Day Three - crossing rolling hills

DAY THREE SUNDAY JULY 10, 2011

Crossing rolling hills to the Grand Canyon

I got my gear out and was strapping it to the bike at 5:00 am.  The early morning time is special to me.  There is a hush all over like creation is expecting the day.  We treat it like the day just happens, but, I believe, the world around us waits to see the morning unfold.  By the time I was riding, the desert was just beginning to glow.

There is something about being about your business before most other people are up.  It seems like you’re really serious about whatever you are doing if you are up early.  The other travelers who are on the road with you seem like brothers or sisters. 

As I was strapping my stuff on the bike, a man came out of his room with bags.  We both stopped, looked at each other.  He smiled, I did too, and with a mutual nod, we packed up without a word.  His car was parked right beside my bike and we had an impromptu dance, as we shared the area between bike and car.  We knew what we both were about.  As I pulled out and headed east, he signaled west.  We waved and that was that, a life going in an opposite compass bearing, but really on the same road.

The highway out of Las Vegas and Boulder City used to wind down to the Hoover dam, but now it crosses the Mike O’Callaghan - Pat Tillman bridge… it is concrete and large and has high walls on both sides so all you can see is the bridge.  At first I was disappointed with the walls, but a vicious cross wind changed my mind… if it was not for the walls, the wind might have been worse with a very real possibility of being swept off of the bridge.

Once on the Arizona side of the bridge,I decided that I wanted to see the Hoover dam, so I doubled back. Getting off the road was a good idea… the dam was impressive in the setting sun.  I didn’t attempt to tour the dam, I just got close enough to see it.  Its big.  Really big.

The area just east of the Hoover Dam from Hoover to Kingman Arizona is barren.  I mean it is absolutely foreboding.  If I was a pioneer and got to that point, I would have said “OK. I’ve changed my mind, let’s go back.”  I imagine this landscape is what J. R.R. Tolkien had in mind and wanted Mordor to look like.  I was amazed at it.  The Nevada Desert didn’t seem as alien to me at this did.

As I rode through the mountains, they gave way to rolling hills.  For some reason, the sandy, smooth hills didn’t seem as angry at my being here as the rocky and sharp mountains did.

I stopped for gas at a station in Kingman just north of interstate 40.  I guess deep underneath my pessimistic psyche is a part that wants to think the best of gas station attendants.  Don’t get me wrong here… I am not profiling, but the vast majority of these folks are surly.  Maybe it because of the grumpy travelers who, sun-burned and wet, say stupid things to them.  Regardless, I asked the attendant what the weather was looking like for the day.

“Ugh! Hot and sticky and miserable, what else.”  The woman behind the counter gave me that whats-up without even laying an eye on me.

Ok then, “Well, you have a nice day.” And I retreated as fast as possible. She never did look up.

Kingman Arizona is at the junction between US 93 and Interstate 40.  For the past 2 days I had been riding through deserts and state parks on US highways.  I 40 was the first interstate I was getting on.  I didn’t care much at all for the interstate.  The traffic was fast; the road was boring; the ability to stop, limited.  I toughed it out.  The next stop was Williams, Arizona.  Williams is the town at the exit for the Grand Canyon.  I hung on to the bike and pushed the speed up in an effort to ‘man-up’ and make the next exit.

I expected the ride to be ‘hot and sticky’, but the air felt cool as long as I was moving.  A few miles out of Kingman, the roads were wet from an early morning rain.  With just a tee shirt and a button-down on top of that and a windbreaker over that, I started to actually get uncomfortably cool.  I didn’t mind too much since I was convinced that I would be very, very hot later.

As I rode, the horizon was growing heavier with with rain clouds.  My heart sunk as I considered looking out over the Canyon with rain obscuring the view.  I wondered at the odds, again of rain in the desert.  I certainly looked ‘desert-like’.  There were cactus and scrub oak and Joshua trees.  It looked like a hard place to live, but I thought it looked like you could live there.  It wasn’t like the Nevada desert which was either indifferent to my being there, or was offended at my presence.  Either way, Nevada seemed like it would never cooperate with living things… we had to fight to live in those places.

Coming into Williams, I stopped at a gas station, which was not a chain, and the man there seemed to be unlike most of the attendants I had encountered on the trip.  He was a Hispanic man with a very busy attitude.  My guess is he was the owner of the station.  I bought gas and a powerade from him and attempted a conversation.

“What does the weather look like from here east?” I asked.

“Pretty much rain all the way.  Seems like it rains about 1:00am for about an hour, then again around 2:00pm.  Keeps it cool.”  He looked out to the bike.  “That your beemer?”

“It is now.”  I broke out some jerky and granola for breakfast while he was working on a sandwich, “I bought it a couple days ago in Santa Cruz.”

“California?”  he stopped eating.

“Yep, riding it back to Alabama.”

“Dude, you gonna be wet.”  He laughed, “long trip.”  He looked out the window… it had bars on it.  “Sounds good though, you know, just ride and ride.  Be fun to just head out without any idea of where, just go.”  He sighed.

Just then an over-weight man in Birkenstock’s hobbled in, “Do you have a mechanic?”

“Sure, be right there.”  He got up and kept his eyes out the window.  He looked down at my feet and held out a hand.  He never made eye contact again after the man asked for a mechanic.  I shook his hand and he said “Good luck, friend.” And he, head and eyes down, walked into the shop and started directing the tow truck with a mini van on it into the bay.

I wonder if I had invited him to close shop and get on a bike if he would have come.  I think he would have.

There is only one road into the Grand Canyon from I 40 near Williams.  The road is straight and crosses gentle hills.  Heavily traveled with RV’s and busses, the traffic moved smooth.  I kept looking ahead anticipating the canyon.  You would think that something as big as the Grand Canyon would have some evidence of it from miles away, but there isn’t.  The surrounding country gives no hint that the Canyon is there.  For that matter, If it rained regularly here, it would look like Michigan’s farm country, or Indiana’s… gentle, rolling hills stretching out for miles and miles.    

I stopped at a station to rest some more and buy some maps, then stopped again just outside the park.  I asked an attendant who looked young and foolish enough to offer an opinion whether, once I was done at the canyon, it was it was a good idea to ride back down 64, the way I came, back to the interstate, or take back roads.

“Mister, I wouldn’t go the US Highway route, I’d turn around and take 64 the same way I came and get on the Interstate as fast as possible.” He was young with adolescent acne.

“Why not go the US Highways?” I looked behind me to make sure I was not holding up a line, “I’d like to see the country.”

“Well, the highways all go through Indian Reservations… you know, deserts and mesas and the police on the Res hand out speeding tickets for any speeding at all.”  He handed me a map, “Here is how you would go, but there isn’t anything by desert and Indians out there.”

“Got it, but then again, I have never really been in a desert until 2 days ago,” I looked at the map with the road he had pointed out, “I’m not sure the romance between me and the desert has died out yet.”

“Yeah, whatever.  Mister, if you like deserts,” he laughed, “go this way.”  He pointed out the road along the South Rim, through Cameron, Az, Tuba City and ending in Gallup New Mexico.

I went back out to the bike.  A couple on a Harley pulled up with a trailer.  “You heading into or out of the canyon.” The man on the bike asked.

“Heading in.”

“Wanna keep pace.” He asked. “By the way, we was wondering… does your bike wanna be a cruiser or a rocket.”  They both grinned.

“She’s only 12 years old” I said, “give me your address and I’d send you a letter when she grows up and makes up her mind.”

“Oh honey,” said the lady on the back, “bikes and their riders don’t ever grow up, they go to sleep one night and forget who they really are in the morning.”

“That’s kinda sad, isn’t?” I asked.

“Only to the ones behind that remember them.” Said the man.  I wondered if people in the desert southwest are either philosophers, poets or surely gas station attendants.

I saddled up and paced with the Harley couple.  We took our time and stopped often.  We split ways at a scenic turnout.  It was the last of the turn-outs.  They said they were doubling back and would be going to the village next. 

I never asked their names.  I realized it was funny that, on the road, names just don’t seem important.  Maybe its because the travelers are united by the road, or they just don’t want to invest in someone they will never see again.  Then again, it might be something wrong with me… I don’t ask for names.  What a person is doing, what they hold in esteem, that I remember, but names?  Not so much.

Its not just names I get hung up on… sometimes its saying goodbye as well.  I remember there was an Air Force Airman named Steve that I served with in NORAD.  We were from vastly different backgrounds and dispositions… actually, except for the uniform we had to wear, we had very little in common.  I applied for an ‘early out’ from the Air Force and got it.  I remember the last day in Colorado Springs.  Steve’s wife, Amy, asked “Don’t you want to say good bye?” I thought to myself “Why?”  I had no common ties with them, except proximity.  I knew I would, likely, never see them again, so why say goodbye? 

I believe my wife thinks me defective in this, but unless there is at least a hope of reunion, or a pain from the separation, then I just as soon leave the good byes alone.

As the Harley couple turned around and chugged off, I mused, again, about the lives that are lived without even an inkling on my part of their hopes and dreams and sorrows.  I looked back into the canyon and saw the metaphor: here is this amazing and enormous thing that dwarfs every person who sees it.  The Canyon itself was compelling… I wanted to be IN it, not AT it.  We are in the middle of a vast sea of dreams, but the size and scope of this sea isn’t apparent to us until we are right on top of it.  There is really no chance that you can guess how a person feels unless you put yourself in their life.

I wondered, as I sat on the stone wall at the end of one of the scenic over looks, how many people traveled right past this enormous canyon, and never even had an inkling it was there.  I wondered how many times I was in the company of greatness in another person, but I never knew it because I never asked that person a question.  It’s like being 100 yards from the Grand Canyon, and turning around.

For me, the romance of the Grand Canyon is this: You HAVE to purposefully desire to see it: you come to it on it’s terms, not yours and; it is so large and complex, you can spend a life traveling it and KNOW that not everything has been seen.  I looked out from the south rim and the sky was a pale blue with cotton ball clouds above.  There was a slight haze in the air.  Instead of obscuring the view, it lent an air of mystery and wonder.  Life is like this as well… if we really thought we could learn it all, where is the adventure in that.  The allure of the adventure is, partly, not knowing what comes next.

Seriously, if you knew how the book ended, would it captivate your heart?  Even if you know the ending, you still need to know how the people in the story got there, don’t you?  I am driven by the unknown.  Is it scary?  Sometimes, but fear isn’t bad… respect the consequences of irreversible actions, but live life fully, not safely.  Take a risk, step out into the unknown, fight, struggle, win, lose, fight again… that is life.

If you aren’t a little afraid, are you really alive?