“I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.”
–Jack Kerouac, “On the Road”
Rested and cooled in the mountain air, we now felt like we had a leg up on the pandemic; that our vacation had begun. Instead of just hurtling along, we can slow down and experience America. We have our fall back and saviour–the National Forests. They are always open and camping is allowed pretty much anywhere, while the SW is blazened green with huge swaths of forest land waiting to be explored on our AAA maps. It seems about every hour or so you pass a tract of national forest and their ever present slogan–’Land of Many Uses’–which we love to yell out in unison as we pass. The trip is far from perfect and we continually come across road blocks to our overarching plans and destination goals, but that is what traveling is about. We settle in and go with the flow of the world. It has always been my travel mantra that the second and third ‘best’ spots usually make up for slightly lower lustre by major lack of people, and that intangible is worth so much more than an instagram photo. I’d much rather explore the peaks of the Himalayas by myself than wait in line with 1,000s of people to see the Taj Mahal (a choice I did make at one point). The same goes for this trip and the closure of many of the national parks or parts thereof. It turns out that, because many were closed, it forced us to explore new areas and national forests that we would never have known about otherwise. And, many of these ‘second thought’ destinations and detours turn out to be better than our expectations for their more well-known alternatives. The point being, there is now a true feeling of exploring and adventure instead of just frustration. The crown of America–those craggy Rocky Mountains–lay ahead, and with them the varied and spectacular desert, mountain, and canyons of the great ‘West’ of history.
Yet, we still don’t have a firm driving plan; there are raging forest fires outside Flagstaff and almost everywhere across the SW (and later NW), there is no point in trying to visit any of the small towns we had envisioned stopping in, and all of Navajo Nation (and all other Native lands) is closed to outsiders. On the last point, it is refreshing that at least the local Native American councils and leaders understand the severity of the COVID situation, unlike our own Federal government (not that it should come as a surprise). They have closed all reservations to outsiders and have set up barricades. If I were them, I might make this a permanent approach. Keep milking outsiders at the casinos, but keep what remains of your beautiful soil to yourselves. All that us outsiders have ever brought is pandemics and destruction. Unfortunately, from a selfish standpoint, we won’t be able to visit monument valley, which was high on our list. Moreover, the eastern entrance to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon is closed, which would result in a 6 hour detour if we wanted to go there, then continue on towards Utah. Finally, since COVID delayed our trip until the dead of summer (instead of mid-winter, as originally planned), the southern route through Saguaro National Park is off the table. Although we are trying our best to handle the heat, pretty much everywhere below 8,000 feet is unbearable during the day. Temperatures hover around 100 degrees F in most spots across the SW and Utah (we later recorded a high of 110 degrees inside Canyonlands where we were supposed to camp). On the other hand, by skipping across Texas and now most of New Mexico, we are ahead of schedule, which has opened up more time to fully explore Utah with our newly acquired 4WD. The latter was a focal point of this trip once we got the 4runner, because areas of Canyonlands and elsewhere definitely require technical 4WD, which I wouldn’t have the balls to try in a rental car.
As the crows squawk in the pines of another cloudless day, we pack up our tent and begin the descent from the mountains into the shimmering golden desert plains. The winding 6,000 foot descent provides endless vistas of the desert with hazy green mountains barely visible across the vast expanse of nothingness. As we quickly climb down, we can soon see rolling white dunes piercing out of the flat brown earth. Our first destination is White Sands National Park, a place that I have been wanting to visit since I was a kid. There is something about the desert that simply fascinates and intrigues me. I love the feel of the sand on your feet, the endless false horizons as you climb among the dunes, and the crisp clear night skies that seem to call on you from eons away. I could lay on my back staring at the desert night sky for weeks. One of my greatest trips to date was a 4WD exploration of the Murzuq sand sea in the Libyan Sahara. At night, it felt like the Milky Way might drop down and swallow the earth, while sunrise produced the most vivid and vibrant hues of red and gold I have ever seen.
“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams…When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with out-stretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downward like a diver.”
–Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “Wind, Sand, and Stars”
As the largest gypsum dunefield in the world, White Sands provides a unique desert experience–there aren’t many deserts with blinding snow-white sands. We miss sunrise, but White Sands does not disappoint. It is a surreal blotch in the middle of the brownish dessert. Driving through the first dunes, it feels like entering snow covered Hoth, except the temperature hovers around 100 degrees. The relentless early morning sun bouncing off the gypsum sand crystals is truly blinding. The dunes build up slowly from 10s of feet to 100s of feet tall, like white rippling waves growing in the distance. A common theme across all the parks we visit is people flying past us on the park roads in a dizzying hurry to ‘see’ the park. They jump out at a few of the shortest walks and call it a success after an hour. Kristen and I come up with a plan to write a guide book for the national parks titled ‘How to See Every National Park in 1 Hour: Short Walks for Short Attention Spans’. I am pretty sure it would be a bestseller (and keep all of the annoying people out of our way on the great hikes). We head out on foot into the barren white distance covered head to toe in protection from the sun and carrying about a gallon of water. The views and the formations are striking with the contrast between white sand and blue sky mesmerizing. We simply can’t stop taking pictures even though we know none will come out. After an hour or two, the heat and sun and sweat become unbearable and we retreat to our car and the A/C. We do another shorter hike, but decide, despite the beauty and wishing we could spend the night (thanks for nothing COVID), that it is probably time to reluctantly hit the road.
The rest of the day is spent cruising along various byways of the SW. For the most part we skip the highways and take smaller roads heading in the direction of Petrified Forest National Park. We explore the countryside laughing at the desert people with their ETs, healing crystals, and leathery parched skin. We make a few quick pit stops as we randomly pass by places like the ‘Very Large Array Radio Telescope’, the continental divide, and Pie Town. More than once we feel the yearn to stop and eat at a local restaurant (and missing out on tasting the pies for which an entire town was named and the entire economy was based, was a huge disappointment) or quench our parched throats, but we stick to our guns and avoid indoor venues and people at all costs.
We take a little detour into a canyon to the ghost town of Kelly, NM and wander around the ruins of an old mine with one very deep (1,000ft) hole. We found the ghost town based on those typical uninformative, but always intriguing road signs that say things like ‘ghost town–turn left’ or ‘viewpoint–turn right’. You never know how good or how far the associated attraction might be, but there is always a sense of carefree adventure when you just whip the wheel and follow your gut. Who knows what lies at the end of the country lane, but you won’t know ‘til you try it. Relying on our guts and the need to stretch our legs a bit, we make a sharp U-turn and head down a dirt road towards this ‘ghost town’. We wind up driving up into the foothills for about 5 miles and eventually reach the abandoned mine. We get out and enjoy having the ghosts all to ourselves, albeit they were probably sweating a bit themselves. After a good wander, more home made sandwiches, and a couple gallons of water, we hit the road once more.
Out west, in the great expanses of empty, rocky America, there is something about the ups and downs of the mountains, ins and outs of canyons, endless vistas, and what feels like narrow avoidance of seemingly bottomless pits that makes one feel like you are a part of geologic time. You race across epochs like rewinding a VHS tape. It feels like you are in an IMAX documentary with the narrator taking you through the history of the formation of the earth. There is just a much different feeling than driving along the east coast. There you feel a part of human time–from Boston’s Old State House to the skyscrapers of NYC you cover 200 years of human growth/technology in a few hours. Moving along 95 or Route 1 you are constantly pressed by endless humanity. Across the rolling green hills of Gettysburg and Antietam, the low foggy mists hang like clinging ghosts, hesitant to leave lest we forget the mistakes for which they died. Everything is just remembrances of our misdeeds or accomplishments–the scars we have left behind. Out west, things are grander, bigger. Our scars are too. It is easier to see our impact, our change. In the east, nature is too long gone to be remembered; there is nothing from the ‘before times’–the cities always were and always will be. But, out west, you can still see what nature is/was, what impacts mining/lumber/highways have. But, you also feel change. Not 300 years of humans, but 1 billion years of earth time. This place was once a sea, this mountain range is ‘new’. As you go from atop a butte to the bottom of a canyon you transition across millenia; you experience real history not just ‘human’ history. There is something humbling; something that puts you in your place as a self-destructive human out here. Looking at the forces of nature, you realize that nature is just laughing at us, at what we think we can accomplish/harness/destroy/create. It will all be here, in one form of another, long after we have killed each other off or nature decides she is done with humans. All traces of humans will be destroyed; the ghost towns of NYC will eventually fade away. Those ghosts out east are just waiting for us to join them, hoping that we will learn the lessons they try to teach, but, likely, they are not too optimistic.
Unfortunately, we realize that there are not national forests absolutely everywhere and as we pull into Holbrook, AZ, the closest town to Petrified Forest National Park, we reluctantly agree to stay in a cheap motel. After six days on the road, it won’t hurt to get our first shower and a real bed. We also reluctantly plug into the internet to check the current status of the world and COVID. Nothing is getting better.
It is in Holbrook, once a hotspot on the Route 66 circuit, where we realize just what a toll the highway system has taken on small town America. The slow-way of that bygone Route 66 culture was killed by the highways that bypassed small towns like Holbrook. The dream of americana, pleasant downtowns, roadside diners, quirky pit stops, have all been replaced by highway super gas stations blasting A/C, pop country, and three different instant heart-burn fast food options. The highway system launched America into a new era of ‘now’ culture leaving behind the enjoyment of the slow road for the instant hits. Sadly, the National Park Service has fallen into the trap of placating the culture of instant satisfaction, as well. The road trip has disintegrated from a genuine experience of America and its small town way of life into a Disney World caricature–America seen through the lens of a ride on ‘It’s a Small World’. A family can drive coast to coast on the major highways, stopping at the major landmarks, eating at the major restaurant chains, and sleeping at the major hotels without once experiencing anything new or gaining an understanding of the ways of life of those living in vastly different circumstances across our huge continent. Watching families ‘experience’ our nation from the A/C comfort of their minivans, we often found ourselves wondering if this alienation within family bubbles might be one source of the great division taking place in America and American politics. We no longer seem to interact, to try and understand one another’s circumstances. Maybe, in some small way, revival of the classic era of the American road trip–staying in locally owned motels, eating at Mom and Pop diners, discussing life with locals along the road–might just be what America needs to better understand one another. To better understand ourselves.
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