Sunday, October 09, 2005

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig!

Our good fortune in skirting bad weather ran out when we returned home to the Atomic City. After spending the past two weeks in balmy temperatures—upper 90s in Las Vegas and Scottsdale, high 80s through Utah and even upper 70s at home when we left—we found upon our return that the Polar Express had moved into town and rolled out a chilly welcome mat for us. We found the interior of the house cooler than the outside air.

We also found a very ha
ppy little dog waiting for us. Our faithful companion has reached 109 in Dog Years, so every good day is a cause for celebration. Though Caroline and I did not talk about it on the road, I think each of us privately worried a little bit in the back of our minds about the possibility of returning to an empty house. But not this time. When we walked inside, the elderly cur gave us a good scolding after giving us a good sniffing just to reconfirm that we were indeed her masters and not merely a doggie hallucination or cleverly disguised intruders. In truth, I think we missed her more than she missed us. But she was starved for a walk and we wasted no time in getting her out on the trails. As we walked, her nose catalogued a whole host of new smells that had appeared on the trail during the past two weeks and she made the walk as if everything was new and this was her first time in a foreign land.

Returning home is always bittersweet. Returning home means mowing the lawn and loading the washer with piles and piles of laundry. A
homecoming also means that work is just a day or so away and there obviously will be plenty to do. But homecomings also remind you that you have a place in the world, some stability, a home base. When we stick around home too much, we tend to take this fact for granted, forgetting what life could be like if we didn't have anywhere to go or any connection to any community anywhere. Without connections, we would be apparitions—like the ones we try to ignore, the ones haunting boxes and heating grates in the inner cities or holding up cardboard signs at intersections and parking lots in Everytown, USA.

We were pleased to find a bounty of produce waiting for us in our garden upon our return, and we feasted with gusto, thankful that for the first time in a fortnight the evening dinner
was not road food.

Some people have asked why we prefer road trips to other means of travel. There are many reasons, but I like to think that a journey on the road is preferable because of the connection you get with the land and its people. You can't have the chance to check out a roadside marker or stop for a slice of pie when you're humming along at 35,000 feet; you can't roll down the window and smell what's outside when your traveling in a pressurized cabin; you can't stretch your legs or make the decision to take the scenic route to an out-of-the-way town when your points of departure and arrival are booked and locked in two weeks beforehand and include only major airline hubs. For me, the destination isn't what a trip is all about; it's how we got there and what we found along the way that matters. I believe we lose a little bit of our humanity with each Frequent Flyer mile we log. But that's just one man's opinon. Feel free to disagree as you breath your recirculated air and gnaw on your thimbleful of peanuts. Me? I'll take the scenic route and a piece of Pie-Town pie every time.

See you on down the road.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Last Chance for Pie!

Scottsdale is always warm. At least it's been warm every time we've been there. While the weather in the Atomic City hovered in the 60s, Caroline and I basked in the warmth of mid-90 degree temperatures. An early morning round of golf at Legend Trail Golf Club on the outskirts of northern Scottsdale was just the ticket. We had chosen the course because it had advertised itself as one of the top "lady friendly" courses in the West. Caroline, who had managed to perfect her drives, chips and putts during the vacation, particularly liked the lady-friendly concept, though I argued that every course we had played—with women's tee boxes a full 100 yards ahead of the men's—were indeed "lady friendly." But at legend trail the tee boxes were still challenging, though they did offer a distinct advantage for "the weaker sex"—a term I laugh at each time I watch Caroline scramble straight up a difficult section of bike trail or when she hauls off and belts me for actually using the term "the weaker sex"...

The greatest thing about Legend Trail Golf Club is that
it was the place where Caroline was able to shoot the best nine holes of her life, a respectable 45 that included two pars. She was on fire, and she proved it by besting me by three strokes. I redeemed myself on the back nine. Luckily. In the future, I'll have to take the advice of my mentor, Gonzo (not the same one from the Bike and Bean), and twist the shafts of her clubs thirty degrees to the right. Or I'll have to play a lot more golf. Either sounds like fun.

We enjoyed the resort-like accommodations offered to us by our friends Nancy and Keven, who rolled out the welcome mat in grand style. Our stay with them was too short, but in th
ese days of what Our President likes to call "an ownership socieity," workers are owned by the corporations and it's really hard to get time off unless you happen to be the CEO, one of his cronies or hangers-on, or a major shareholder. If you wonder why I spit at this ideal with contempt, go back and re-read what I wrote earlier about the Germans.

It was a smart move on our part to break up the journey back to New Mexico with a quick nine holes at the bizarre, but really nice, Silver
Creek golf club in grimy Show Low, AZ. Show Low is one of those towns that screams, "get out of here as fast as you can!" We at first were hesitant about stopping. But Silver Creek was located in the middle of nowhere at the outskirts of town. When we arrived, we found a very nice, very scenic course that was trying hard to be upscale in its blue-collar surroundings. Mostly they were successful. The course was challenging and very scenic. But the best part was that there were no houses whatsoever around Silver Creek. It was the first course we had played during our two weeks on the road that wasn't a housing development. We had forgotten how nice that is.

As the sun set, we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico. It
felt like home! The lights of the Daily Pie Cafe winked by the side of the road in Pie Town, NM. If you've never been there, it's worth a trip. The food was good, the pie was excellent (the best we'd had on the entire trip) and the staff was friendly and down-to-Earth. The place was filled with honest-to-goodness cowboys, one of whom was actually wearing spurs, unlike the pink-shirted dandy hanging out at Ruby's the week before.

We spent the night in Socorro, thinking about how nice it would be to return home at last and see the dog, who by now, I'm sure, has figured that the rest of its pack has gone for good. The best part of vacation is coming home at last.

See you on down the road.

Friday, October 07, 2005

The Vortex of Material Fulfillment

Sedona, AZ, reportedly sits smack dab atop some sort of energy vortex, which is a good thing I’m told—but how can you be sure that this vortex, if it exists, isn’t some kind of invisible death ray that was placed here during the 1400s by aliens who came here to capture and enslave the Indians who populated the nearby cliff pueblos? People have been flocking to this red-rock Mecca called Sedona for years, particularly during the height of the New Age movements of the 70s and 80s. New Age practitioners say that Sedona is one of four or five global “energy centers” that hold the potential for mankind’s final enlightenment. Or something like that. Other such centers include Ayers Rock in Australia and Sunrise Springs Resort in Santa Fe, NM. Had I known where the others were, and if they were conveniently located, we probably would have tried to go biking in those places as well.

We seemed
to be in the minority with that thinking, however. It really didn’t seem like a lot of the people wandering Sedona’s single, traffic choked main drag had come for biking, or really for any physical activity. The Sedona we saw included a Parade of the Affluent—middle-aged well-to-doers clothed in hip and oh-so-sassy action-fashion wear. Quick-dry Khakis and the modern-day equivalent of Sansabelt stretch fabrics sewn into slimming polo shirts were the order of the day, along with fashion-conscious wide-brim hats to round out the day’s wardrobe with a Western flair! The streets were jammed with people who could afford to have good teeth and spare Metamucil, and everybody was flashing their feel-good smiles.

Like the New Age p
ilgrims who had come to Sedona to “feel the energy” two decades earlier, today’s Sedona visitors had meandered along the streets in their opulent Escalades and Lexus SUVs to check out the vibe and to be seen. Others were just curious to find out what the Sedona buzz was all about, so they had come for day trips or overnight jaunts in more nondescript vehicles. We saw several white-haired men snapping photos of the perfect boobies that had been sculpted on stone figures outside of one main street establishment.

Sedona’s main street is a bizarre collection of shops
crammed together for a quarter mile on both sides of highway 89A. Here you can find Minnesota Minnetonka moccasins, fortune tellers, T Shirts of all kinds and the same typical fare that is ubiquitous in any Southwest tourist town, including those horrifying "life-like" baby Indian dolls with hair and headbands. Brrr. They give me the shivers! These little nightmares don't belong in shops. They belong in Hell. And for the life of me, I've never, not once, seen anybody, anywhere buying one ...

We found many of Sedona’s visitors walking up and down main street, trying desperately to tap into the vibe that had made the town famous years ago—a time before property values in the millions, a time when locals could live without having to hold three jobs, a time when the red rock meant more than just an opportunity for a jeep tour. But the vibe seemed to be missing. Or maybe people have simply lost their ability to feel it in these days of rampant materialism. Predictably, many of them defaulted to the one behavior they could count on: to try and buy the vibe.

In Sedona, tourist dollars flew out of pockets like lead flew from Colt six shooters in
the Old West. The rich visitors set out about buying everything and anything they possibly could while on main street, and they walked with bags hanging from each hand. You could tell the newcomers because their hands were empty. Those who had stayed on main street the longest were weighed down with bags upon bags. Perhaps they reasoned that the sheer weight would push them through the Earth’s crust and into the vortex, where they would ascend to a new spiritual plane of shopping bliss. We fled in horror, but not before getting caught up in the Sedona shopping vortex ourselves.

Caroline and I had booked accommodations in the Village of Oak Creek, where things seemed a little more normal. The village is located several miles away from Sedona and seems to house the area’s service-sector working population. We had booked a room in an unusual place, which actually turned out to be one of the best nights of lodging for our entire trip. We had rented a night in one of the apartments above the Bike and Bean, Oak Creek Village’s venerable all-purpose bike shop.

We were given a cheery greeting by Gonzo, one of the Bike and Bean’s friendly staff. I had hoped that they could repair my damaged front shock, which was still oozing life from the previous day’s misadventure. If not, I reckoned that a bike rental would be necessary to enjoy the red-rock rides that Sedona has to offer. Fortunately, the crew at the Bike and Bean said they’d do their best to repair the damage, despite the lack of right-sized seals on hand. By the end of the day, they had effectively cleaned and repaired the shock, and the Golden Beast was ready for a ride the next day.

The Bike and Bean was a hub of biking activity, and the coffee was pretty good, too. The staff recommended an excellent ride that would take us around Bell Rock and then off into the desert toward the creek, where a fine swimming hole lay waiting at the bottom of a set of tight switch backs. The single-track trail wound its way through the red rock, traveled along some fine sections of slick rock and included some technically challenging climbs and descents. It was a beautiful ride, so much so that it was easy to get distracted. The spiked green fans of numerous large prickly pear cacti, however, kept our concentration on the trail ahead; a crash in some spots would have turned a rider into a spandex pin cushion.


When we reached the switch backs about six miles out, the sun had risen h
igh in the sky and the day was heating up. The water looked great. So we doffed our gear and climbed right in. The cold water was refreshing. After a while we climbed back out to dry in the sun. At just about that time, a septuagenarian couple made their way along a trail on the other side of the creek. As a man with empathy, I can fully understand the horror and shock that these people must have felt when they spied the naked fat man sprawled out on a red rock, like a dead lizard bloating in the sun. The old woman apparently didn’t mind, because she drank in the sight with a long, steady gaze. A wide smile crept over her face. Out came the camera. I was proud to have been able to do my part in making someone’s Sedona vacation a most memorable one. I know that in some room somewhere that night, the old spark of romance was rekindled and someone was able to tap into some of that old Sedona magic.

See you on down the road
.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Biting Off More Than We Could Chew

Flagstaff, Arizona, became famous because it rhymed with the “don’t forget Winona” refrain of the popular Route 66 song. We began our long drive to Flagstaff from Vegas after 18 holes at Aliante, a final dip in the pool at Maggie’s and a quick pre-road snack. We reached Hoover Dam (which I still prefer to call Boulder Dam because that’s what my Dad called it when we used to hit the road long ago), the sun was winking at us from behind the hills. Lake Mead was shrouded in shadow. Wackenhut security guards had set up shop on both ends of the dam, shaking down people who looked funny. I wondered if the Wackenhut contract called for enhanced payments for each drug arrest prompted from a stop at the check point. I say this because the vehicle in front of us got the third degree, obviously just because the Wackenhut guy didn’t like the looks of the driver, who was sporting a goatee, several tatoos, wraparound sunglasses and a vehicle emblazoned with skull stickers. We waited as Mr. Wackenhut shook down this modern-day pirate. My short hair and middle aged paunch ensured our passage through the new “Homeland Security” gestapo station without a second look.

At 10 p.m. I was struggling alo
ng the last 50 miles into Flagstaff. With the windows rolled down, the music blaring and a lively conversation with myself, I hoped I could stay awake. Caroline was fast asleep. Each time she’d snore, she’d snap her head forward and ask, “Are you okay?” She had mistaken her own sounds of slumber for mine and she was convinced that we were certain to careen off the road. Had it not been for Green Day’s American Idiot cranked at full volume, we probably would have.

If you stay in Flagstaff, Arizona (Don’t forget Winona!), we recommend the Day’s Inn on old Route 66. The rooms were h
uge and the prices were ridiculously low. The full continental carbohydrate breakfast was a real crowd-pleaser, too. We had read about a great 19-mile singletrack trail that circumnavigated Mt. Eldon and Little Eldon mountain and we were hell bent on riding it. The guide book warned that the trip would take five hours, but did we believe it? Nooooo. We’re strong bikers, we reasoned, and we beat all those time estimates on our hikes through Zion, so we figured a five-hour ride for everyone else would be a three-hour ride for us. We foolishly set off on the trail at 2:30 p.m., trusting that the guide book was accurate in its description of the trail.

Of course it wasn’t, and about 15 miles into the ride we realized that the guide book was a full two miles off in its mileage and that our 19-mile ride was going to be at least a 21-mile ride. I looked up at the sky and the setting sun and realized that 45 minutes of remaining daylight was g
oing to be just barely adequate to finish the ride, even under the best of conditions. We had run into a snag earlier on the trail when my back tire flatted on a harsh (but extremely fun) rocky section of trail. Not only had we lost a tube, the tire itself had been savaged and riddled with cuts and holes. We figured another punctured tube could occur at any time. Moreover, the extremely bumpy single track had blown out a seal on my front shock and it was hemorrhaging hydraulic oil at an alarming rate.

Caroline’s legs were toast and I didn’t have much left in mine, so we stopped briefly to hork down a sandwich in hopes that we’d get an extra burst of energy to make the last few miles of singlet
rack at a decent speed.

The stupid guide book had been so wrong about so many things, that we had a sudden fri
ghtening realization that we could find ourselves on a harsh expert-level descent in the dark if we couldn’t find the bail-out point to the road that had been described in the book. The pines turned to dark silhouettes and every rock and obstacle became invisible as the light began to drop off quickly. Even the lights of Las Vegas would have been a welcome sight now, because, according to trail signs, we still had a half mile on the agonizing singletrack before we would hit the possible bail-out point. But an ambiguous sign a mile earlier also indicated a possible route to the fabled bail-out point. I began to worry that Caroline and I were in for a cold night in the Flagstaff wilderness, or, worse yet, we’d become one of those stories that you read about—you know, the ones about the active visitors who hadn’t prepared adequately and went missing for days in the wilderness, only to be found eight months later during the spring thaw ...

Grimly we continued on the trail. When our odometers reached the mark where the trail sign indicated the bail-out point should be, we hung our heads in despair: there was nothing but more trees ahead in dimmest of twilight. We decided to continue just for a moment farther, reasoning that we still might have enough light to go back the mile and a half to the ambiguous marking if this route didn't pan out. Suddenly, the road appeared. We survived. And it took us exactly five hours. So much for being above average. Once again I was thankful that Caroline hadn't used up all her chits with The Man Upstairs.


In the wake of our heart-thumping adventer, I find myself penning this memo to self: New Rule! No long rides on unfamiliar trails after noon in the fall. I suggest you all adopt it, too.


See you on down the road (in the daylight)
.

A Really Big Show, A Really Big Day!

Despite the ridicule I have given Las Vegas, I have to hand one thing to it: They really know how to put on an entertaining spectacle, whether serving a meal or putting on a show.

After golf on Saturday, Caroline and I paid a visit to the Atomic Testing Museum, located about a mile off the strip in the heart of Las Vegas. For those of you scratching your heads and asking, “Why atomic testing?”, the Nevada Test Site—where the weapons in the Nation’s nuclear arsenal were tested and perfected over the course of 40-plus years—is located a relative stone’s from downtown Vegas. Being from the Atomic City ourselves, Caroline and I were highly motivated to check out the latest national museum dedicated to nuclear weapons and weapons-related topics. Moreover, our Las Vegas host runs the museum store and we were anxious to see the fruits of her labors.

The museum, like many others of its type, traces the history of atomic weapons from concept to delivery. Unlike ot
her museums, the Atomic Testing Museum bases its point of view from the Nevada Test Site, where hundreds of aboveground tests rattled the Earth and, occasionally, outshone the neon lights of The Strip. The Nevada Test Site was home to “Doom Town”—constructed as part of “Operation Cue”—where mannequins were posed going about their business in typical American homes, forests were erected on the sterile desert floor and automobiles, Mosler safes, live animals and other everyday things were left lying around, all so they could be subjected to fires of Atomic Hell, ostensibly to test the Civil Defense capabilities and necessities of the nation. The museum has managed to dig up some pretty good replicas of the actual dummies used in Doom Town and they stand freakishly frozen in time as they did just before detonation 50 years ago.

But the real highlight of the Atomic Testing Museum is its bunker, where visitors get a full-sensory taste of what it was like to participate in a test (without getting any
extra radiation in the process). Shows inside the bunker begin at regular intervals. When it's time, simulated steel doors automatically swing shut, isolating visitors in the eerie red glow of the bunker. The countdown begins shortly afterward. At detonation, visitors get to witness an awe-inspiring mushroom cloud rising from the desert floor through the bunker's observation port. A few seconds later, the shockwave arrives and the bunker vibrates at an ominously low frequency. A blast of high winds follows, mussing the hair of those inside the bunker. The museum is worth a visit just for this one exhibit.

The museum store includes some great gifts and mementos, ranging from Einstein action figures to those old Viewmaster gizmos with 3D images of the Nev
ada Test Site inside. And the prices are good enough that you can fill out your whole Christmas list in one stop and within budget.

Slot machines, craps tables and roulette wheels are a dime a dozen in Las Vegas, but how often do you get a chance to see a B-61 warhead, early “the-atom-is-our-friend” propaganda films, a
n atomic artillery shell or apparati used in the Nuclear Rocket program? A trip to the Atomic Testing Museum is a must-see in Vegas, even if you do leave shaking your head at the sheer madness of the Cold War.

But we were just warming up for a night on the town as we exited the museum. As mentioned, Las Vegas manages to turn just about anything into a show. Back at Maggies, we took a quick dip in the pool and then donned our best beef-eating garb. We had reservations at Lawrys The Prime Rib restaurant, an art-deco establishment that really puts the ass in class. Started in the mid-1930s, Lawrys has been serving meat the old fashioned way for decades. According to our waitress, Miss Whatshername (identity preserved to avoid the appearance of any culpability in the creation of this blog), told us that the menu had changed just slightly a few years ago to add a fish dish as an optional main course and a shrimp cocktail appetizer. Other than that, the restaurant has remained in its own self imposed time capsule for the past 70 years.

To preserve that yesteryear feel, the staff wear the a same uniforms as the first Lawrys staff did. Women wear dresses and bonnets and all of them introduce themselves as Miss so-and-so. They also use the same carving cart as was used in the first restaurants. These “silver carts” as they are called are Art Deco stainless-steel beauties that resemble a large, accented, silver egg tipped on its side and supported by futuristic-looking stainless steel clad wheels. The whole get up stands five feet tall and looks like a mini flying saucer straight from an Ed Wood flick. Each "silver cart" contains hearty portions of succulent prime rib that is carved off the bone before your eyes right at your table. It was a pricey meal that was served about as professionally as I’ve ever seen. The atmosphere was lavish yet comfortable. I haven't enjoyed a dining experience so much in years. If you're coming to Vegas for a visit, you should go for dinner at Lawrys before the odds of getting Mad Cow forever spoil the opportunity to enjoy a grotesque hunk of cow flesh.


But the highlight of the night was seeing Cirque du Soleil’s Kà, a lavish theatrical performance that incorporates elements of dance, martial arts, puppetry and gymnastics to tell an exciting story on a clever set that seems to defy gravity and at times forces the performers to defy it as well. Caroline had managed to score amazing seats for the performance, so we were smack dab in the middle of the action. Colorful, fun and moving, Kà provides eye-popping entertainment for people of all ages, nationalities and backgrounds. No language skills are required, which makes the show work well in Vegas. If I tried to describe anything else about the production, I’d just end up getting it wrong. So I won't say anything else. Suffice it to say, you really do have to see it to believe it. As chronically cynical as I am, it was fantastic to discover that a live stage production can still capture my full attention and imagination and hold them for two hours while fully delighting me in the process.


Like everything in Vegas, however, Kà isn’t cheap—It would take me about a half hour to lose the ticket-price equivalent at the gaming tables. Given the choice of an hour in the casios or two hours watching Kà, I’m picking Kà every time. And I'm saving my pennies so I can donate Kà tickets for poor kids. Weird, huh?

See you on down the road.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Mr. and Mrs. Mulligan Play Vegas

Las Vegas is probably the fastest growing city in the United States. With 2.5 million people in the immediate area, the town continues to spread across the desert like an unchecked canker. They build 14 new schools a year in the Vegas environs, and the growth rate doesn’t seem to be slowing one bit. In addition Vegas is striving to become the number one tourist destination in the world. And it probably has succeeded.

The Las Vegas Strip is teeming with fat, sunburned drunks who drift from one casino to another, holding out hope that they will be the one and only person in the horde to beat the odds with a lucky slot-machine pull that will enable them to return home a millionaire or the owner of a fancy new Hummer or recreational vehicle. Inside the Vegas casinos, a thousand sloppily dressed nicotine addicts slump paralyzed in front of slot machines, hands thrust out for “free” drinks, feeding quarter after quarter into a bottomless pit of unfulfilled hopes and unholy desires. At the game tables, chips representing 10 dollar bills are confiscated by the handful every minute from the suckers. For some str
ange reason millions of people each year haven’t figured out that the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of the House and that sitting at a table longer does not, in fact, increase a person’s odds of winning.

It drove my mother crazy when I told her several times that we had not deposited anything—not a thin dime—into a slot m
achine anywhere in Vegas. She was equally distressed to learn that we did not haunt the gaming tables. I told her that I would be just as successful and probably have just as much fun if I were to break a fifty-dollar bill into ones and run through a casino throwing the loot freely into the air for anyone to grab. In greed-soaked Vegas, the chaos that such an act would create probably could qualify for prosecution under the Patriot Act. Tempted as I was, Caroline’s good sense and strong biceps prevented me from following through with my plan.

Instead of Gambling, Caroline and I hit the fairways of two of Vegas’ fine golf courses. Like everything else in Las Vegas, the courses were particularly pricey, though I did man
age to score a deal on one of them, thanks to the Internet. In exchange for a $100 discount, I unwittingly signed up for a lifetime of SPAM e-mail and junkmail at my home. Amortized over 40 years, I think the golf club came out on the better end of that deal.

In brochures and on their website, they call Desert Pines Golf Club “The Pinehurst of
Vegas.” While it was true they did have plenty of pine trees, I have to imagine in my heart of hearts that Pinehurst, unlike Desert Pines, has grass on its fairways that does not resemble a badly botched hair-plug job on a steroid-addled, middle-aged ectomorph. Worse than the condition of the grass, however, was the roar of the freeway, which ran right through the heart of the course. We had missed rush hours in Las Vegas before while driving, but we experienced them full strength at Desert Pines.

“NICE SHOT, HONEY!” I would holler from the cart each time Caroline smacked one 200 yards straight down the fairway.

“WHAT?!” she would holler.


“NOTHING!”


Perhaps Desert Freeway Pi
nes’ most stunning asset was its billboards. Nothing inspires a shot more than a set of 50-foot tall boobies peaking out the top of a T-shirt worn by a billboard model hawking Live Vegas Sex Shows.

Desert Pines' beverage cart beauty was the highlight of my game. Each time she showed up I would hammer a long, straight drive into the perfect fairway position, or I would sink a thirty-foot double-breaking putt. I nicknamed her Lady Luck and tipped her even when I didn’t buy anything. Nevertheless, Caroline managed to beat me handily on the front nine, despite my three mulligans and a foot wedge play near the green of Number Eight. Her luck didn’t hold out on the back nine, though.


On Sunday, before fleeing town, Caroline and I hit the links at Aliante—Vegas’ newest 18-hole course. The course had recently been built on Vegas’ burgeoning North side, where ho
using developments appeared out of nowhere, like the rapidly spreading athlete’s foot fungus infection I got from the Bootleg Canyon showers. But we couldn’t have been paired with a nicer couple: Norm and Susan, who had moved to the area from Florida just before the building boom had really begun to explode. Although a nice course, Aliante was so densely surrounded by houses that it was like playing golf down the middle of an inner-city street. Along every fairway, around every green, developers had crammed in zero-lot-line houses, each one looking like a clone of the one next door—from the color of the stucco and tile roof to the gravel-and-yucca landscaping. I asked Susan, a real-estate broker, how much one of the beauties would cost.

“That one there,” she pondered, “oh, it’s about $350,000.” She spit ruefully. “But those are only 900 square feet, and the two car garage, well, that’s gotta eat into the living space.”


“Dang,” is all I could come up with in terms of a reply.


Like the rest of Vegas, people buying into “exclusive” gated communities like the one
s that ruined the ambiance of Aliante were gambling that the already ridiculous prices for a modern-day shotgun shack would rise even higher in the future. Maybe they will, and God bless ‘em if it pays off. But I wonder how much the place will be worth once all the water has been sucked up out of the ground and the whole valley is socked in with smog so thick that it would be impossible to come out of your home without SCUBA gear. That eventuality lies just around the corner, I’m afraid. But here in Greed Central—Fabulous Las Vegas—the future is only as far ahead as the next roll of the dice. For most people here, the long-term plan is just to get to the next casino without passing out or spilling a drink.

See you on down the road.

Pilgrims in an Unholy Land

By providence, we found a place in St. George where we could add another entry to our Testament from the road. At the Hampton Inn, I strolled in with several people who had arrived for the St. George Marathon, which we knew about due to our chance encounter among the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon with Manny, who was planning to participate in the race. While the runners checked in and generally overwhelmed the hotel staff, I asked a maintenance person for the password to the WiFi system. Seconds later she returned with a card that had the security code on it. I wrote and posted while enjoying a cup of delicious Hampton Inn coffee.

The sun was retreating to the horizon by the time we hit the road again, and long shadows were beginning to streak across the landscape. About a half hour later we crossed the threshold into night, which was racing westward at tremendous spee
d. The lights of Las Vegas lit up the sky ahead. We leaned back in our seats and relaxed for the first time in the day.

Suddenly, the car slammed head-on into a wall of stench so foul, so overpowering, that Caroline and I momentarily wretched. Clasping our noses shut with one hand, we cried out in alarm.

“What the hell is that?” we attempted to shriek, but our clasped noses made our voices sound hollow and high-pitched, like the cries of startled Munchkins.


How could we know what had taken hold of the evening air out there? We were still 20 miles from civilization. Could it be that the waste generated by the 2 million denizens of Las Vegas and its millions of annual guests necessitated a landfill comprising 20 miles of desert land? Could something have escaped from nearby A
rea 51? Was it a dairy farm that had been left lock, stock and barrel to rot in the sun? Or perhaps the Well of Sin was simply overflowing onto the desert floor. We did not know. the odor’s origins were unsettlingly uncertain.

What was certain was that t
he stench was so thick and heavy that it clung to our clothes, as if we had been tossed smack-dab in the midst of a Landfill that had taken steroids. It was a moist smell, a rotten smell—like the concentrated funk emanating from a pool of feces expelled from the dripping asses of 10,000 rotund, hairy men who had dined on nothing but teriyaki steak and Vidalia onions for the past 21 days in a row. And it would not go away. Not for miles and miles. I put the gas pedal to the floorboard and goosed the car up to 90 in hopes that we could outrun the smell or dilute it with the rush of air that was spilling into the open windows and churning up our belongings in the back of the car.

About 10 minutes later the odor vanished. In its place came Vegas billboards, the first of which advertised a place called Sin City, which unabashedly advertised hard core sex toy
s for every desire. We noted its location in case we cared to take in some window shopping later on during our visit. I wondered if a billboard with the smiling face of Jesus were looming above the place, like the Triple X store in Farmington. But I digress.

The freeways in Vegas were lousy with speeding cars, but I maintained my composure and my speed just like our host-to-be, Maggie
, had advised earlier on over the cell phone. Like a smooth air-traffic controller, she talked us in to her home near the strip, and I only had to look at my instruments to land successfully. After a wholesome meal and hours of conversation, we hit the sack. It had been an extremely long day.

Maggie’s words about the Vegas rush hours echoed in our heads so we hit the road the next morning at 6 a.m. This was not our
original plan, but the air already was oppressively hot at the crack of dawn. We were headed toward Boulder City, home of the Bootleg Canyon mountain bike trail system. The trail system is located in the foothills outside of town and is part of the Boulder City parks network. After a fine breakfast of a huge hammy omelet and hash browns at the Southwest Diner at the edge of Boulder City, we set out for the trails. The heat rained down on us like fire from the sky as we stood in the parking lot readying our gear.

I am not generally familiar with desert biking. This was my first time. We were smart enough to realize that we would need full Camelbacks if we were to pull off this ride alive, so we crammed the Camelback bladders full of ice and as much water as they could hold. I could feel the desert air pulling the liquid from my body even as we stood in the parking lot, turning me slowly into jerky. The rocky ground was home to many spiky plants that could shred a tire or rip the flesh with a single careless turn.

The trail system was great, giving us plenty of twists and whoopdedoos to work with as we made our way out into the desert heat. Unf
ortunately, the trail system also required miles and miles of prolonged climbing to reach any scenic destinations. Additionally, the trails, marked as “easy” or “intermediate” were much harder than their given designation implied, and in many areas were unrideable—at least in the uphill direction. Unclear trail markings steered us onto some severely difficult trail sections as well, and after about 10 miles of riding we were pretty thrashed and on the verge of dehydration, and we hadn’t even ridden the trail we had come to ride: the Caldera loop, which offers views of Vegas off in the distance. At just before 11 a.m., when the sun was high and bright, we found the Caldera trail head and we set off upon its rocky path.

Now there is an old story about Lot and his family fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah
after receiving a warning from God about the Sin taking place in the city. As they fled, Lot’s wife looked backward and was turned into a pillar of salt that rose from the desert floor. As we rounded a curve halfway through the Caldera loop, Vegas was clearly visible in the distance below. Smog from the city hung thick in the air and spread into the surrounding valleys, giving one valley in particular the appearance of being a huge brown lake. I took one last look over my shoulder at the city as we rode away. It was a fateful mistake. A few miles later, as our odometer registered mile 14, I began to feel strangely otherworldly. A terrible pain nestled itself in the pit of my stomach and my temples began to pound. My insides were turning to salt and my Camelback was totally empty. We painfully rode the last mile back to the car. I drank deeply and cheated death. A film of salt coated my skin and I literally sparkled in the desert sun. Thankfully, Bootleg Canyon had showers, albeit nice hot ones.

We briefly enjoyed the spectacle of some downhill riders catching big air off of some fine jumps, but the desert heat continued clawing at my skull so we fled. Down in Boulder Cit
y, we drank more water at Mel's Diner and replenished our salts by consuming one of Mel's "Famous" steak sandwiches and some awesome fries. The throbbing in my temples began to subside somewhat.

We had big plans for an evening of Vegas nightlife, but back at Maggie’s we slept the sleep of the dead. I dreamed
about a dancing horse that was wearing a sparkly blue costume with one of those fuzzy toilet-brush looking thingees on its head. I forgot the wisdom that the beast imparted to me during a casual conversation, but I was glad the day was over.

See you on down the road.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Mesmerized by The Raging Current ...

Reading back on some of these entries, it strikes me that there is a peculiarly overt thread of quasi-religious fanaticism running through this travelogue. I suppose this is natural given that Caroline and I are, in some manner of thinking, on a pilgrimage, and no great pilgrimage can be complete without some amount of revelation, suffering, sacrifice, repentance and, potentially, absolution. It strikes me, however, that a true pilgrimage must involve a quest of some sort, a destination if you will, a purpose. I’m not sure whether the destination or the purpose are to be known or unknown at the outset of the journey. I suppose if the destination or purpose were unknown, it would be acceptable and, perhaps, even preferable, because it would allow it to be revealed at some point along the journey.

We are quite aware
of our destination, but the purpose of our sojourn on the road still remains mostly esoteric. It would be easy to write it off as merely a vacation, a chance to relax and recharge. And perhaps that’s what it is and no more. But it also is possible that our quest has something to do with getting our noses up off of the grindstone and looking around beyond the horizon and context of our workaday lives and glimpsing a larger picture of Life and Society that exists at the fuzzy edges of our day-to-day realities.

Just outside of Zion on Friday, the sun rose in the chilly morning air, shedding light onto the towering cliffs above and imbuing them with a neon radiance of electric crimson and p
sychedelic orange. The western peaks glowed like hot pokers thrust into the azure. We had read that the other “Epic” hike in Zion is a trudge to The Narrows, an area where the Virgin River has carved a claustrophobic serpentine passage into the Navajo sandstone at a depth of some 2,000 feet. The hike itself must be done mostly in the stream.

The night before our trek we had rented walking sticks at a local outfitters. The Virgin River was flowing at a relatively modest rate, spewing some sixty cubic feet of emerald water downstream each second. With a water temperature of just 55 degrees and a destination cloaked mostly forever in shadow, Caroline and I began the day with apprehension, wondering whether an early departure was the right thing to do. The specter of hypothermia lurked in those narrow passages, waiting to exten
d an icy hand to the unprepared and the foolhardy, park literature warned. Moreover, we wondered whether immersing the increasingly serious-looking gash on my leg in nonpurified water for five hours straight was really a wise thing to do. Nevertheless, we began our journey shortly after breakfast.

The air temperature had warmed somewhat by the time the park shuttle arrived at the tra
il head. We walked smartly along the first mile of hike on dry land on a path along the river’s edge. A robust-looking twenty-something couple vigorously outpaced us early on in the hike. When we reached the water’s edge, however, the youngsters had stopped dead in their tracks. They were engaged in an earnest debate about whether to continue. Caroline and I swiftly marched into the green current. The cold clamped around our feet and ankles like a vice and we grimaced as it tightened. The poor lad looked at me and asked, “how cold?”

“Just horrendously cold,” I grunted.

I placed the walking stick in front of me for stability because my feet could no longer feel t
he slippery baby-head sized stones that carpeted the river bottom. We left the vigorous couple at the bank. They apparently chose not to continue. About 100 yards upstream, we found ourselves wading chest deep through the frigid waters, which were so cold that Caroline could only let out little gasps when she opened her mouth to speak. The current, though listed at the Visitor Center as mild in comparison to early season flow rates, was deceptively strong, and it took strength and resolve to fight it.

But most unsettling was the
hypnotic effect of the water itself. While crossing particularly swift sections, we had to pay careful attention to focusing our gaze below the surface of the water to find secure footing. If you did not maintain this concentration, the eyes would fixate on the surface flow, and soon you would find yourself mesmerized by the water and becoming unsteady and somewhat seasick on your feet. This mental tug-of-war with the water made hiking the four miles against the current even more exhausting.

Hours later, cold, shivering and hopelessly wet, we found ourselves at “Wall Street,” where the cliffs towered two thousand feet above in a passageway that was narrow enough to be touched on either side if Caroline and I linked hands. We had beaten the crowds and beaten the river. The trek back seemed to take half the time. Along the way we met more pilgrims who would look at us with eyes wide with fear and ask, “How much farther?”

“You’re almost there,” we lied.


After our cold baptism in the Virgin River, we made our way to St. George, Utah, the third fastest growing city in the nation
and the location of Brigham Young’s Secret Hideout. For those of you who don’t know, Brigham Young was one of the founders of the Church of Jesus Christ-Latter Day Saints (The Mormons). According to some literature, Young particularly enjoyed the Mormon tradition of keeping multiple wives. Later, when the United States government used Bigamy laws as a way to hound the Mormons and emasculate the burgeoning power structure they had built in Utah, Young built a secret hideout at St. George, where he spent the winters in the community’s extremely moderate climate enjoying the offerings of his many wives. And who could blame him?

I have searched this land for a salamander to lick so that I, like those Mormon founders, may become addled and able to find a set of indecipherable golden tablets that will point my way to a fabulous winter home in a real-estate broker’s paradise. But I’ve had no luck so far.

Next stop: Fabulous Las Vegas—where no salamanders are necessary to partake in pleasures of the flesh. See you on down the road.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Danger Lurks Everywhere!

About 485 people were checking out of Ruby’s Bryce Canyon Best Western Inn as we attempted to hit the road. Because most were on European holiday, they were having trouble with the language and apparently were protesting the many add-on charges that had lifted their bill far away from the Triple A rate and into Rack-Rate stratosphere. The well-trained members of Ruby’s staff did not budge at these protests and instead insisted that the charges were correct, smiling pleasantly until each and every bus-riding tour member relented and signed the bottom line.

As we waited, I was able to post the previous day’s recollection, thanks to WiFi access in Ruby’s lobby. On the way out the door, the last throngs of European tourists were scrambling to capture photos of cowboys behind desks, booking trail rides into Bryce Canyon. I followed suit and was able to snap a photo of one of the poor pseudo-wranglers without protest.

The night before at Bryce, our hiking interloper, Manny, had confessed that he was terrified of being alone on the trail because of the potential for chance encounters with cougars. Apparently, the previous day at Zion, an effective ad campaign had scared the bejesus out of him to the point where he viewed the woods as an alien place where danger lurked around every corner. At one point in the hike I had pondered pulling the K-Bar USMC survival knife from my pack and menacing him just to ensure he wouldn’t try any funny stuff as we made our way down the isolated and virtually soundproof Peekaboo Trail. But he seemed so utterly spooked about the woods that I thought my plan would push him over the edge and we’d be forced to either have to drag him up the horrendously steep trail once he became utterly paralyzed with fear, or we’d have to report him as a missing person once he ran screaming blindly away into the rugged, hoodoo-infested maze that enveloped us.

Fear is all around. George W. Bush used Fear of The Unknown to ensure another four years of corporate profiteering for his friends and family. Ever since Nine Eleven, we are used to being frightened in this country. Even today while walking in the rock crevices deep below the rim, I was paralyzed with a momentary flash of fear that certain death would befall us if an earthquake were to suddenly occur and pour weighty objects down upon our heads.

What frightened me more as we made our way toward Zion Nationa
l Park was the paucity of restaurants in rural Utah. Those that did exist had weird hours and mostly were closed by the time we were able to finally negotiate past the human horde of Ruby Guests and get on the road. It wasn’t until several hours later that we finally came across a restaurant with hours that matched our schedule. About 80 miles before Zion, the neon lights of The Thunderbird beckoned to us like sirens in a lonely sea. I pleaded with Caroline to stuff my ears with wax so I could avoid the Thunderbird temptation, but it was too late. Inexplicably, I found myself parking out front. The sign announced that its baked goods were made by Utah prostitutes, known as “Hos” in the vernacular. They were proud of their Ho-Made pies, and I couldn’t wait to get my lips around a slice—but not before ordering a Ham and Cheese sandwich for me and an ersatz Denny’s Superbird sandwich for Caroline. After our "meals," as we ordered our pie slices, a busload of French tourists descended on the place, and this reminded me of the coolest thing I’ve heard in years. The night before at Bryce Canyon, Caroline overheard a French tourist talking to her friend about what they were seeing: “This place is like the music of the sun,” she said. And she was absolutely right. I wish American English allowed for phrases like that, but the fear of sounding stupid has erased any hope of lyricism for the time being in this country.

Zion National Park gave us a chance to face Fear head on, hand-to-hand, nose to nose. After arriving mid-afternoon, Caroline and I grabbed the shuttle and headed off toward Angel’s Landing, listed as one of the nation’s “Epi
c” hikes. Zion itself sits among towering cliffs of Navajo sandstone that rise thousands of feet from the bed of the Virgin River. Angel’s Landing is a five-mile round-trip hike that takes you quickly up and up and up, nearly two thousand feet. The last three-quarters of a mile is a heart-rate-raising steep and treacherous journey along a narrow razorback that’s only six feet wide, with an 800-foot sheer drop on one side and a 2,000-foot sheer drop on the other. A series of chains anchored to the rock give climbers an additional handhold. But stability is not the problem. Fear is the problem.

As I ascended toward the lofty destination, the sky darkened with a bruise of threatening clouds. The winds kicked up to a sustained 30-mile-a
n-hour gale. At a wide spot in the trail, a thousand feet from the summit, I cowered among the rocks and fished my wind breaker from my pack, taking special care not to lose my grip on the garment and on the single rock outcropping that prevented me from being carried away over the edge like a runaway kite. I continued climbing, trying with all my might to shake off the Devil’s shackles, which were filling my head with whispers of doubt and visions of doom. One foot after the other, on and on, higher and higher until ...

About 40 feet from the summit, the wind stopped completely. I lifted my head, which had
been braced against the buffeting gale. It was quiet and I was but a few steps away from the top. I took those steps with authority and marched out onto the wide ledge at the top, puffing out my chest and calling out a hearty greeting to the small handful of hardy souls who had ventured to the landing.

It’s amazing to m
e that, with all the liability laws in the nation and all the fear of lawsuits ripping through the viscera of Those in Power, a National Park has an activity such as the hike to Angel’s Landing, with only a mere warning sign stating that “Safety is Your Responsibility.” This is an obvious statement, and people accept it. Our rugged founders accepted this proposition from the beginning and we’ve accepted it ever since. Until recently. Now we have become a nation of scared little crybabies who are willing to do just about anything in exchange for protection by the Government. And this is what should truly frighten us.

See you on down the road.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Now I Know Why Germans Are So Friggen Happy!

Several hours after I had awakened the entire Capitol Reef campground, I awoke to the sound of rustling at the campsite next door. Three German women were waking up and breaking camp. I was breaking wind deep down in my sleeping bag. It’s hard to cover that up at daybreak in a crowded campground. When I crawled out of the tent, the German women grimaced at me. I waved cheerily and put the coffee on to boil. All of the people who were tucked in to their RVs with Direct TV dishes were still asleep, so I loosed another butt reveille in 4/4 time in hopes of rallying the camp. This time the German women didn’t look.

It’s a strange culture that RVs these days. As we were getting ready to drive out of camp, the American RVers came climbing out of their wheeled houses. Some of these RVs really are as big as houses, with La-Z-Boy recliners, washers an
d dryers, satellite televisions, Internet access and Puerto Rican man servants. The RV Captains gathered in the center of camp, clutching coffee cups and their wives, and wearing sweatshirts with logos or scenes from all the places they had visited. Some banded together to see if they could gain any traction with scandalous tales about the campground host that might spread all the way up to park headquarters—possibly freeing the way for one of them to earn the title of “Host,” with all the honors and benefits that come with it. Others gossiped about the camping habits of the other campers. One glared at me and muttered something to her friend about “farting.”

I’ve never published the word “farting” before. It’s a new experience. I wonder if the Internet has some kind of rules against using using the vernacular term for colon gas? But which term is worse: fart or colon gas? I’m thinkin’ that I’m in the right on this one, and for those of you who might try to argue that I take on a more formal tone, you're wrong. But I digress.


The other brand of RV
ers are those who have rented them. These people aren’t owners, but rather are the scabs of the campgrounds in the eyes of RV owners. Every time one of these rental RVs shows up in a campground, the RV owners gather to sneer and give a chilly welcome. The owners know that it’s impossible for someone to truly absorb the RV Culture if they merely are squatting in one of the coveted vehicles. They know that the only sure way to understand “The Craft”, as they call it, is to mortgage yourself to the hilt and buy one, or, better still, to sell your home, buy one and live the vagabond life until age, infirmity, poverty or total mechanical failure force you to move in with your children and live out the rest of your Autumn years in uncertainty and cloaked resentment.

This week, many of those in the rental RVs are European tourists. I guess these folks get several weeks of vacation each year, and they know how to use it, too. Here in Utah, thousands of Europeans and Asians have taken to the roads, making Americans a minority here in the leisure capitals of the West, because most of us Americans are at work. These foreign vacationers seem immensely satisfied, and who can blame them? Everybody should have
five weeks of vacation each year. Even our President thinks so; he’s been known to spend an awful lot of time in Crawford each summer, and this year he only gave up two days of his extended vacation to deal with the largest contemporary natural disaster America has ever known.

So I’m thinking we should all get five weeks vacation like our President and the Germans.
There is so much to see and so little time, and I think we would all be better people and better employees if a whole bunch of R&R were on the schedule each year.

We found ourselves in
a cavalcade of rental RVs on our way to Bryce Canyon. The narrow roads were scary enough in a car, but they must have been especially treacherous in an RV. My suspicions proved true. In a particularly winding stretch on a 14 percent grade, we saw an RV quickly pull into a turn out, ostensibly to let the line of 40 cars behind her get by. As we passed, I looked over to see the driver gulping down a handful of pills. I’m pretty sure what she was taking wasn’t Feenamint ...

At the Hell’s Backbone Inn in Boulder, UT, they serve fancy breakfasts. Every dish is tastefully prepared with organic ingredients. It is a Zen garden set up smack dab in the middle of Mormon country. Go eat there if you ever find yourself out here in the middle of nowhere like we did. Or if you need to post something to a blog. They don't mind a bit if you walk in stinking of camp. The WiFi access made the meal particularly satisfying.


Hiking in Bryce Canyon, a spectacular place, we came across a man from Pittsburgh named Manny. He worked as a tax accountant. He admitted that, being from the East Coast, he was slightly scared to be taking the hike alone. So he invited himself to tag along with us. We didn
’t mind. He was good company. Turns out he had come to the area a week before he was to run the St. George Marathon, scheduled for this coming Saturday. As we walked, Manny indicated his pleasure with the current Administration’s tax cuts and credits for things like energy efficient cars. He lamented the impending winter costs of natural gas. He stopped short of telling his political affiliation. I refrained from expressing my belief that George W. Bush is the Devil or, at the very least, a minor demon. Manny's marathon legs were good at climbing, and there was plenty of that—for a long way. We finished the hike in about two hours, 15 minutes, a full forty five minutes less than the park’s listed required minimum hiking time.

If you take nothing else away from this blog, remember this: Do not eat at the restaurant at Ruby’s Best Western hotel on the road to Bryce. Caroline and I enjoyed all of the fare the place had to offer in true, stuffed-to-the-gills buffet fashion. It was like eating at Furr’s Cafeteria, except Furr's has more entrees and doesn’t cost 40 bucks. Throngs of German vacationers seemed to be enjoying it though, which lends more credence to my theory that five weeks of vacation makes for more satisfied, happier people.

I’ll have time to post this tonight from Ruby’s main Lodge. Ruby’s was started in 1920 by Rueben and Minnie Sybett. It began as a guest tent that served toast for the Sybett’s friends. Nowadays it's a gold mine! The guy in the restaurant, the manager, told us that they serve 5,000 meals a day. Every day of the year! They have hotel rooms, a trading post, a store, pony rides, a rodeo, campgrounds and, oh yeah, they are located right next to Bryce canyon. That adds up to millions! Cha-ching! Why, oh why didn’t my parents move someplace cool and start inviting friends over for toast?

(It’s amazing how much WiFi access there is in this state. Keep checking back for postings.)

Auf Weidersehen!