The Chemo Chronicles, Part II: Solstice Sunset and the Trials of Time Travel

LA BAJADA MESA, N.M., June 21, 2014—The Summer Solstice is a time of chances—an opportunity for renewal and new growth. In some cultures it marked the beginning of the year; in others, people celebrated the day in brilliant white robes and headdresses of flowers, dancing carefree until the last drop of daylight evaporated from the sky and ushered in the nurturing warmth of summer.

Henry, left, loves adventure; Doodles, on the other hand, gets nervous

 With the knowledge that this year could possibly be the final summer for our dog, Henry, we set off to find a new location for our annual ritual of toasting in the summer season at sunset on the longest day of the year. Our past solstice celebrations have included climbing to the top of a water tank where we had precisely inscribed the sun's point of departure along the horizon, hiking to natural landmarks that capture a glint of sunlight and project them onto symbols pecked into stone, or simply gazing at Earth's one and only mysterious life-giving orb as it dove deep into the Pacific Ocean.

Life and beauty are tenacious

Our home in the mountains is not optimal for viewing the solstice sunset, so I had thought for several days about a location that would allow us to watch the sun traverse the sky and set majestically in the west after illuminating our little part of the world for more than 14 hours. Unfortunately for us, mankind's thirst for "progress" has made suitable spots harder to find over the years: the water tower has been torn down, we are a long way from the ocean, and many sacred calendar sites have been eradicated to make way for development. As the day drew near, I finally came up with a grand idea—a spot that would provide Henry with the cat-bird's seat for the Sun's traverse along the Tropic of Cancer.

Bright Idea

About 20 miles southwest of Santa Fe, the desert landscape suddenly plunges some 700 feet to the bottom of a formidable escarpment of volcanic rock. The landmark is so well known in the state and in Spanish legend, that it became the demarcation point of two distinct regions of New Mexico: the Rio Arriba, or upper river section; and the Rio Abajo, the lower river section of the state. This dividing line is known as La Bajada, or "The Descent," and it seemed a perfect place to watch the transition of spring into summer.

At the Edge of the Cochiti reservation, an alignment of the old Route 66 winds its way up the lava cliffs from the lowlands to the mesa above. Three miles to the south, a never-ending line of cars whizzes to the top of the escarpment along a kinder, now modern path now known as Interstate 25.

The old Route 66 bridge still exists near Cochiti Reservoir

Tradition says the original serpentine road spiraling up the cliff face has been in use for more than 800 years and dates back to the days of the Camino Real. The same road used by invading Spaniards later became a route for Model T Fords to drive up backward (a necessity of gravity-fed gas tanks) during trips along the Mother Road. Hospitality maven Fred Harvey called for improvements to the road to bolster the burgeoning tourist trade as Americans became fascinated with The West and Harvey Motor Coaches transported curious Easterners from the Territorial Capital of Santa Fe to the mysterious pueblos of nearby Native Americans.

The relatively recent basalt ledges upon which the 18-foot-wide road grade rests were constructed by prison inmates and laborers from nearby pueblos. The road remained in use until about 1924, when it received a gentler alignment that became obsolete 13 years later when the current route became the official highway between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

 Magic in the Air

We held out hope that the power of the Solstice could help transport us back in time to the days of Route 66 and the heyday of New Mexico culture if we gathered atop La Bajada for our annual ritual this year. Perhaps, if luck and the Old Gods were with us, if we viewed the solstice from such a sacrosanct vantage point, we would be transported into the past and to an era before the cancer cells had taken root in Henry's lymph nodes, and we would be able to return to present day along a parallel route in the time-space continuum to good health and restoration.

The beginning of our journey was auspicious. As we wound out of Los Alamos toward Totavi, we saw a modern manifestation of the trickster Kokopelli walking on the shoulder of U.S. 502. The hunchbacked figure wore a wide brimmed hat and was carrying a long flute as he made his way toward the Phillips 66 gas station at the bottom of the hill. He was not hitchhiking and he seemed unconcerned to be walking alongside a busy highway. I did a double take in the rear view mirror.


"Did you see that?" I asked Caroline.

"Kokopelli, you mean? Yeah. I saw him."

For whatever reason, neither of us was particularly surprised by the unexpected appearance.

A few miles down the road at San Ildefonso Pueblo, I saw a native gentleman standing out in the open desert holding an iPad up in front of his face with both hands. The scene was strangely poignant—reminiscent of an older ritual in which one of his ancestors would be presenting an offering to the sacred winds. Unlike our ancestors who were in close contact with the natural world, we modern men record our deeds with digital petroglyphs and consult Wikipedia instead of our elders.

I guided the truck toward our destination with the same hands that earlier had fed Henry five poisonous tablets concealed in cheese. The dose had been prescribed as treatment for cancer and delivered in a medicine bottle, although the instructions cautioned me not to administer the chemical—enough to kill a three-year-old child—without gloves. Although this protocol is widely accepted as one of the four normal courses of treatment in chemotherapy, I still hold a certain amount of guilt and trepidation knowing that I've used something as wholesome as cheese to trick my dog into ingesting something lethal. The Germans lured jews in for a shower during the Third Reich; I sometimes wonder whether my "gift" for my dog is any less dastardly. 

 Stones in my Passway

La Bajada provides a formidable landscape

Cognitive dissonance aside, we reached the old Route 66 bridge at Cochiti about two hours before sunset. Someone had lined the roadway with upturned roofing nails. Luckily I saw them before they could do any damage, and I stopped and removed as many of them as I could find. Nearby, free roaming cows munched nonchalantly on the green grass that stood in stark contrast to the rest of the desert surroundings thanks to a trickle from the Rio Santa Fe and gurgling acequias piped in from Cochiti Lake. The waterways were lousy with cow dung and I wondered why people take the health of their water for granted in a land that has precious little water to begin with?

The little dirt road turning off the main road toward the old Route 66 alignment was narrow, rutted and treacherous. I put the truck in four wheel drive and cautiously crawled up the road. About 500 yards later, the grade deteriorated into a sketchy landscape of deep, off-camber ruts littered with jagged volcanic boulders. This bend in the road afforded me a slight chance of turning around—perhaps the last one I might have until the top of the grade. I decided to get out and survey the road before I passed this seeming point of no return.

I believe my truck might have been able to make it through the next 500 yards of hellish terrain, but I had some nagging doubts in my mind. At any rate, the possibility of navigating a terrible unknown four-wheel-drive track an hour before sunset with two dogs in the back and in a landscape where the residents mine the passageway with roofing nails seemed foolish at best. I put the truck in four-wheel-low and executed a tricky three point turnaround without incident.

At the edge of the Rio Arriba and the Rio Abajo

We found ourselves on the present day alignment climbing up La Bajada hill feeling slightly defeated and wondering what to do next. I had read up on the history of the road and knew that the old alignment made its way into Santa Fe via La Cienega and the village of Cineguilla. I reckoned that the area must still have dirt roads leading out to the mesa's edge, and after a quick consultation of Google Earth, I saw evidence of passage scraped lightly into the desert landscape. After a couple of false starts in La Cienega, one which led us down a dead-end road to a private residence where the owner had adorned his fence posts with boots—perhaps the boots of hapless travelers?—we wound our way out of the fertile river valley and up onto the mesa top.

Using Tetilla Peak to the north as our reference, we rumbled through the desert and finally picked up a power-line road that had seen better days. I recognized the terrain from Google Earth, so I headed west with confidence that we would reach the edge of the La Bajada escarpment well before sunset.

 A Destination Worth Reaching

Toasting the summer solstice

With just a half an hour left in the day, we pulled up to the top of the last switchback of the road we had abandoned an hour earlier. We had reached the top of the old Route 66 alignment!

The dogs were thirsty, so we allowed them the first toast of the day. We grabbed our gear and walked down the road to the first big switchback, which overlooked the great expanses of the Rio Abajo section of the state. From this vantage point the sun blazed high in the west above the peaks that would have obscured it at home. In the valley below, sunlight glinted off of Cochiti Reservoir and the fat free-range cows looked like slow-moving ants.

End of the day but not the end of days for this dog

As tradition dictates, we toasted the end of the day with fine cold beers, a large wedge of brie, olives, fruits and other assorted delicacies. As the sun made its final curtain call, the winds suddenly stopped and the world was plunged into a most excellent silence. Henry the dog climbed up on an outcropping of dark lava rock to watch the sunset, while his little companion Doodles chased grasshoppers and searched for rodents.

Once the sun winked out of sight, we walked down the road to see whether vehicle passage would have been possible. Our short survey was inconclusive. As we climbed back up the road bed with a warmth in our hearts, the initials of long-gone and recent travelers scratched into the rocks alongside the path reminded us that no one but heroes can take a journey on ground where none have trod. The Earth is for mere mortals such as us.

See you on down the road.