Arizona and Utah's Canyon Country

I don't like driving at night because I don't know what I'm missing, but I think that the stretch of I-40 between Ash Fork and Flagstaff might be worth seeing; if you get the chance, drive it while the sun is still up. Before the sun set, I got a look at both Kingman and Seligman, struggling towns along the old Route 66. According to Wikipedia, Seligman was the inspiration for Pixar's Cars, but it could just as easily have been Kingman. (Or Winslow, for that matter. More on Winslow in a moment.) The towns are desperately trying to revive themselves on nostalgia for the Mother Road, with stores and hotels being sure to remind you again and again what used to be. Meanwhile, the interstate exits provide just about anything the through driver needs with their Burger Kings, Conocos, and Travelodges. It was kind of sad, in the same was Cars was.

I got an early start from the Super 8 in Flagstaff, Arizona. Ninety minutes and a stop at Meteor Crater later, I pulled into Winslow, one of the centerpieces of this trip for me. I thought I was being sort of quirky-cool in planning to stand on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, but I learned before leaving Massachusetts that plenty of people have been doing that for years. Folks in Winslow pitched in to build "Standin' on the Corner" Park downtown. I went anyway, without apologies.

A man and a woman were cataloging the names on the bricks in the park. A fire destroyed the building that gave the park its muraled back wall, and donations poured in from all over the country (and some from outside of the country) to help save it. The woman was happy to show me the bricks marking contributions from Don Henley, Jackson Browne, and Tom Petty; I wondered to myself whether those three couldn't have given a little more than $100 for a brick.

I moved on to see what else Winslow had to offer, and I found a thoroughly depressed town. While the buildings around "Standin' on the Corner" Park looked healthy (outside of the one that caught fire) but empty, like a well-to-do summer rental community in October, the rest of the "business district" was lined with decrepit, vacant storefronts and restaurants. I ate a mediocre omelette in a tired cafe and then took a look at the 9/11 memorial, which featured the largest pieces of the Twin Towers outside of New York City.

From Winslow, the rest of the day was spent on secondary and tertiary highways. I rode Arizona Route 87 north into the Navajo Nation, the largest Indian reservation in the country. The mostly empty land was dotted with squat cinder block homes and an occasional trailer. William Least Heat-Moon wrote that the Navajos traditionally avoided grouping themselves in villages, unlike the Hopi, who have a smaller reservation inside of the Navajo Nation. Sure enough, once within the Hopi land, very small towns began popping up among the increasingly numerous sandstone canyons. I stopped in Oraibi, which Least Heat-Moon said was "most probably the oldest continually occupied village in the United States." Oraibi, perched on the edge of a cliff, is little more than thirty ramshackle buildings—some ancient looking and made of stones—separated by powdery dirt paths. Ten to fifteen senior citizens unloaded from a tour van as I went into a small Hopi arts shop. The van's tour guide apparently makes this store a regular stop as he seemed to know the owners and told them that they had time for "only one song." The patriarch of the place complied with a traditional tune sung in Navajo.

Further down the road I found Tuba City, a settlement begun by the Mormons, but I was the only non-Indian in the supermarket. After grabbing some ice and food for the cooler, I was met in the parking lot by two youngish men who opened the conversation by saying they weren't panhandling. They asked where I was from, where I was going (they assumed the Grand Canyon), and what I thought of the reservation. The dude with the sunglasses walked back into the store to get me a copy of the Navajo newspaper, and the one with sunburn scabs on his shoulders asked if I could help out his "bro" and him with five dollars. I gave him two singles and kept my twenties. I was packing my cooler when Shades came back with the papers. They told me that they made bows, arrows, and hatchets, and wondered if I'd want to buy any. They didn't have any with them to show me, so they asked for my phone number so that they could call me to set up a sale. I gave them an email address instead. They acted quite friendly, but they seemed also to be trying to size me up. The "bros" asked what I did for a job, and while I was answering, they were looking to see what was in my car and asked about my iPod and whether I had a laptop with me. I tried to stay cheery, shook their hands, and took off.

Heading north on US-160 to US-163 in Kayenta, I was soon into Monument Valley where I stopped several times in an effort to get some photos that did the stately sandstone pillars and plateaus justice. Crossing into Utah, I thought I'd take a left on Route 261 for a look at the Valley of the Gods and a loop through the Grand Gulch Primitive Area. Less than a quarter of a mile into my scenic detour, however, I was frightened into a U-turn by a sign warning of "steep switchbacks" on loose gravel roads; large trucks and RVs were encouraged to turn around, so I decided that maybe this wasn't the road for my ride either. Instead I wound up the semi-interesting 163 through Bluff, Blanding, and Monticello. I grabbed a site in the completely empty Wind Whistle Campground and then drove to an overlook into Canyonlands National Park where I was, again, totally alone except for the lizards that scuttled across the rocks in front of me. Back at my campsite, I set up the tent and cooked dinner while a few swallows and bats swirled out of the hulking mesa behind me. (The rocks you see behind my tent are actually ten to fifteen stories high.) A very distant storm flashed lightning that was never followed by thunder. After two helpings of ramen, I pulled out my guitar and sang to myself for a while.

I was of two minds. On the one hand, I don't think I've ever camped in a more stunning setting, and I was thankful for the peace and beauty. On the other hand, I wanted to share this place with my family. This was my loneliest night of the trip, and I really began looking forward to getting home again.