks at Sedona was much more pleasant, but every I time I got out of the car, and was just briefly within the landscape, climbing into the Painted Desert, for example, it was very special. Whenever out in nature and able to briefly gaze into huge sprawling vistas, grappling rocks while climbing, avoiding cactus spines, and touching them inquisitively on other occasions, I felt very pleased. It was a beautiful piece of earth to behold, save for moments spent in traffic while in Sedona, and all of Las Vegas (of course).
Back "home" to Bon Jovi's Armpit, New Jersey. Early in the morning I was waiting with un-caffeinated blood, and with an empty stomach at one of those terrible establishments that basically runs a lab specimen retrieval and analysis operation. They don't have to be nice to you, and they don't have to care if you have an appointment either. This particular morning I'd made an appointment but it hadn't made any difference. Now they have these stupid flat screens affixed to stands, and you're supposed to check in with that as to not interact with the staff - they're probably waiting to take their caffeine as well.
In any case, I was sitting there watching TV, which I never do unless on vacation. Usually if I've got a TV all to myself I am looking for the Christian televangelist stations andwhatever non-English language channels that are available. I am wholly uninterested in the rest of TV. Maybe when the "respectable" news heads /or pundits are declaring TEOTWAWKI I will give a damn. Well, some kind of news was on but it sure as shit wasn't concerned with the ice melt in the Arctic, nor with the decimation of insects and other necessary lifeforms within "our" biosphere. Instead this news program was concerned with the guy who owns amazon (not the river,..the website I am always ordering from).
His wife and him split and she's got 35 billion dollars or something, he's got over 100 billion I am pretty sure (hard to recall as I was hungry). The talking heads were giving their usual braindead commentary and this one little bit stuck out. The host had a big gap between his 2 front teeth, a lisp, and a mustache, and he was criticizing a divorce settlement in that newscaster way where criticism is not explicitly stated in language, but rather transmitted via vocal inflection. It was briefly speculated how 35 billion dollars would be used for this anti-bullying campaign she had funded in the past. It was hard for me to listen to this shit. Usually the absurdity of the mythos driving modern human civilization forward is hilarious when analyzed, but perhaps it was too early and I was too tired in mind and in body to appreciate the silliness of it. Also, there is point where it becomes a hopeless exercise to conceptualize huge-ass amounts of money. I wonder how much of it exists as paper, and how much of that paper is backed up by anything tangible?
Out in the desert it seems like there are less rules, even..at the right distance, no rules. But I know that if one was to pull the car over in some big national park, get out and start walking off trail towards the horizon, at some point, one would either die or find civilization. Probably wouldn't want to die out in the desert either - and I think a lot of people underestimate the brutality of the burning sun during daylight hours, and the biting cold of nighttime. Add to that the vast untouched expanses of wilderness,..inconceivable on some level to the modern monkey mind,..it's a ticket to a bad trip. I am fascinated and horrified when reading about unlucky /or stupid travelers, journeying into the desert and getting lost. The notion of some poor slob who, either intentionally or unintentionally, ends up in the desert confronted by the very real prospect that they are not able to turn back/make it to whatever perceived safety zone, etc just spooks me in some way. I really think it has to do with the impersonality of nature, and imagined scenarios where people are confronted with that directly, a kind of cosmic horror experience.
Pardon all these disorienting photos - I am winging it. The impressive last scenic shot is not mine, but rather found online. I refer to Lisa's excellent photos on her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lilyoftheskies/ for best representation.
Similarly, I can't format for shit (as usual), but can't be bothered enough to make it prettier (already spent about 30 minutes fiddling around with this html editing, then visual editing, then starting all over.