Long, lonely road

Alice Avion on Route 66, desert in either California or Arizona, August 3, 2009

I'm in Flagstaff, Arizona, at the old-faithful, WiFi-fallback: Barnes and Noble. It seems a little ironic how much I have been craving the remote, the out-of-the-way, the unique, yet have to return to the mainstream chain to participate in the world. That is how these things that are isolated, stay that way, I guess.

For those who don't communicate with me directly, Alice Avion, J, two cats and I left California via Route 66 on Saturday, August 1. We spent the night at my grandparents in Beaumont, CA, then headed up through Joshua Tree and Amboy to continue on 66 into the desert.

Joshua Tree, California

Joshua Tree, California

Because of how long it has been since my posting, I fear any attempt at remembering everything will mean we won't make it to camp tonight, so I will be slightly brief. Time has also made it difficult to remember all the poetic ways I wanted to talk about how isolated 66 is, so much more so than other roads, with tiny towns along it somehow still trapped in the 1950s. Alice fit right in.

Alice Avion on Route 66, Amboy, California, August 2, 2009; link

Some of the stops, such as Roy's Motel, are famous on 66. In this case, Roy's is all that is left of the town of Amboy in the Mohave Desert. We spent that night in an RV park in Needles, were the evening air sat stubbornly at 105 degrees. The trailer quickly turned into an oven, and each foray for a photograph turned into a life-or-death situation for the cats. Soon, I just left the car running, as I jogged around the desert capturing my images. Something about the 1950s feel of everything made this seem like a safe thing to do.

The park in Needles had a beautiful pool, which was warm as bath water, but seemed cooler with the blue light-covers under the water. The sky grew dark as we swam, and the pale silhouettes of owls swooped above us.

Route 66, tires in the desert in either California or Arizona, August 3, 2009

Route 66 becomes a topsy-turny roller-coaster in several places in the desert, the road barely wide enough for the car before succumbing to the surrounding dust. Don't be fooled though: it was beautiful, exciting, peaceful, and a car would pass once a half hour. This was what I had set out for.

Route 66 tourist stop, Ashfork, Arizona, August 4, 2009; possibly a replica of the famous art piece

Most of the tiny towns seem to subsist on the few tourists that come along this famous road and stop to buy trinkets. Oh course, there are only so many "Route 66" magnets made in China any one person can buy... I did appreciate the "Outsider Art" aesthetic of the places.

Route 66 tourist stop, Hackberry, Arizona, August 4, 2009, another famous art piece

Gun fight with town donkeys and Alice, Route 66, Oatman, Arizona, August 4, 2009

A delightful town, Oatman, shows what the road was originally for--running through the main streets of towns in order to trap travelers. At high noon in Oatman, the Sheriff blocks traffic on the road for about twenty minutes for a gun fight/comedy routine. Even the poor UPS driver parked his car in the street and had to wait in the 103 degrees for the show to finish. Even without the show, drivers must be careful of the numerous donkeys moseying about the street.

My favorite fun-fact about this mining town (whose motto is "the Ghost Town that refuses to die") is its namesake, Olive Oatman.

"Have Gun Will Travel", Grand Canyon Caverns, Arizona, August 4, 2009 (be sure to look at the larger version of this one)

We camped the next night in the Grand Canyon Caverns, the 3rd largest dry cave in the world. We also had the chance to finally open up Alice's awning and photograph it in front of the rising full moon.

Alice Avion with full moon and awning, Route 66, Grand Canyon Caverns, Arizona, August 4, 2009

The caves have been a tourist attraction from the beginning. You take an elevator down a 250 foot shaft into a large, cool cave. Concrete sidewalks mark a predetermined path a guide leads you along, much like the Jungle Boat Cruise at Disneyland, including corny jokes. My favorite story was sad and haunted me for a few hours of my drive. There used to be other surface openings, and animals have fallen into the cave to be fossilized or mummified. One such was a now extinct Four-Toed Sloth named Girdy (don't name it! That makes it worse!). She fell in and broke her back. She lived a while after though, long enough to use her Four-Towed hands to claw at the walls to try to climb out. The scratches are still there, a toe found caught in the rock. A replica stands where she fell, and her fossilized bones are in a museum in Phoenix.

Girdy the Four-Toed Sloth, Grand Canyon Caverns, Arizona, August 4, 2009

Grand Canyon, Arizona, August 5, 2009

Then there is the Grand Canyon. We arrived on the evening of the 4th and paid for two nights. We saw the moonlit canyon that night, then a poor view of the canyon most of the day, obscured by a cloudy sky, and smokey atmosphere (there was a fire at the north rim). The shuttle system seemed efficient enough, but somehow it took us two hours to get back to our car. We called it a day. This morning, we drove through the park on the 64, exiting out the east side, but catching amazing views of the canyon, newly cleaned from a late-night thunderstorm, which left no trace other than fluffy clouds.

Alice Avion and one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Grand Canyon, Arizona, August 6, 2009