AZTEC, NM—The approach of the Vernal Equinox brings a sense of urgency to go out and finish up all the unfinished summer business floating around out there. And this is precisely why we jumped into the car and hauled ass north for one more week of riding and fun before the onset of the pre-winter clampdown—with its early darkness and cooler-than-comfortable temperatures that force unrealized summer aspirations to be mothballed for another year.
This week we find ourselves on the road meandering toward Las Vegas, where I am endeavoring to spend a week in Clown College as a hedge against potential unemployment. The world needs more clowns. It is a lost art, and most of today's painted-faced gypsies are using their makeup to hide from law enforcement officials or leg-breakers looking to recover lost debt.
As such, I will make sure my chosen Clown Name—a moniker bestowed upon initiates by their mentors during the the sacred right of passage into Clowndom—has never been used by any former Clown felon or idler. I intend to make clowning an honest profession again. Like George W. Bush said, I will restore dignity to the Big Top.
It seemed natural that our first stop along the way would be an alleged UFO crash site. We haphazardly threw an enormous load of crap into the vehicle as we beat a hasty retreat from the Atomic City as darkness fell. It was on Highway 550 that we first noticed the headlight malfunction. An attempt to switch on the lowbeams plunged the vehicle into total darkness, never a good thing when you're out on unfamiliar, rain-slicked roads. So we endured the rest of the trip with every on-coming semi truck blasting us with high-beams that slashed their way through the veil of night and smashed into our retinas like lasers.
We arrived at the Back Off Inn in Aztec, NM, just before midnight. The victorian lace and wallpaper gave the place the feel of a haunted house and we slept fitfully between the slightly yellowed sheets. Mercifully we were not visited by silent apparitions or unexplained raps or knocks on the walls, other than an ominous torrent that chattered its way down a pipe behind the walls from the upstairs occupant's chamber pot.
The next morning we feasted on the Inn's signature hot, fresh cinnamon rolls. Our guidebook had crowed about homemade sugar-n-spice, but our breakfast consisted of microwaved Enteman's and strong Farmer Brother's coffee served on metal outdoor patio furniture that had been crammed inside the establishment's parlor (or "parlour" in the Victorian parlance that permeated the inn like an omnipresent potpourri).
Aztec, NM, is oil and gas country. You can smell it in the air, though not as obviously as in Bloomfield down the road. The air is rank with the sulphurous odor of money. Pumps are sprinkled liberally throughout the sage, bobbing up and down like giant grasshoppers, slurping valuable petrochemicals from the soft, gray Earth.
On a bluff above Hart Canyon a few miles from the edge of town, the drone of the pumps is drown out by whispers of conspiracy. Legend speaks of a flying saucer crash on this unlikely patch of ground back in 1948. The huge UFO reportedly carried more than a dozen little gray aliens in shiny silver suits. The lifeless bodies of these extraterrestrials were strewn across the crash site.
Locals say the government clandestinely cleaned up the mess using trucks disguised as oil and gas vehicles. It is rumored that the craft, among the largest ever recovered, was spirited away to Los Alamos National Laboratory for study, the alien corpses moved to Wright-Patterson in Ohio. Local folklore says the background radiation at the site is slightly higher than surrounding areas.
I don't know about all that, but what I do know, is the Alien Crash Site sure is a good place to ride a bike!
Several years ago a couple of locals, Al and Deral Saiz, scraped a trail into the forbidding landscape that heaves its way over long ledges of slickrock, twists its way through tight stands of piñon and juniper trees, and winds its way around the very site of the crash. A simple marker with a home-made plaque describes the mysterious events of 1948.
As I rode through the area, ducking low-hanging limbs and dodging around tight corners with branches that grabbed at me like alien fingers, I tried to imagine the implications of an alien crash. Well, not actually. I was concentrating really hard on the excellent trail. Round smooth rocks made navigation and control a constant challenge, and the plethora of low-hanging limbs along the route made decapitation an ever-looming possibility for a big guy like me. I have to suppose that the Saiz brothers are of short stature, else they would have trimmed these branches after getting bonked in the head for the umpteenth time along the route.
I expect that if the Aliens were chasing me in this landscape, I'd end up sporting the rectal probe. On this tight track through trees, a giant like me can only manuever so quickly. Three-foot-tall aliens could ramble through the brambles like Munchkins hopped up on methamphetamine if human prey were nearby, although the preponderance of branches might pose a hazard for their huge, staring almond-shaped eyes if the gauntlet were thrown down. Maybe I'd escape after all and the little bugggers would be left staggering around with dripping eye sockets and tender feet accustomed only to soft Martian soil bristling with cactus prickles.
After the ride we enjoyed a fine sandwich at the Main Street Bistro in downtown Aztec. The area is enjoying a resurgance. A local group is carving in a set of new trails and Main Street has been redone with period lamps to entice tourists for a weekend or an afternoon or even a short alien visit.
Hours later, after driving through some of the prettiest, lonliest country out here in the West, we ended up in Page, AZ, stepping off place for all procurers of houseboats for a week's vacation at Lake Powell. The Glen Canyon Dam made recreation possible for herds of drunks, and I celebrated this achievement with an interpretive dance on the red rocks high above the water at sunset.
Clown College grows nearer and I can already sense its energy—like flying saucer residue pulsing softly in the desert.
Yeah, I love raw fish.
I gave up trout fishing a long time ago because my friends were always horrified to watch me snatch up a freshly caught rainbow, bash its little head on a rock and then bite off a huge hunk right there at stream side—chewing with my mouth open while fish juice ran down my chin. It was such a disturbing display that one buddy even took to calling me Smeagol, and this was long before Peter Jackson ever made The Lord of the Rings popular.
Just to be clear, I didn't do backflips on the rocks and sing fish songs after gnawing on some fresh catch or anything like that. But in these modern days, people get turned off by such atavistic displays. Here in robust America, with its ample waistlines and fingertip conveniences, there is no need to gnaw on raw fish, unless such is purchased at a reputable restaurant in the heart of civilized country.
Having said that, I have a very loose definition of what passes for civilization, and if I had to swear, I'd say I am on the fence of assigning that label to Pinetop-Lakeside, a community in Arizona's White Mountains that hosts a strange mix of the ultra-rich and total down-and-outers. This is a community of no middle class. This is a playground for Phoenix power brokers with second homes or a place where a largely industrial class of people hang their thread-bare hats on pegs hammered into the prefabricated walls of trailers tucked here and there in the woods.
But away from these trophy homes and shotgun shacks, we stumbled upon an excellent sushi restaurant here, far away from salt water and skilled commercial fisherman.
At the Kabuki restaurant—established by the same entrepreneur who reportedly brought the Goodwill Games to America—you can order the sushi "boat," described as being a meal for two. If you're in the White Mountains riding bikes with the same fervor as mosquitos have for feasting on the flesh of the warm-blooded, and you happen to stumble into the Kabuki, who are you to argue with the suggestion of ordering the signature entreé, particularly after downing a couple of Japanese beers?
The meal arrived in an actual boat—a three-foot galleon swamped to the yard arm in all manner of fresh fish and seafood. An entire Aji lay posed at the bow, expertly cut and ready for eatin'. One look at the little buggger's glassy eyes and fishy face, and I was ready for some backflips and head bashing. I let out a little screech and the other diners looked up with alarm.
The waiter assured me the delicious fish was already dead, so no tabletop whacking was necessary, and the entire restaurant breathed a sigh of relief.
In all, our schooner held about 10 pounds of sushi and sashimi, and the only offering that was a little too hardcore for our sensibilities was an entire tempura-ed shrimp head, whiskers and all, that laughed at us from atop his cushion of sticky rice.
Still, this far inland, in such a strange backward locale, a small hint of doubt lingered in the back of my mind that our feast would mutiny the next morning and we'd find ourselves doubled over the chamber pots instead of out on the trails. However, a quick taste of the banquet and the total absence of fishy flavor made me instantly realize that this food had been prepared by professionals and was fantastically fresh.
Indeed, our order was accompanied by the owner, who seemed interested in finding out who had ordered the house special. One look at our ruffled appearance and empty beer glasses, and he was instantly satisfied that we weren't millionaires or real-estate developers worth knowing beyond a warm smile and a genuine "Bon Appetit."
The next day on our ride, we rocked along the trails with sushi legs that allowed us to squirm though the tech
nical sections like engergized salmon through a rocky stream bottom at the height of spawning season. We had boundless energy and we beat the rains. A beautiful rainbow descended from the clouds and we were glad to be alive.
Our tour through dusty ranching country on two wheels was a stark contrast to the fancy Kabuki restaurant the day before. But here in these mountains, we've grown accustomed to contrasts, and we look forward to them like bites of fine cold sashimi in a realm of stocktanks roiling with warm brackish waters.
Our days in the White Mountains so far have been a blur of bike trails and restaurant meals; the trails are far better than the food!
There are miles of singletrack trails crisscrossing the thick forests up here. And while Phoenix swelters away at about 110-degress for the past few days, temperatures up here have hovered in the low 80s at their hottest. We've even had a little bit of rain to keep the trails nice and sticky.
So far we've logged nearly 70 miles of rides, the best one so far this afternoon. It was touch and go for a minute. We got a late start and needed to secure some supplies to fix a mechanical issue with one of the bikes, so by the time we got to the trailhead, big cumulonimbus thunder boomers were roiling up over the hills a short distance away. The roll of distant thunder pounded steady in the distance, like a drum beat keeping time for weary oarsman on a slave ship tossing in uncertain seas.
We hammered as best we could in an attempt to outflank the approaching storm, but the trail—an 18-inch wide ribbbon of dirt winding pleasantly through meadow and aspen stand—suddenly began to climb. Its smooth and friendly character transformed itself into a jarring journey up a ladder of sharp chickenheads (an annoying scatter of rocks that are smaller than "babyheads" for those unfamiliar with the peculiar parlance of the mountain biker). The trek might not have been as daunting had we had fresh legs, but the 30-mile epic ride the day before had taken its toll, and our legs felt like al dente pasta with each stroke of the pedal.
We watched the skies warily, wondering whether we would hit the bail-out point halfway through the trail before the lightning bolts began.
Luckily, we stayed one step ahead of the storm, skirting by it and then heading away from it as the trail mellowed and later provided us with some of the most rippin' downhill sections of the week. All this after meandering through fields of fern and oak that had been woven into the rich forest tapestry of Ponderosa Pine, aspen and fir.
This is fine country up here. It seems that some sections of the forest were ravaged by fire years ago and have been reborn into the kind of roomy forest that allows a generous amount of sunlight to pass through the tree canopies and energize the forest floor into a lush living carpet of brilliant color and texture.
All of this is cast upon a landscape of ancient volcanic rock. In some areas, trails and forest roads are covered with pea sized rust-colored cinder that crunches under the tires and makes a rider wonder whether the wheels will wash out around the next switchback.
In other areas, sections of cruel pock-marked babyheads force you to uncouple from your bicycle and dance above the seat with hands and feet light on the bars and pedals as the machine below bucks and heaves its way toward the next brief smooth section. With the slightly red cast of the soil and the abundance of rock, I imagined how it must be to mountain bike on Mars if such a thing were possible.
Up here the skies are a brilliant blue, rivalling the vistas of New Mexico, and it seems like these mountains are blessed with life-giving moisture. The mosquitos certainly have flourished, and our rides only commence after we have slathered ourselves in an unsavory chemical bath of SPF 30 sunscreen and 100 percent DEET.
We have tested this mixture for the past several days under the harshest conditions of sweat and dirt, and we can attest that neither chemical affects the performance of the other when used simultaneously. Were
it not for sunscreen, we would fry like bacon during the long daily rides we have endured, and if we had not packed the DEET, our flesh would be as raw and bumpy as some of the sections of trail we have mastered. Any breather out here brings clouds of mosquitos that hover just out of range of the DEET molecules we exude.
This is life as we have discovered it out here on the Mogollon Rim—where the Colorado Plateau abdicates its majesty to the Basin and Range below. It is a marvelous place at the edge of civilization, but it seems as though people are trying as hard as they can to "civilize" the area with asphalt and tract developments. Wherever possible, realtors and developers are cramming houses together in every nook and cranny, whether that be on the site of a former wetland or within the migratory routes of great herds of elk.
As odd and ridiculous as it seems, developers are making big bucks carving gated communities into the middle of the wilderness here. Perhaps the city folk from Phoenix find comfort in the knowledge that their vacation home is walled off from surrounding acres of open space by a six-foot-high iron fence. This to us is pointless and weird. But apparently it sells; these gated communities have very few vacancies even with their abundance of smallish half-million-dollar pricetag homes that are used but a few weeks each year.
Fences may keep prowlers out, but they don't segregate humanity from things like the species of tiny toad we came across today on our ride, or from the thimble-sized vole that peeped up at us from just beyond the edge of the trail as we rode by. But people who hide behind fences in the middle of the woods don't keep their eye out for things like that anyway. At night in those sections of forest, pockets of trees are illuminated by the light of plasma-screen televisions blaring out through barred window panes.
Meanwhile, far away and too tired to care, we sleep like exhausted kittens after a wild day of nonstop play.
We are staying in a tomb.
This was not intentional. A brush with good fortune some time back allowed us to secure accommodations in an RCI time-share "resort" anyplace in the world for next to nothing. However, the lateness of the season narrowed our potential world view significantly, and by the time it was all said and done, we ended up choosing a location in what probably could be characterized as the most undesirable time-share vacation location in the world.
We are staying in the farthest corner of the time-share universe—a purgatory for penalizing all the late planners and procrastinators, or the suckers who don't really understand the nuances of wheeling and dealing for trade-ups to better locations.
There was plenty of space here in the White Mountains by the time our time-share opportunity arose. We are where nobody wants to be.
It seems time-share vacationers opt for places with access to beaches and casinos and parasailing and shopping. These jetsetters—with their one precious week a year to spend in pursuit of leisure—opt for locales where beautiful people don't mind showing off their tanned and ripped torsos during the hottest part of the day, where friendly bartenders have perfected the craft of whipping up good strong drinks garnished with fine sweet fruit and paper umbrellas.
Here in the White Mountains, there are big stands of Ponderosa Pine forests for as far as the eye can see. The sky is quiet and dark at night and the nearest shopping is a Family Dollar store five miles down the road. In their resort brochure, the RCI marketing folks admonished that a "car is necessary to enjoy the region's amenities," many of which are located "less than a six-hour drive away." We are in the middle of the forest in the middle of nowhere.
There are no casinos, no beaches. People walk around fully clothed at all times, and the median age of resort dwellers here must be about 75 years old. The tap water is impeccably good tasting, pumped up from an ancient aquifer that is untainted by the ravages of civilization and industrial processes.
For us, this place is perfect. We are enjoying ourselves immensely and we have no plans to drive anywhere. The White Mountains are rich with biking trails and we have spent the past two days enjoying singletrack trails that range from smooth cruisers to shockingly technical grinds over tire-ravaging lava rock. Our legs are already tired but we are still looking forward to riding a 30-plus-mile epic later this week.
In some respects, vacationing here is a lot like vacationing in The Atomic City—with "nothing to do" and "no place to shop"—so we feel close to home. The nearby Apache tribe has even erected a fine cheesey casino just twenty minutes away by car, as if a Pojoaque Pueblo Déja Vù had been placed here just for us.
But what of the others who have come here? We have little information, other than that they seem to be very old. The resort's common area is uncrowded by people and the place has very little buzz. There are puzzles out on the tables in the atrium that seem to get assembled a little more each day by the gray ghosts who have come here this week to populate this old tomb of a resort.
People of this age demographic eat dinner early, and the restaurants in town are standing room only from 5 until 6:30 p.m. Then the town empties out like one of those spooky Midwestern hamlets where the locals engage in unspeakable rituals to guarantee a favorable harvest next year.
Last night we awoke to the sound of thumping as we tried to sleep off the stupor of a days' worth of riding. A new set of Blue Hairs had arrived. Night creatures. A different breed from what has been here so far.
We will be watching them—like Fort Lauderdale residents wary of Spring Break interlopers.
Ahh, the road!
Getting away has been an obsession of this nation, particularly in the West—where scoundrels and pioneers alike found solace on the trails. These days asphalt replaces the bumpy wagon ruts that guided our forefathers and their familes to Manifest Destiny. But some of the same routes remain despite the ravages of time and progress.
Here in Springerville, Ariz., they've erected a monument to all those hardy souls who've journeyed one place or another in search of fortune and glory. Next to the main drag through town, one of a handful of "Madonnas of the Trail" commemorates the pioneering spirit. The statue—a woman with a baby on her breast and a young boy clinging to her skirt—stands next to another modern marvel: the Home of the Big Mac!
Here, food pioneer Ray Kroc perfected a process in which Americans could eat the same-tasting food no matter where they were on the road. Unfortunately, the road that Ray paved was an express route to heart disease, diabetes and obesity—hardships for an affulent nation. These plagues came at a time when Marketing Geniuses were successful in convincing a fun-starved nation that food was entertainment.
Broken axles, diptheria and starvation hobbled the progress of a growing nation after throngs of people were urged to "Go West, Young Man" by Horace Greeley in 1865. But these travails pale in comparison to the ravages of modern convenience suffered by a Fast Food Nation. More time at work, less time in the kitchen: the benefits of a highly modern society. We work to put food on the table, no matter what form. More is better. We are a Super-Sized, Super-Charged society on the move. Except nobody's walking anymore.
The McDonna of the Trail stands as a mute reminder of a time when self-reliance was the key to prosperity, not warmed-over meat patties served to the microwaved masses.
And so, fellow travelers, once again I have fled the cities for a taste of the the wild and a cloak of solitude. Here in the White Mountains of Arizona we will smell the vanilla essence of ponderosa pine forest and savor the sticky darkness of the night sky, which coats the world like molasses after the sun has bid the day adieu.
We have secured a housesitter and pinch-workers to take care of matters in our absence and we will be reporting on our progress here as providence and whimsy allow. Perhaps we will learn a thing or two—even in this age when everyone seems to know everything about everything.
The trail ahead beckons. See you on down the road.
AZTEC, NM—The approach of the Vernal Equinox brings a sense of urgency to go out and finish up all the unfinished summer business floating around out there. And this is precisely why we jumped into the car and hauled ass north for one more week of riding and fun before the onset of the pre-winter clampdown—with its early darkness and cooler-than-comfortable temperatures that force unrealized summer aspirations to be mothballed for another year.
I don't know about all that, but what I do know, is the Alien Crash Site sure is a good place to ride a bike!
