travel

To Chinle By Memory

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On Utah

Our family has a jagged relationship with Utah. Our son spent a couple of years there, and we’ve seen the best of the service-oriented good heartedness of many, yet have experienced the rationalizations and hidden perfidies, too. It was a very difficult time that we’d all rather leave behind.

So McCovey and I rode through the inexplicable, impossible beauty of Zion National Park, but we did so with LOTS of tourists — a slow, monotonous journey can steal the notion of really connecting with the place. We tried to avoid that.

Traffic in and near Zion

Still, the beauty is shocking!

Then we came to the town of Virgin. Virgin, Utah. Here is how a blog post can go awfully wrong. I originally wrote:

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Seriously?

Prominent when going through the town is the famous Virgin Jail. What? Is that supposed to be funny? 

No premarital sex, but multiple wives and you aggressively promote the Virgin Jail?

Isn’t that the whole damned thing? See what we did there?

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Oops! The town was named after the Virgin River and the river was originally named by the Spanish in a devotional tip of the cap to the Virgin Mary. Fort Zion is in Virgin, and the Jail, and a brothel called the Wild Ass Saloon is there. But still…, really? Felt a little Book of Morman. I apologize to Mormon friends everywhere for my crass response. But still….

On Memory

Remembrances are not always accurate. I was last in Page, Arizona in about 1980. I drove over the canyon just west of town and remember it as one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. 

But now…. I had set the GoPro to video is just to recapture the emotion of seeing something so high, so vast, so unexpected.

Ummmm, no.

The hydroelectric stuff might have been there…, I don’t know. But the fences preventing people from jumping off the bridge were definitely not. I don’t know the calculus of safety vs. the cost of doing something more attractive than the chainlink fence screaming “we’ve built this so only a gymnast could get over the prison-top,” but it sure takes away from the experience of driving over that bridge. So it goes. This is what it looks like now.

Entering Page with new fencing, well, in the last 48 years

Not much to say about Chinle, AZ, as I did not have time for the main attraction, Canyon de Chelly. The Thunderbird Lodge is functional and a step back in time, and seems to be a return target for the tourist who loves the west. Speaking of which, late in the day I encountered these beauties….

Check out the cuhRAZY formations

The town of Chinle is “on the rez,” so no liquor anywhere, pretty barren but with kind and gentle people. I knew the next day I would be traveling through much of the Navajo territories. Had a strange dinner at the combination Pizza Hut and local restaurant. The service was kind, given I arrived at 7:45pm, closing time was 8:00 and the staff was cleaning up as diners were finishing their meals. But they happily made it work and I ate a less-than-satisfying chicken fried steak (the recommendation) fast. So it goes.

Had a nice breakfast with a couple from Montana who fly their single engine plane everywhere. I headed out early for the 2nd long pull back-to-back to get to Albuquerque.M

To Chinle

Long road with some wrong turns due to NO street signs from Pueblo Pintano to 550. Riding by braille!

Day 2: Rain in the Desert

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Talk about a shock to the system. Both nights before riding, deep-in-the-night showers surprised the desert. And the greens, yellows and reds just popped out all over the place. Good news, bad news, yin/yang, the only problem with that is that McCovey and I are allergic to the cat-piss smelling, bright yellow sage blooms we get Spring and Fall. You can tell I am so fond …. 

So it’s a good yin that pretty much any drug labeled multi-syllable -adines, -amines and -izines work pretty well for me. No love for the -oates or the -olones, though.

Check out the roadside yellows. Yeah, THAT stuff.

Roadside sage is not at all wise.

To leave Ely headed south is to celebrate. You might ask how it is possible to head south out of Ely, but don’t. The people there seem hardworking and solid. And sad. The town was hard to read this time as the entire main drag was torn up – maybe new sidewalks and road surface? I had a good salad at Rack’s Bar & Grill and a pleasant stay in the comfortable Prospector Hotel. Hated having to walk through the nicotine-riddled casino to get in and out, but so it goes. 

The road to St. George is magnificent, particularly with those low, bright clouds turning every vista into an impossible canvas. See?

South from Ely

It must also be noted that trading Ely, Nevada for St. George, Utah is a little like flying from a small town in Siberia to Germany. The weather went from frigid to perfect, the streets went from missing with chaos to pristine – Utah was indeed like rain in the desert. But it’s too much of a shock to the system. Can St. George be too clean? It is so neat and tidy, it’s a little spooky. I’m here for two nights and feel destined to understand this place. Are there music venues? Is there appetite for For the Song? Who lives in these beautiful enclaves? Is there enough water?

And what a lovely ride!

Finally, today’s 3.5 hour ride was perfect in terms of length and interest. It’s way more energizing than riding for 6-8. And it may just be that a temperate Germany beats a frigid, smelly Prospector every time.

Day 1: A Conservative on the Loneliest Road

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The morning offered a cold and cloudy ride. Metaphor? Maybe, but this time, nothing was at stake but a return to the concentration, immersive beauty and solace that a long ride offers. Not having been successful with meditation, McCovey delivers a magical, powerful alternative.

Lynn video’d my departure as I wobbled off. Immediately following the warmth of a heartfelt parting with, expectedly, “I really don’t know why you’re doing this, ya crazy bastard….” 

Ah normality…, all was well!

Risky, this motorcycle tour bidness.…

McCovey and I rode conservatively as we’ve not been seriously tested since our first Desert Caballeros horse adventure in Wickenburg almost 3 years ago. And we haven’t been out for more than 3 days since the Dakotas (chronicled here in ‘21.)

On Day 1, we passed our 25,000th mile, at lonely mile marker 99. Or should I say “milestone.”

I was, for once, a conservative in state, as the binary nature of success and failure on a bike in the desert loomed. Throughout the morning, we swooped long twisties at 40, not 55, and lounged on long straights with visibility for miles at a dogged 75, not 90. You’ve heard of “getting your legs under you.?”
Think higher.

We got gas in Fallon and prepared to leave civilization for America’s loneliest road – Highway 50 across Nevada. The clouds were moments in and of themselves.

The loneliest road awaits

The last time I was on this road, Lynn and I had visited Ichthyosaur State Park. Today, the clouds were messin’ with me….

Ichthyosaur, platypus or submarine…, you decide…

All of the glamor that has over-infused south Austin, Texas with ever more Road-AY-Oh Drive, in a karmic parallel universe, may have been sucked from the formerly charming town of Austin, Nevada. The people were insular, friendly, and…, well, haunted. They’re only a couple handful of ghosts short of, well, you know. Not new news for small rural towns, but this one was shocking.

McCovey with his back to Austin, a little embarrassed

As we got higher it got colder. But I was NOT expecting this:

Brrrrr. Added a layer. Such an onion….

Eureka, Nevada presented as thriving. Home of an annual fiddlers festival, the brick Opera House and it’s old hotel have been spiffed and shined. The fiddler thing may be worth a visit!

On the ride, I don’t listen to anything but the bike and the wind. And my own internal, rattle-trap processor as I scout the road ahead. But I like to learn from experts, so let’s tip a cap to a few that have offered and were called forward on the ride…. 

  • Rich Moore, perhaps the world’s nicest person, calls it “Quality Time Remaining,” and we are trying to pile it on. I like it here! On this earth, with my family, in our communities, with these missions, I am all in. The vast West offers perspective on scale and scope, though…. 
  • My multi-faceted renaissance buddy Doug Gould taught me that the best two words in the English language are “Yes, let’s!” That, and “Play LaBamba!” or “Sweet Beaver.” He’s a happy, joyful man.
  • Willy Braun’s “Desolations Angels” keeps showing up in this blog — clearly my favorite road song EV-er. He, I suppose, relates Saint Theresa’s “Little Way” and her “do the little things of love NOW” ethic to a road song, pledging to “keep the rubber on the road, and the blood inside.” I don’t know all the depths he plumbed, but I hear their echos on the road anyway. That song, and “Pancho and Lefty,”* and “Trains I Missed” (Walt Wilkins), “Holy Days” (Sean McConnell), Micky Braun’s “Long & Lonely Highway” seem to be the songs that the wind is always able to play. I DID eventually get back to Slip, Slidin’ Away on Day 3, see “Day 12: Zig Zaggin’ Away, McCovey Gets His Stripes“, Aug 2021.

*[In a crazy side note, I saw Emmy at about this age sing this song live TWICE, In Kuteztown, PA and in Palo Alto, CA. It’s a top memory.]

Finally, I am far from the only conservative on this particularly lonely road, and I intend mine own label expire completely after for one or two rehab riding days and my short term throttle policy. Perhaps we all should have a broader throttle policy.

There are too many metaphors to make, but I don’t wanna. I’m ok being lonely out here.

Skirting the darkness….

I will say that, now in my 8th decade, as I rode into Ely, NV, I had never, ever seen roads and towns fly flags in such unanimity when it was not the 4th of July. I’d ask if it’s fueled with the tolerance and love of Saint Theresa’s way, because so often, I fear, it is not. I’ll just continue to engage, try to make sense of it, and keep the rubber on the road and the blood inside. 

Even when it boils.