Wild Life

You don't see a lot of wildlife in the desert. Actually, you do, but it's not the cool lions-taking- down-herds-of-wildabeast kinda wildlife. If you read the guides the NPS ranger hands you when you drive through the kiosk to Death Valley or Arches or any of the Southwest National Parks and Monuments, you will be advised to "sit still, and look closely" at the rocks, the flat, empty desert, and wait for the tiny movements to register on your darting retinas.

It's true, the desert has more life than I realized. I am a 'stay on the trail' nazi, and I had the good fortune to learn, in Arches, about the biological crust. To you and me, it's just dirt. Dirt that looks like it's been pattered by rain then dried out. It looks a bit like a confection, frothy and light. It is where algae and little stuff like that thrive, and apparently, like moon soil, will hold a footprint (assuming 1000 more following do not stamp it out) for hundreds of years. In exchange, though, the soil's given up it's life. This gave me license to further nag my hiking companion to stay on the trail, and to turn up my nose at the family who, father, mother, son and son, each wore a few hundred dollars worth of technical hiking gear but did not have the eco-etiquette not to wander off the trail to eat their lunch, amidst the echoing death wails of the invisible algae they imprinted with their Vasques.

Growing up in Los Angeles, wildlife is conveniently sequested in the LA Zoo in Griffith Park. In fact, GP also has what's known as the Old Zoo, a loop of black barred cages, smaller than a cubicle, draconian, short and dank, with tiny holes at the back where lithe animals could shimmy out to their 'backyards' for feeding or a respite from the public eye. Thankfully empty and incredibly eerie, they are artfully decorated by local gang members, and were used by more sophisticated artists in the late 90s for an installation series. The cages allow us to pity our unenlightened forebears, and congratulate ourselves for our humane treatment of animals in modern times.

Driving to Griffith Park for a walk under the eucalyptus, I saw a uniformed man standing streetside. Just standing there. On the sidewalk! As we all know, no one walks in LA, and no one, certainly, has the free time or the shamelessness to just stand there on the street doing nothing(Sidewalks are for homeless people, for god's sake, and even an actor auditioning for the part wouldn't do it on Los Feliz Blvd). A white Ford truck was parked oddly by the large yellow apartment building, and there was a small cage at his feet. Animal Regulation. I tracked the line of his gaze, and saw a really agitated skunk huddling in a corner against the yellow enclosing wall of the apartment building. That is what wildlife becomes in the city. A nuisance, a pest. He didn't stand a chance.

Beyond the park, Griffith or National, the smaller highways overflow with animals. I had actually seen a few deer in my previous 30 years: on my regular Friday hike to Five Points in GP, years ago, before the most recent spate of fires that took out all the flora and probably a share of the fauna, I spooked three deer in the ravine where the fire road banks around to the northeast. A friend of mine lived up in the hills above Burbank in a posh place with a tennis court in a development that butts directly into the dry mustard covered hillside. Driving home late one night, a stately buck caught in the glare of my headlamps turned tail and bashed itself into a chain link fence between two properties. He was darting for the wild hillsides, naturally, and was caught out, trapped into civilization.

If you stop and look closely, you will notice the wild life wherever you are. The great songbirds of the east, I hear, no longer grace the eastern forests. But in the quiet of morning in my poolside Hollywood apartment, a graceful cooing bounces from the cypress trees. I sit still, letting the birdsong and the whir of the pool filter motor have their collision symphony, in those few still moments before the city's life drowns it all out.

Littlefield

She is sitting back, old as time, a shotgun across her lap, her eyes as narrow as the barrel transversing her legs. She is shady on the porch. She is at rest. She leans back, some old Appalachian soul, regarding your approach. From her perch, on the incline of the hill, she can see you from a long way off.

Beyond this guard dog, a mountain pass, rising. God she is so suspicious of you. You feel every untoward impulse exposed and you are scrawny and shamed, driving in that mountain pass. Beyond a white spire, a canyon's cut in the red red rocks, a wonder curving through a mountain, mountains that look like a cup, holding you in, well below the rim. From her porch, you'd think it impenetrable.

The moon rose nine times tonight, over the variable horizon of red rock cliffs. We came into Utah, and I thanked God that for religious fundamentalism. It's helped keep the wreckage of us out of the state.

Death Valley

Barstow. The name, the place, lackluster as it is, has a gleam in my imagination. Growing up in Los Angeles, most any trip took us under freeway signs where Barstow was one of the directional destinations. It meant we were going, it was probably summer, it was the month, or near the month, where it is catatonically hot, the blessed, blissful stupor of the desert summer heat.

There were caravans of weekenders. A string of Honda two-seaters, like gnats, or maybe lap dogs, piloted by erstwhile Asian car gang members. A sprinkling of Harleys. And a pair of vintage RVs: square windows in a gently curved body, diminutive round headlights, coppery metallic paint jobs and crisp chrome arcs. They were beautiful. An overgrown race in general, these I had to admire, pristine proud and reasonably sized.

Sedans stretching in the late morning sun. Polished chrome and ultra buffed quarter panels, you could feel how soft that wax was over the lustrous paint. All dressed up, these cars. It took me a while to remember it was Friday (unemployment does that to ya'), and then it dawned on me. Of course - putting on their finest, these folks, and going to Las Vegas. Shiny cars attract shiny coins, or so the logic seemed to go.

Death Valley, I'd read not a month before in A Field Guide to Getting Lost, got it's name in the gold rush days. One in a group of the pioneers bound for California died in the valley after the group had been stuck there, unable to find the pass. One of the women, as they were finally leaving, bid the place adieu and christened it so.

The colors on the hillsides as we got into the valley seemed explosive after the tight-fisted tones of the desert flats. The plain rises like fabric before the mountains, where a skim of green is diluted by the haze of distance. Scrubby cover, this shade is shown off by the rising angle of the land, where it disappears in the flats, in the huge sandy gaps between plants. Magic carpet, an inept descriptor.


We went to the Borax works in the late late late afternoon sunshine. The sun shone on the Funeral Mountains until it reluctantly ducked behind the Panamints.

The moon is full, just about. We met a crow near the campsite. A woman, middle aged, camped quietly by herself in the site next to us, her tent crouched in the shade the mesquite shrubs would offer. I just love the peace and quiet.

Common knowledge has it, from many I spoke to before the trip, that women who camp by themselves are being recklessly unsafe. I deduce from the fact that this woman is speaking to me, and that she's implied this is a repeat trip to the valley, that she has escaped harm's way. (What would the Madonna of the Trail think of our timidity?)

After a period of sinus pressure where I thought my face would explode (perhaps it was just a good old fashioned dose of dehydration) I feel blessedly tired and content. It's warm enough to sleep comfortably in the tent in shirtsleeves. Warm enough that I do not dread getting out of the tent in the middle of the night, shuffling over the mudcracked earth and, under a bright bright moon, watering the mesquite.

Our camp is quiet, coyotes howling at dinnertime, at some distance, a roar of generators, is all.

The Westen Stats

There is nothing worse, in my opinion, than viewing the world through the lens of a camera, when I have the option to view it with my unaided eye. Okay, I wear corrective lenses, so the world would be a fuzzy mess without some aid. But I hate the constant stop-start that turns a 5 mile hike in an amazing landscape into a 5 hour hike with a 4" screen glued to my face.



What occasions this thought? I've uploaded all my pictures from the 4 week trip, and am still filing the 865 shots.



This seems plenty, but then, what's in a number? Why don't I have a shot of the moon rising over the road into Bryce Canyon? Why don't I have a shot of the cohorts who joined me for stretches of the trip, one of whom managed to snap 700 picture in just 4 days? Why don't I have a picture of the incredible ranch-branded carpet in the motel in Billings, MT? Or of anything in California, more or less?



Apparently I prefer to look at the world through the tube of a ballpoint pen, logging incident and letting things show their shape at the end of the page. In my mind, the image is more accurate, more fully realized. But for you, dear reader, and for me when the memory of this trip is submerged by a mountain of quotidian tasks, by the cloud cover of some paying job somewhere, it might be better to have pictures. Next time, I'll take more pictures.



Meanwhile, my last gainful employment taught me to keep lots of records. Here is the story that the numbers tell of the Great American West Road Trip:



highest elevation: 9,105; Bryce Canyon, CA (not the canyon, Rainbow Pt)
lowest elevation: -282; Death Valley, CA
northenmost latitude: 48.5N West Glacier, MT
southernmost latitude: 33.125N Calipatria, CA

states covered: 10 CA, AZ, NV (only incidentally), UT, CO, WY, MT, ID, WA, OR
miles driven: 6,178 (add another 505 for the Salton Sea debacle)
total gallons of petrol: 116.23 (bless my lil Prius)
highest gas price: 4.06 Laytonville, CA
lowest gas price: 3.28 Casper, WY (Why indeed?)

photos taken: 865
good photos taken: that is TBD, my friend.

smallest town population: 68 Wamsutta, WY
average number of road signs on a one mile stretch of highway in WY, ID, OR, MT, AZ or UT: 2
average number of road signs on a similarly sized stretch in CA: 7 (Caltrans is much, much too busy.)

Trippus Interruptus

I'd packed in a fury at 10pm, filling a duffle bag with what seemed absurdly warm clothes and a cooler with anything in the fridge that might reasonably be a component part of a sandwich. I woke early Friday morning, stuffing bag and cooler into the back of my trusty Prius, next to the ancient Coleman lantern and camp stove, the tent and the bag, and headed to the Pep Boys on Hollywood Blvd to get new windshield wiper blades. It was a beautiful tank-top-and-shorts kind of day. I wanted to ensure streak-free scenery.

I was determined to head out. My last day of work was a week behind me, and growing more remote. My hard palette was itching, my sinuses dully ached, I watched movies and ate soup like I was serving detention on my sofa the early part of the week. The weather had warmed after a few chill days, and was perfect for camping. I was edgy, itchy, anxious. I decided it was allergies.

My route ultimately was leading me northeast, to the Badlands in South Dakota. I chose east first. I'd always wanted to visit Sedona, the spiritual epicenter of the southwest, and home to some truly amazing rocks. Either way, I had some desert to drive through, so I took 10. I love that the highway that dumps me out onto the Pacific in Santa Monica, I can also take all the way to Florida. That I've driven bits of it from Texas to Louisiana.

I was excited, even though my energy was low. This was not my workaday city any longer, this unlikely skyline to the north of my freeway - everything took on a gleam of newness. AM traffic did not irk me. I had precisely nowhere I had to be.

Soon I came to the Whitewater rest area just this side of Palm Springs. The windmills peppered the hillsides, bright white stalks against the desert sky. I could not imagine how tall they are. Snow capped the mountains. I pulled off and ate my lunch under a rustling eucalyptus, and lay on the bench feeling the heat of the day. It was that kind of hot where you cannot distinguish between outside and inside your body. Where you feel you're made of the same stuff as the slow, thick air. My head felt dense.
















The bottled tea and sparkling water in the cooler would not last long. I poured another drink with ice from the cooler, and walked past the diesel rigs to my car.

I saw a sign for the Salton Sea. Very close to Coachella, the sea is actually getting so salty that the wildlife that call it home are starting to die off. Neat. South was not really where I was going. But that's the point! I turned.

Salton Sea is cradled in a basin between low, dusty mountain ranges, including the wonderfully named Chocolate Mountains. In the middle of a very dry desert on a very hot day, the lake almost seems a mirage, deep blue and lightly choppy against the brown crumpled hills. Dilapidated resorts line the water's edge. Broken concrete's piled beside an old playground: metal slide, empty swings. The day is quiet, and the sound of thick waves hushing against the shore is lovely. I scuttle around and take a few pictures. I have no desire whatsoever to be out exploring. The low altitude, the heat, whatever. I feel like crap.




















I drove south through the basin to find a place to stay. I read Calipatria and Brawley on the map. The latter was clearly bigger, but I loved the sound of the former. Farmland road gave onto a very small town. The grocery store, the gas station, were in plain buildings with no signs. I passed an inn, and decided to stop and ask someone where to stay in town. "That's it," the woman at the gas station told me, "most of the stuff is in Brawley."

Fine. It was 4pm. I checked into my room, lay on the bed, fell asleep. I woke in the early evening. Children were playing with various toy weapons beneath the bougainvillea. I ate my soup on the terrace. It was, perhaps, not allergies. Relax, it's fine, you're on vacation. Dammit!

So I spent a lovely night in Calipatria. I imagine there were stars out over the flat lands, but I did not find out. I watched enough TV to realize that I am desperately in need of cosmetic surgery, could use a new skin care regime, am overweight, and clueless about how to dress myself. I drove home the next day through the same hot basin, deflated about my cold, my postponed road trip, my outfit. And, of course, I hit traffic on the 10 just outside downtown, creeping through the corridor of the 101 to my exit in the heart of Hollywood.

I brought the cooler inside, and popped a movie in. Welcome home. When are we leaving?

Close to Home

On take 2 of the trip, I caravaned with a friend out toward Death Valley. Enough with the heavy-handed symbolism, yet still fitting to be at the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at this juncture in my life. We took the 210 to the 15. The 210 through Upland, with rack after rack of synonymous, monotonous developments, then a lovely rush of hillside and green and amazing sky. I had no idea it could be so beautiful on the 210.

Wildflowers flanked the cut of the hillside to the east. To the west something burned, smoke rising light in the wind.

I stopped in Upland the first go around as well, to visit the Madonna of the Trail (historical marker number #1028). She presides over the bridle path on Euclid Avenue in Upland. O, History! Less than 200 years ago, people salted by another ocean meandered out this way. This is a monument to the white womenfolk who came first. I am not sure how I feel about that. My family came later, my feminine forbears on the Queen Mary in 1955, my paternal link rooted down in Amish Country in PA.

We Angelenos are still living in a pioneer town of sorts, it's just one that's forgotten what shoes it's wearing.

The hills just northeast of my home in Hollywood are full of story. Derelict railroads and dead mines, the whisper of cure of the arid climate, orange-scented ghosts. As long as I've lived here, I still don't know the half of it.

This was the terminus. This continent seems like brutality until you reach the coast. The rawness of the plains states, shelterless. We passed a grassland hemmed in by a barbed wire ranch fence. Rags and scraps and plastic bags blown by the wind were caught on the wire, draped like a weeping willow.

The awesome uplift of the Rockies, range after range I would later drive through in a constant gasp. The threat of 20 feet of snow, blocks of granite.

I would keep moving, too.

Road Signs - Why Curve Improvement?

I had the mixed fortune in April 2008 to lose my job. So I decided to take the opportunity to do some traveling. You lost your job, now what are you going to do!? I'm goin' to Disneyland!

What better way to clear my head: Senselessly burning up gas and putting miles on my car - there is no better way to get to know a little bit of the world than to blast through is at 75 miles per hour, stopping or turning wherever the whim strikes.

I was, I confess, hoping to find a sign, an epiphany somewhere along the way. This, it would say, in bold letters, is what you should do with Your Life. Though I did see turn-offs for Opporunity, Hope and Wisdom I didn't find a road sign from God in any of the 9 states I visited.

One of my favorite signs, though, was a bright orange caption to the string of cones and K blocks along 101 announcing CURVE IMPROVEMENT. Like Caltrans felt the need to justify the inevitable delay to every driving cursing along the way. 

It wasn't a sign from God, at least not the kind I was hoping for. But for a bit of wisdom and hope, this sign would keep me moving.