Reveille was at 4am , but I didn’t get up until 4:20am to brew coffee and do last-minute chores: fill up the dog bowls, refresh the cats’ water and food, clean out the kitty box, empty the grey water into the yard where the grass seed was still growing. (The grass I cut three days ago was already looking tall. It was still covered in dew after sunrise.). It was 60F at 4:30am. The birds weren't even out yet.
I ran out of time. Ideally I would have walked the dogs one more time around the neighborhood, but I only got them around the .8-mile route. The dogs wanted more and would have gone the usual route in the figure-eight, but I was already running late. We didn’t leave the house until 6:20am.
Traffic on I-10 was minimal. It was quieter than a Sunday morning. We faced no slow-gos. The construction in and around Tucson was closed for the day. We even had time to spare south of Phoenix where we gassed up at a Love’s for $3.53 (the lowest gas was at a B-grade station in Tucson for $3.41) and ate a late breakfast at Burger King.
Our responsibility was to pick up my sister Iris flying in from Baltimore. Mom's job was to pick up the other sister from Raleigh, NC. Both luckily were expected in within 30 minutes of each other. We were to drive via convoy from the airport to Page via Flagstaff.
Iris landed at Sky Harbor on time: 9:50am. We got to the parking area at 9:51. Despite her long travel time she looked happy and refreshed, wearing red knee-length shorts and a white shirt with red trim. Her hair was cut shoulder-length with blonde highlights. Within 20 minutes we were on the I-17 driving further north with contact to Mom via cell phone. Mom picked up Alex and Matt from Termnal 2 and was packing up the van. They were behind us, with a van full of passengers and two kayaks in tow.
We commuted via cell phone throughout the commute without meeting face-to-face. I was anxious to see Alex and Jason again. We finally met up at a quaint tourist restaurant in Black Canyon City, at Rock Springs Café that was once a stage coach/post office in 1918. A photograph of George and Barbara Bush hung on the wall behind me. The wait was a little long and the food so-so and the place didn't look all that authentic to me, but to the out-of-stater, who cares? Arizona has a lot of authentic Old West sites (most of them in ruins or abandoned) but most road-side attractions are cheap replicas of a bygone era.
Everyone looked great. I got to meet Jason’s girlfriend Marchella and Alex’ boyfriend Matt once we had stopped to eat. But everyone was tired from the drive and our table was a thick wooden table. It wasn’t very conducive to talking. Mom was so excited about having all of her children together at one table and kept interrupting our private talks to divert the attention to her. I sat between Iris and Alex. I figured I’d talk more privately when the timing was better.
But what to talk about? Where to start? There was so much to get caught up with.
Back on the road the drive was more settled as everyone had eaten and taken a bathrom break. We were now 80 miles from Flagstaff.
“There sure isn’t much out here” said Iris as she looked out the window. The elevation slowly got higher as we closed in on the town. This is beautiful country albeit the Sedona area is overpriced and super-regulated. Despite its beauty it's not a place I go to much because of the high concentration of tourists awing at red rocks.
“What do you mean, nothing? There’s all those beautiful rocks!” It’s the spirituality of Arizona’s terrain and air that make this state so beautiful. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
I filled her in on Arizona geography and some history but she was tired. She had been traveling for over six hours and I didn’t want to bore her, but I wanted to point out some of the historical buildings in Flagstaff. I really like the town and always enjoy spending time there. The mixture of Native American, aging hippie and ueber-progressive Northern Arizona University student make Flagstaff especially enticing.
“You will see a lot of Native Americans in town. This town has some of the highest percentage of Native Americans” I said.
“How can you tell who is a Native American and who is a Mexican?” Iris asked.
“The Natives are much fatter” I replied, not wanting to be racist, but to point out an observation. I see so many obese Natives in this town.
“Oh yeah, I remember reading about how the Natives lack an enzyme that breaks down certain particles we have in our processed foods.” I remember the CDC talking about the extremely high obesity rates in Mexican-Americans and Native Americans a few years ago.
Once we were outside Flagstaff after a pit-stop and gas ($3.67) she napped in the back seat as we headed north on Highway 89 toward Page. We maintained an elevation of 6000' most of the distance as we drove due north on the two-lane highway.
Kevin and I listened briefly to CNN radio to get caught up with Hurricane Gustav. The storm was downgraded to a Cat 2 storm and had by-passed NOLA to the west. The city had been spared the worst. But to CNN Gustav was all the news.
Arid red peaks scattered on either side of the highway. Small homes on either side of the highway were Native American homes. They stood in small clusters with large acreage lots around them. The lots were large and clean, but there were no people anywhere. No water ran here unless it came off the red rocks. The homes were often just single-wide trailers or simple wooden homes. Old rusty full-sized pick-ups stood in the front yard. Cattle grazed nearby. This was the simple life I admire the People for. They live so meekly with so little. It’s a humbling feeling knowing so many White Folk would be miserable living like that. And I can't forget that the Union Army faught many battles against the Native Americans for this land.
Some of the homes were naked or totally abandoned. Many of the road-side vendors were just wooden shacks crudely constructed. “Buffalo Jerky” was advertised on hand-written signs near towns with "Major credit cards accepted" written below.
By 4pm the Labor Day traffic going south from Page got congested. Full-sized pick-ups towing full-sized boats were all heading back to the Flagstaff-Phoenix area.
“We may have Lake Powell all to ourselves!” I said.
By now we were ahead of Brian’s van. Two rest stops along the 90-mile stretch still didn’t get them caught up with us until we made it to the Day’s Inn in Page.
The last 20 miles south of Page were the prettiest. We were cresting the hill near the North Rim, as the Grand Canyon opened into a wide valley to our west. The highway was still going uphill when we reached a road-side vista where Indians were selling their jewelry. Natives were seated but many were already packing up there goods.
Iris managed to get some nice turquoise, and even bought me a lovely diamond-cut turquoise necklace that I will always wear. It hangs over my Iraqi cartouche which I haven’t taken off either.
Several other tourists around us were German. Iris and I spoke German on occasion. He accent I heard sounded Swaebisch, one of the ugliest German accents IMO.
Two miles south of Page we passed signs for Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend. We could see the Colorado River poke its way through the peaks around Page.
We arrived in Page at 5:30. The Days Inn was the first hotel in town, and just across the street was a WalMart where we stopped to get last-minute toiletries. We met up with Mom and Gang 30 minutes later and at 7pm we met for dinner at the Jack-In-The-Box fast food restaurant next door.
News on TV already downgraded Gustav to a Tropical Storm. None of the levees in NOLA had broken and Geraldo Riviera was not blown away by hurricane winds into the Gulf. Hurricanes Hanna and Ike are five to ten days away from hitting US landfall as well.
Jason, who has lived the past 20 years in Germany, had no clue who “Jack” the bald Cueball head figurine was so both Iris and I filled him in on that stupid gimmick even I don’t understand. We sat eight across as we chomped down our sandwiches and talked politics again.
“Did you hear that Sarah Palin’s teen daughter is pregnant?” asked Alex. “We heard that tonight on Larry King” Ouch. So much for conservative Republican family values. To me a pregnancy is no big deal—unless it were miraculously my own—but I know how hyped up conservatives get about unwed teen mothers when the teens aren't their own. The news media is making this subject a big deal and I'm wondering...who cares?!
We also talked briefly about Iraq, chemical poisoning in Iraqi veterans, life back East and Iris’s hospital work, but we all decided that we needed a good night’s sleep and would continue our conversations over the next few days while traversing the rental boat along the Lake.
Mom looked so content and at peace with herself, and to me that was my priority. Jason, Alex, Iris and I promised each other that we all would have a good time.
“No arguing!” stressed Alex.That’s right, definitely no arguing. The trip already promised to be better than planned.
We had driven over 540 miles today.
http://www.rockspringscafe.com/
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1813984-1,00.html
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