August in the Sonoran Desert. The sun is blazing, unmerciful. The winds, when they come, blow hot and bearing the collected dust of miles of open desert. The landscape is stark at first glance, flat hues of brown and gray, washed out by the ever present glare of the sun.
The car is pointed north, leaving behind the red rocks of Sedona, blazing toward Flagstaff. Interstate 17 unspools ahead, snaking through a seemingly endless expanse of desert. Slowly, I become aware of the increasing elevation. Subtle changes in the landscape, as the harsh low-desert gives way to the high semi-desert. Groves of pines gradually thicken into forests, and the temperature begins to drop noticeably in time with the passing miles. Flagstaff sits north, nestled in the mountains, but it's not to Flagstaff that I'm headed. I bear West.
On Interstate 40 now. As I drive west, the pine forests thin and eventually disappear, the desert slowly reasserting itself. I pass Williams and eventually Ash Fork. The land flattens, vegetation becoming more and more sparse. This land is rolling and huge, both stark and subtly beautiful. As I roll through the vastness, windows down, hot air howling in my ears, I can feel the beginning of a connection with this land. My mind drifts back to "civilization", to the ribbons of highway, the plague of strip malls and soulless housing tracts. I look at the vast, untamed miles surrounding me, and I begin to ask myself what "civilization" really means. I pull over at some point, getting out of the car, stretching my legs. Afternoon is giving way to evening, but still the sun burns, a dull, constant heat that seems to purify. I drink water from a large jug. (Always carry large quantities of water out here, boys and girls.) I stand under that relentless sun, breathing in the hot, dusty (but clean) air, and I'm struck by how big this place is, how unapologetically vast, and how small I am by comparison. I feel humbled, thankful that places like this still exist, still untouched by greed and the relentless pursuit of "civilization".
I continue on, tuned in to a country music station, one of the few stations that manage to travel these great distances. The radio blares real country music, the country music of old, full of melancholy and a liquor-soaked dignity that has been systematically murdered by what passes for "country music" these days. I pass miles and miles of fields, fenced in for grazing. The sun sinks lower, beginning its descent into the Pacific, an ocean that is more or less straight ahead of me if I were to continue west.
Dusk settles in, the seemingly endless sky painted hues of orange and purple. I'm approaching my destination for the night - Seligman, Arizona. I veer off 40 and onto old Route 66, that ancient and storied road, and I roll straight into town. Seligman exists in a time warp, seemingly untouched by the advance of time and progress. For me, a visitor rolling in for the night, this lack of modernization reeks of nostalgia for a time I'm admittedly too young to even remember. I imagine that, for the young people of this town, this same lack of progress feels like a jail sentence, invoking a yearning for a "civilized" world glimpsed primarily through the television. I imagine teenagers wandering a town that time forgot, marooned in an unending expanse, dreaming of the day when they could flee for Flagstaff, Phoenix or California. I imagine that many do leave; racing into the open, welcoming arms of progress. I also imagine that years later, as time slips away in that sly way that time does, they look back and yearn for that simpler place - that place seemingly lost in time.
My destination this night is the Supai Motel. The place is what the glass-half-full crowd would call "rustic". Frankly, the joint is a dump. This hardly seems to matter to me. This place is popular with those traveling to Havasu Canyon, as it's a fairly short few hours from the motel to the Hualapai Hilltop and the trailhead into the canyon. After a day of driving; eyes tired from the road and the glare of the desert sun, body aching from the seat of a car, any place with four walls, a roof and a bed sounds like paradise. The Supai Motel meets those requirements, and does so with a low price tag befitting its "rustic" status. The owners are an Indian couple who are extremely friendly. They pass along the key with a smile, and I head to my room, falling across the bed as soon as I drop my gear on the floor.
Later, about ten, I go outside. It's dark, the air still hot. I walk across the parking lot and down the street. There's nobody around, and I get the impression that's not unusual here. I stroll past buildings that look like ghosts, relics of an age when Route 66 inspired songs and television shows. I walk in this strange place, under a dark, desert sky swimming with stars. I think to myself that it could easily be 1969, the year of my birth, and I try to imagine what it would have been like to be 33 back then, a time when America was losing its grip on its innocence and the machines of change were bearing down.
I amble back to the room, needing sleep for a long day of hiking the next day. I pull a few beers out of my bag, beers purchased earlier in the evening at what passed for a convenience store/gas station in those parts. The beer is warm, despite having spent the hours in a cheap, styrofoam (environmentally un-friendly, I know) cooler. It hardly seems to matter. I watch "local" news out of Flagstaff, thinking that these warm beers are the best I'd ever had. Eventually I slide off to sleep, full of warm beer and in an uncomfortable bed, slumbering fitfully in the land that time forgot.
(To Be Continued)
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