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DAY
TWENTY-SIX COMMENTARY
Do they call Utah “The Mosquito State”? It seemed to me that a bunch of
them were out much later into the night than I think I’ve ever seen
them, and here they were back again in the early AM! On the other hand,
perhaps this was a one-time trade-off, and one I suppose I’d gladly
accept: despite the threatening clouds and lightning I saw all
throughout the ride up here to Bluff last night, I don’t believe we saw
even a single drop of rain, neither while I was setting up nor
preparing dinner. We’ll take it!
I couldn’t help but notice that two other sets of folks managed a much
faster tent site departure than I did, but at least I knew the reason
why -- they had four
people dividing up the tear-down duties, whereas
The Chief (tm) was, as always, doing it solo.
Doing the same darned thing day in and day out has, in fact, allowed me
to make some small discoveries and adjustments, a mere four weeks into
the trip. To wit: I put my clear plastic storage sleeves on their sides
within the box they reside, whereas I used to lay them flat atop one
another; now I don’t have to go through all of them when the single
item I need would otherwise be found in -- what else? -- the sleeve on
the bottom. Neat!
I also tried resting the big plastic envelope of paper keepsakes --
maps, pamphlets, receipts, etc. -- upright in the right-side saddlebag,
and found that it would close far more easily with the full-face helmet
in there than it did when laying on its end. Neat!
Four weeks it took me to make these discoveries, people.
Back on the road again! Not long after pulling out of the campground --
OK, maybe about sixty seconds -- I realized I had better put that rain
gear on again, for it was out there waiting for me, directly in the
path of the road. Throughout the day it was rain, sun, rain, sun; a
real pain in the neck! It would be taxing enough to drive through the,
ahem, “driving” rain -- and that’s exactly what it was -- and then it
would be steamy and sweltering inside the rain gear when the warm sun
emerged again.
Probably the biggest annoyance was the impact on picture taking, for
several reasons: first, while I usually kept the camera right inside
the front of the tank bag for easy access, even while wearing riding
gloves, that bag is not completely waterproof, so I usually elected to
affix its rain cover when the nasty stuff loomed. The cover always
seemed to resist being easily removed for access to the zippered flap
below. Next, because I was wearing three-fingered rain gloves over my
riding gloves, it was even more difficult to remove the rain cover,
then unzip the bag, then turn on and operate the camera. So taking a
picture became an ordeal involving not just finding a safe place to
pull over, but also to remove the rain gloves, remove the tank bag rain
cover, open the bag, and take the shot -- and then put it all back
together.
A decision to keep the camera in the sealable front pocket of my rain
jacket similarly met with only limited success, as I could never seem
to find the zipper pull with my gloves on, this time requiring me to
either flip open the front of my helmet, or remove the rain gloves. And
the rain gloves, while completely water-tight, suffered from a design
flaw in which the Velcro wrist strap was too short to leave attached,
while still fitting a gloved hand through, so I had to repeatedly feed
the strap through its clasp each time I put them back on. Try slipping
a Velcro strap through a tiny clasp, first with one hand, then with the
other hand, but wearing two
sets of gloves the second time around.
OK, enough of that garbage -- just wanted to let you know what I’m out
here doing
for you people.
Weather aside, I followed Rte. 163 west and came across the rock
formation known as Mexican
Hat, from which the nearby “town” takes its
name. What’s interesting is that, certainly within our lifetimes, if a
small tremor were to roll through this area, Mexican Hat (the rock, not
the town) could be no more. Right nearby was the access road to
Goosenecks State Park, so I dove in.
What was at first most impressive about the Goosenecks -- where the San
Juan River, flowing 1,000 feet beneath where I stood, had carved
several 270-degree turns into the rock in a formation known as an "entrenched meander"-- was that the overlooks led
right to the rim. This meant that anyone with a camera could take pictures of the
same exact perspectives
one might find on websites or
professionally-produced documents. As such, and finding the carved canyons to be
breathtaking, I certainly got into the act.
Next, as yet another storm
approached, what happened was that the rain
fell gently, and the drops seemed almost to be individually illuminated
by the sunlight trying to burst through the clouds from the opposite
direction. It felt like you could pick out a rain drop and watch it
fall all the way to the bottom of the canyon, almost in the manner that
snowflakes flutter to the ground. The effect was
mesmerizing and,
because I still sported the rain gear and my full face helmet, I
remained dry as I watched for minutes at a time, while others sought
shelter inside their RV’s. Without even fiddling with
shutter speeds on my camera, it was able to capture the drops as they
slowly fell towards the river below.
As thrilled as I was to have come here -- for which I must thank the
National Geographic publication, “America’s Hidden Corners” -- I was
then also struck with disappointment. Consider: had I come here late
last night and set up camp in the darkness, I could not have known what
vista awaited me in the morning, just yards away from where my tent would have been.
How tremendous would that
have been, to wake up to
such a beautiful surprise?
Finally hopping back on the bike, directly beyond the intersection back
at Rte. 163 was an excellent example of some of the varied geological
processes that have been going on out here for the past billion years
or so -- all occurring in (or “to”?) one particular area. As you can
see, towards the top of the picture the striations in the exposed rock
follow a linear pattern, even through the sections which are not
perfectly parallel to the ground. Then it seems as if the whole shebang
simply tumbles
and curves down to the ground. From afar they reminded
of an Indian blanket, or perhaps the design on good ol’ Charlie Brown’s
shirt!
Slightly further ahead was the town of Mexican Hat itself, which I
thought would be a cool place to dispatch a letter from the town “Post
Office” inside
the Shell station (featuring the highest priced
gasoline
I had yet seen). Alas, at the moment
there was no full-service counter and, worried about the proper postage
-- as my return address, technically accurate, was “The Chief (tm), USA
--
I decided not to risk the letter getting lost. I was sure I’d hit
another memorable Post Office somewhere, though I wish I had had time
to try out the "Swingin'
Steak".
Funny thing about trying out an unknown brand of trail mix -- you never
know if you’ll like the ratio of the ingredients within. Currently I
was working with a bag which I wished had featured more nuts and fewer
raisins.
Even when it was not raining, I could see little rivulets roaring
down their washes, apparently not having been fed in some time; it was
easy to
imagine how the face of the landscape could change as the infrequent,
but frequently violent storms roared through. The scenery remained
astounding;
it took me just shy of two hours to cover the 40.6 mile
stretch between Bluff and Monument Valley, which according to the GPS
broke down to sixty-two minutes moving, and fifty-three minutes
stopped. People, I wasn’t stopping when it was raining, I was stopping
to take dozens
and dozens
of pictures! Often multiple ones of the same
angle, but trying to play with the light; upon hopping back on the bike
and riding 500 or so yards, the view might change enough that I would
jump back off and snap a few more. All the while, remember, I had to be
careful because the pulloffs were mere gravel, or dirt, and they had
just recently been doused with bucketsful o’ rain, and the return to
the pavement was rarely clean
either.
Here are a few renditions of the classic
view of the main
formation in
Monument Valley, called “Mitten Rock”, I believe. It was worth taking
multiple shots of the same perspective, hoping to capture it just
right (including one from behind
it). I’m not sure whether or not I did that, but I do believe I may
have caught what could be the “money
shot” of the entire trip? I don’t
mean the best thing that I saw, or did, but the picture that kind of
sums up the whole gig. In order to be a surprise, I didn’t even put a
thumbnail of it on this page. BTW, you think it was easy to set this
one up?
In an early look at what was to become a trend, it seemed as if
Europeans were pouring out of RV’s everywhere one looked. Certainly if
a camper showed indications that it was a rental, you’d best be
prepared to put your French to use, or your Italian, or Dutch, or
Spanish, or German. There were folks who were visiting the US for the
first time and those who had been here many, many years ago, but it
seemed that all of them had major itineraries planned for themselves,
covering many states and many thousands of miles across the beautiful
southwest. And why shouldn’t they? In addition to the strength of the
Euro relative to the dollar, something I had forgotten about (but that
they reminded me of) was the typically far-longer vacation time they
enjoyed compared to us poor Yanks. (Another aside: who would ever think
to litter in
a place of such unspoiled natural beauty?)
Throughout the ride I had been flirting with the now-customary black,
end-of-the-world storm clouds just off in the distance, and crossing
over the roadway for ten minutes at a time here and there as well. I
had decided to simply wear the raingear the entire time, rather than
stop and change every fifteen minutes or whatever it would have been.
Well, people, lemme tell ya, this strategy was soon “rewarded”, as it
started to rain so hard, and the wind to blow so hard, that the
droplets were coming from right to left at what had to have been a
thirty degree angle. Pouring, pouring rain and sustained, serious wind
from right to left. Should I have stopped? Of course. But to do what --
stand out there in the pouring rain? Negative. The Chief (tm) stoically
continued on, at essentially the same exact pace as in the dry, except
that I was leaning hard to the right against the wind, and then also skirting the right
side of the road surface as the wind strengthened and began to blow the
water out of the westbound lane and into the eastbound one.
Had I been able to take a picture of this, I would have.
I saw a sign pointing to the left for “Black Mesa”, which is where the
old Hopi villages I had learned of (back in Knoxville and
Fredericksburg) are located. I hadn’t known that one could reach them
from up here -- I thought the trip required ducking down south, then
east, from my destination of Tuba City, a route which was more out of
the way and which I was less likely to embark upon in my possible quest
to find the villager. Here, though, I figured I was ahead of schedule,
and any change in the weather (fine for the moment) wouldn’t be any
worse than what I had already been through, so I turned off. I passed a
few coal mining
operations and through a few drizzles, and could see
the mesas in the distance when suddenly the pavement came to an end.
The road continued as graded dirt, but I didn’t like my chances in the
rain, let alone what washouts I may encounter up ahead. Just about to
bail on the whole idea, I saw a guy sitting in a road grader near a
coal plant and decided to chat him up.
Turns out he is the gent in charge of grading the road, and as such as
he was a great resource to talk to -- he advised, from first-hand
knowledge, that it would be a bad idea indeed for me to try to continue
on. At the same time, he also told me that the road down from Tuba City
is paved the entire way, so if I chose to do that in the morning I
would not be at the mercy of road conditions. Turns out his son is
around college age and may be taking a look at Brandeis, in Waltham,
MA, and I wish him success in that attempt should he decide to go for
it. I also learned that the slurry pipe runs can go on for hundreds of
miles, and that the water usage patterns by the coal mining operations
has been very contentious, leading to difficulties amongst and between
the Navajo, Hopi, and The Man.
Eventually entering Tuba City from the east, we had a reversal of the
usual routine -- I passed on paying $3.999 a gallon on the very edge of
town, and instead caught it at $3.80 just two blocks later, PLUS
enjoyed a trailer tire rotation next door for just $12! Somewhere along
the line, in the rain, there was this.
When I got to
the hotel / campsite, I inquired about the availability of a room
instead, as I figured that at least one of those mini-storms would
eventually find a way to dump buckets of water all over my tent. I was
told that there were no rooms available whatsoever -- and, not to be
rude, I joked that this came as a surprise seeing how many parking
spots were open in the lot. To which the gal behind the desk said that
there’d be two tour buses coming in any minute, and as such I should
get my arse to the restaurant next door before the buses arrived and
the joint became packed. This I did, and I was rewarded with a yummy
native-style frybread dinner. When I got back to the campsite, I noticed
that the Ant Invasion had begun -- perhaps I had erected the tent atop an ant
hill, but whatever the reason, the little critters were crawling all
over the damned thing. With little else in the way of a solution, I
swatted each one to the ground individually, then sprayed mosquito
repellent all away around the bottom of the tent. Seemed to keep the
bastards from crawling back onto it…
BTW the front desk hadn’t been kidding about there being no rooms
around; as I worked feverishly deep into the night to provide you with
these updates, there was a steady stream of folks coming in late, past
11 PM and the like, also axing about rooms. The desk knew that the
whole town was booked, and so was recommending that travelers -- who’d had
more than enough of the open road -- get right back on it and head to Flagstaff, AZ, some eighty miles away. Now, when I called weeks ago they had told
me I wouldn’t even need to reserve a tent site because they never fill
up, but here I suppose I was glad I managed to snag one site at all --
they might have been all gone had I not checked in when I did… and they
would have had a nightmare on their hands...
Two random funnies -- first, I noticed that the bike’s horn was working
only
intermittently (before/during/after the downpours?) I know for a fact
that it worked right after one particular rainstorm, but then did NOT
work when I wanted to beep at some kids waving to me from upon bicycles
in Cortez. Then, somehow, it was working again later on. Signs of bad
news, electrically-speaking, to come? Let’s hope not, for those can be
tricky to track down (even for experts, of which group I definitely am
not one). Second, somewhere along the line I looked at
myself in a mirror and noticed that my goatee has far more gray hair in
it than the rest of my head -- and the goatee exists in the first place
because I haven’t shaven in three weeks, because I was scared to carry
shaving cream, because I figured it’d blow up from the heat generated
inside the
trailer through TX and the Southwest! In the “Right Idea, Wrong
Execution” department, I sent an emergency text message to a truly gray-haired fellow
stating, simply, “SEND BRYLCREEM”. Well, I texted the right guy, at
least, because he
set me straight -- what I should
have written was "Hair Club For Men". Either way, still no Brylcreem.
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