31.) One Hundred Mile Detour...... Sedona Low Down......

      Im able to sleep in the next few days since I’ve paid to be here, and I take full advantage. It's nice to take a break from being constantly on the move and I spend a day just reading at camp and wandering around the campgrounds and the surrounding woods.  It’s a nice place. Quiet and peaceful. I still think it’s a shame that I’ve been charged a fee to use the outdoors. I’d rather it be left alone and people be allowed to camp out here for free but it is nice to be able to refill my water bottles from a spigot and not have to shit in the woods.  

After a few slow days of rest I'm packed back up and ready for more of the road.  I get a little sad every time I leave a place because in all reality I’ll probably never be back.  But I’m excited for what lies ahead so I drive on, in search of my next experience.  

     I drive 100 miles south toward another park on my map before I stop to find wifi. A little research informs me that the park I’m headed to doesn’t even offer overnight camping.  A whole day and a lotta gas wasted.  I look in my National Park guidebook, and it says it right there, no over night camping. Goddamnit!  If I woulda just read a little bit before I left this morning I coulda avoided this whole detour.  Now I’m pissed and don’t know where to go.  I find a campground on my map and point the Jeep towards it still beating myself up inside for the mistake.  But life, such as it is, goes on and when I finally get over it I find myself in Sedona.

     I had no intention of stopping in, or even going through Sedona. To be honest it wasn't even on my radar.  All I know about it is it's a popular stop for new agers and hippie types who believe it’s a magical place.  Pulling into town its easy to see why.  I’m not really a believer in the whole vortex/energy idea that is prevalent here but the place is breathtakingly beautiful. Surrounded by huge, red rock mesas stretching skyward in all directions and a carpet of bright greenery speckles the desert floor.  I find a visitors center in the middle of town and go in to get the low down on Sedona. 

  The self loathing was strong after my 100 mile accidental detour the other day. I’d been dwelling on the lost gas and money the whole way backtracking. But now, loaded with maps and information on the surrounding area I’m a whole new man. I asked the lady behind the desk in the visitors center if there was a cheap place to camp nearby and she informed me that outside the city limits I can just find a dirt road and camp anywhere I want…..for free! Dispersed Camping is what they call it.  I’ve never heard of it but the price is right and I’m elated that I have a free place to stay indefinitely.  And I’ll need all the time I can get too because now I have maps depicting hundreds of miles of trails that surround the town. 

      It's mid afternoon by now so I decide to grab a coffee and just wander the main strip to get a lay of the land.  I never really drink coffee, I tried it once and it tasted like chalk so I avoided it ever since.  I ask the guy at a gas station which one will really jack me up and upon his recommendation I'm off to explore the town with a full cup of Jolt coffee.  It doesn't take long for me to realize what all the coffee hubbub is about.  I'm buzzing up and down the sidewalks of downtown Sedona and feeling great. No wonder people love the stuff, it's legal speed!  It still tastes like hell but that's a small price to pay for it's amazing effects. I realize that coffee and beer go hand in hand. Neither one is particularly tasty at first, but both are essential for dealing with life. With this new morsel of wisdom fresh in my mind find a Safeway to stock up on some groceries and head out of town to find a place to camp.  

I plow down one of the gravel tracks off the highway. I was told as long as I’m at least a half mile from the highway I can camp wherever I want. I watch my odometer and choose a spot in the darkness at random to park.  I heat up some potatoes on my camp stove and retire to the jeep with the roof open and stare at the stars not remembering how low I had been when this day started.  

    Excited to be in a new and beautiful place I awake early. Right next to me, just outside my window, a bright yellow hot air ballon is making it’s lazy decent back to earth.  I take this as a sign of good things to come.  Just down the road is a small picnic area with tables and bathrooms.  This will become my staging area for my time in Sedona.  Every morning I cook breakfast here and plan my day.  

     Today I’ve hiked over 6 miles by 1pm on the Red Rock Loop Trail.  It’s not marked terribly well and the terrain of gravely desert and scrub brush makes following it difficult.  I hike nearly 2 miles in the wrong direction before I give up on finding the trail and head back to the jeep.  After learning my lesson at Ghost Ranch with Michelle, I now mark the position of the Jeep on my portable GPS before I hike into any wilderness.  When I get back I see the trail stretching out in the opposite direction.  I was way off, but I follow it up a cliff side and end up far above the highway.  I can see for miles in almost every direction.  The enormous red mesas the only thing obscuring the horizon.

     Every morning I drive from my little campsite into town and every morning I’m blown away by this landscape.  The rocks are like sandcastles packed tight with damp sand and left in the sun to dry.  Their shapes forever changing with the elements.  Wind and rain have carved out spires like battlements of a castle.  A sun bleached, pinkish-tan flat peak slowly morphs into a darker red as it gets closer to its base.  the towers rise and become even more impressive as the road into town drops to the valley floor.  

I’ve chosen Cathedral Rock and Templeton Trail to explore today.  The beauty in every direction is beyond the realm of my writing abilities to describe adequately.  You have to see it yourself to truly appreciate it.  The red rock meshes well with the green forest.  Not impenetrably thick but still covering the landscape. The valley floor and up the slopes of the mesas. A sky nearly too blue to be real. Some sort of filter placed over the real world.  The pinnacles and spires of Cathedral Rock are other worldly as I climb.  you could easily drop in a few dinosaurs and they wouldn't look out of place.  

     I reach the end of the trail and venture a little further, passed the rock crest and am rewarded with a panoramic view between two tall spires.  Then back down the Templeton Trail.  After a wrong turn and a second attempt I am able to find the river that flows through town.  After today’s hike my feet could use a break so I sit on a dry tuft of grass at the rivers edge, remove my socks and boots and soak them in the ice cold rejuvenating water. I sit and contemplate the rocks and the river and my days so far.  No breakthroughs in matters of mind or spirit.  No deep thoughts or life affirming epiphanies.  Only the simple thought, “Everyone should do this”.

30.) Road Weary.....Animal Encounters And Pussy Magnets....

   At this point I’m beginning to fade.  The constant movement of life on the road is wearing on me.  I need somewhere to just BE for a few days. Rest up, regroup, and recharge the ol' batteries.  I come across a campground in Tonto National Forest somewhere in Arizona. Twelve bucks a night is more than I’d like to spend on a small plot of dirt to pitch my tent. But the security of knowing it’s ok for me to be there is enough to get me to fork over $24 for two nights.  It’ll be nice to set up camp, cook a proper meal and not have to be on the look out for any rangers or officers with the “you can’t do that here” mentality.  

After selecting a site and setting up camp I decide to try something new.  I mark my campsite on my handheld GPS and just take off into the woods.  A no-trail hike! This’ll be awesome! I’ll just use the GPS to find my way back and I wont have to follow a trail that a million people have followed before me.   I stomp my way through the forest in no direction in particular, just away from camp.  Eventually I find my way to a clearing, then a trail, and finally a stream that’s not much more than a trickle at the moment. Dry or not it makes for swifter travel than my earlier bushwhacking so I continue to follow it down deeper into the wilderness. After 3 miles or so the hills on either side of the stream bed are slowly becoming cliffs and I decide to make my way out before it gets too steep.  I use tree trunks to help pull myself up the hillside figuring I’ll climb to the top and use my gps to find a different route back to camp.  But before I crest the first hill a sound stops me in my tracks.  It’s a difficult sound to describe but it’s definitely animal.  It doesn't strike me as particularly aggressive, but it doesn’t sound thrilled either.  The first animal that comes to mind is a moose.  It’s like a mewing sound, and I know moose can be dangerous so I tread more lightly as I conitue up the hill looking as far ahead of me as the foliage will allow and wondering to myself if there ever are any mouse in Arizona.  I hear the noise again and a wrestle of leaves and branches not terribly far ahead of me. I freeze again remembering all the warning sign in the campground about how this is bear country.  It doesn’t sound like a bear but what the fuck do I know.  Right then I spot movement and a very large, black form obscured by the trees. Shit. I try not to move as a drop of sweat trickles down my back. From my position I can tell it’s a big animal and it’s on four legs.  Well, at least it’s not a fuckin big foot.  Then I imagine my obituary in the paper…..Eric Skala: Mauled by bear. Last Words: At least it wasn’t a fuckin big foot.  

      Whatever it is, it’s aware of my presence now. We’re both frozen, feeling each other out.  Slowly I move to my left as quietly as I can seeking a better line of sight.  My foot hits the forest floor snapping a few small twigs and that's all it takes.  The beast lets out another horrible bellow, the loudest yet and begins to move.  Branches snapping and dust clouds kicking up under it’s feet or hooves or paws, I’m still not sure.  This is it I think, great idea, this “no-trail” hike. I’m in the middle of the woods, on a steep hillside. Nowhere close to anything, even a trail. It’ll be months before my body is found if it ever is at all.  

When I snap out of my daymare I realized the things is moving laterally, not toward me.  I take another step to my left and keep searching the through the trees and finally I see it.  A big black ear with a big yellow tag snapped to it flicking back and forth at a swarm of flies. Then an oblong head and a big wet nose.  It’s a fucking cow! A GIANT, black, weird sounding cow…..all alone on a hillside in the middle of a forest…..I sigh in relief.  I’m not going to be eaten alive and I didn’t even wet myself when I thought I might be.  “You scared the shit outta me” I laugh out at the cow who just continues downhill happily munching grass a he goes.  I resume my trek uphill and back towards my camp.  

I make it to the summit and a quick glance at my GPS shows me I’ve got the correct heading but the undergrowth is getting thick.  I fight my way through brambles and balance along fallen tree trunks but it’s just too thick.  I have to change course. Try to find a more accessible route so I don’t get stuck out here in the dark.  I struggle a bit further and finally stumble upon the same trail I ran into earlier in the day.  I relax a bit and follow it in the opposite direction. I’m recognizing landmarks and confident I’m headed in the right direction when I hear from the opposite side of  clearing, “Hey hiker!” I look up to see a small group of kids around a small fire.  “Wanna beer?!” I do, and I'm quickly headed in that direction.  

The group is Shea, Josh, Nikki, and Kyle.  Just a group of twenty somethings who came across this spot years ago and have been coming back to it ever since. There’s also a small pomeranian dog running around their camp.  They’ve got a few tents set up, a pile of food near the fire, and cases of beer spilling out of the back seat of theirs cars parked near by. Large bottles of vodka and Jaegermeister, half empty, sit on top a coolers.  Their volume and excitement level tell me they’ve been at it for a while already. I’m handed a beer and shrug, when in Rome I suppose. I crack it open, thank them for their hospitality, and take a long satisfying pull.  Delicious after my long hike.  

    We chat and drink for a while, pass the peace pipe around and fire a high powered BB gun at empties and other targets they've set up in the woods. They even give me a big cup of stew they’ve had simmering all day.  I can tell the group is close knit because they playfully rip on each other throughout the evening.  Whenever someone finishes a story, Kyle has one of his own that can beat it.

“Yeah, if you’ve done it, he’s done it twice…..and with a twist,” says Shea while laughing at Kyle.  More beers are drank, more herbs are smoked, and more stories are told.                 

    My personal favorite is when Kyle brings up his ex-wife.  She is Chilean, as in straight outta Chile and everyone reiterates how unbelievably beautiful she is.  Even Nikki, the lone female says more than once, “She’s fuckin hot.”  

“She IS fuckin hot,” agrees Kyle…”But she’s also a crazy bitch.”  He says this while scratching the head of the pomeranian lovingly.  “I bought her this dog, but he liked me better……cause I’m not a horrible person.  So I took him back when we split.”  Now if you don’t know what a pomeranian looks like, that dog Boo from the internet…..he’s a pomeranian.  He’s so fluffy and cute, with a face stuck in a permanent smile.  He’s a cartoon for fucks sake.  He’s just the type of dog a vain, high maintenance, celebrity type girl would carry around in a designer handbag.  Kyle shows me pictures on his phone of the woman in question and she is quite the specimen…..and very naked in several of the photos.  “So you can see how I could be temporarily blind to her bitchyness” Kyle states mater of factly.  

“Blinded by hotness,” I say shaking my head. “I’ve seen it a million times.”  

Kyle is barrel-chested, with a goatee and a green army hat.  His choice of dog just doesn't seem to to fit him as a person.  When I mention this he doesn’t hesitate to agree. “But man, that dog is a fuckin pussy magnet! All I gotta do to tell chicks how much I love him and panties disappear like dandelion spores on the wind.  And I don’t even need to feel guilty cause it’s not a lie! I really fuckin love this dog!”  As if to illustrate further he scratches the dogs head again and breaks into a baby voice. “Yes I do, don’t I? I love you yes I do. Good thing you didn’t get stuck with that crazy bitch huh? yes, it’s a good thing.”  The dog seems to agree.

I make my exit with the excuse that I’ve got 2 miles or so still to hike to make it back camp and its starting to get dark.  I fend off their offers to drive me back in the morning and with a beer for the road I once again plunge into the woods in the direction of camp.  I make it back without a problem and sleep soundly.

29.) The Passage of Time.......Mother Nature.....and Some Smart Ass Indians....

     Today marks one full month on the road but it doesn't feel that long at all.  I’m enjoying myself too much to really notice the passage of days and I’m strangely proud of the fact that I’m not quite sure which time zone I’m in at the moment.  Without any type of schedule to adhere to, the date and day of the week become irrelevant.  I’m also happy to report that my index finger has finally healed from my very fist night of camping in Big Bend when I sliced it open the very first time I used my new knife.  Unfortunately, now both my thumbs are all beat to shit.  The left one I pinched between a hammer and a tent steak while setting up camp one night.  It’s been torn up and discolored ever since.  The tip and pad of my right thumb are dried and cracked from a month outside in the desert air.  Split like a chapped lip, it’s deep and painful and an inconvenient place for a cut.  

When I’m through whining to myself about the current state all my digits I explore the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park. The landscape is desolate but gorgeous and unlike anything I’ve seen yet. But with nothing to block it for miles in any direction, the wind literally howls. 50+ miles an hour.  I can lean into it and it holds me up.  I pull up to a trailhead and go to open my door but it's locked.  I hit the unlock button but don’t hear the familiar unlocking noise from the electronic mechanism and I realize it’s not locked. The wind is just blowing against the outside of the jeep so hard that it wouldn't budge. When I make conscience effort I’m able to force it open and slide out. The wind violently slams the door shut behind me.  It’s so strong it’s making it difficult to enjoy the park. I do a few of the shorter trails but quickly call it a day and hope the wind lets up tomorrow.  

I spend the night in the Jeep at a nearby truck stop and the next morning wake up shivering. I pull myself together and climb out one of the back doors. It may be slightly less windy than yesterday, but not by much.  I'm still annoyed by this when I turn and look at the Jeep. One entire side, plus the hood are plastered with a layer of snow nearly 2 inches thick.  There is literally no snow anywhere else in sight, the ground isn't even wet. It's like a practical joke. What the hell Arizona!? 

I’m still able to explore and learn about the park despite Mother Nature.  This area used to sit where Panama is now.  It was swamp-like with a tropical climate.  Enormous trees, some 200 feet tall would fall into streams and get washed down into a flood plain where the mouth of the stream slowly covered them with silt, mud, and volcanic ash.  This sediment cut off all the oxygen and slowed their decay.  Then silica laden groundwater penetrated deep into the wood and a chemical reaction replaced the wood, cell by cell, with rock.  Over millions of years the Colorado Plateau was pushed up while erosion worked its way down and when the two met the petrified forest was uncovered.  

The colors are incredible in the petrified trees, across the painted desert, and in the hills of the badlands on the other side of the park but the wind just won’t let up. I’m not sure if it ever does so I trudge through it down a few more trails.  The Blue Mesa Trail features mountains of sediment deposited by ancient rivers.  Easily discernible layers of blues, purples, and grays mark the passage of eons.  Thousands more fossils could still be encased in the soft rock and considering the size of the deposits - they tower over me - it had to be one big ass river.  

I investigate hundreds of petroglyphs on Newspaper Rock. Pictures of animals, people, hands, and shapes chiseled into the outer layer of the rock and remained for hundreds of years.  I come upon one in a spiral shape with a shaft of sunlight stretching towards it.  The sun shines through a small gap in the adjacent rocks and makes a finger of light on the opposite wall.  Throughout the year that finger of light works its way across the rock face, through the rings of the spiral eventually reaching the center. This happens every year on the Summer Solstice and the indians know it's time to plant their crops.  It’s a fucking calendar!? That’s ridiculous! How these ancient people could figure something like that out is beyond me. That's some Indiana Jones shit right there.  Those are some smart ass indians. 

28.) Parting Ways......In Ruins.......Bathroom Graffiti......

     When we finally get back to the cars Michelle and I marvel over how we could have gotten so far off course. So far off that it was embarrassing when we spotted them from the hilltop.  “We were probably hypnotized by all the wisdom we were dispensing,”  I suggest and Michelle nods in agreement.
     “That’s gotta be it.”

We hug and thank each other, exchange information, and make plans to keep in touch.  We climb in our respective vehicles and follow the gravel path back to the highway.  When we get there I’m going right and Michelle is going left. We make eye contact one last time in my rearview mirror, then I wave my arm out my window and take back to the open road.  

     It’s strange, I only knew her for an afternoon but parting ways with Michelle is sad.  A real human connection is rare in the world today.  Especially rare for me, and the feeling of something being over has my spirits waining.  I try to take our own advice and live in the now.  Take the experience for what it was. A chance encounter that was enjoyable and much needed but it’s in the past now.  So, alone in the Jeep I issue a “Thanks for the beer Michelle” and head toward the next encounter.  

Upon consulting my atlas I determine that the next encounter, due to it’s close proximity will be the the Aztec Ruins near the Colorado border. I point the Jeep north and mash the pedal to the floor.
     

  I watch the introduction movie in the little visitors center and wander out back to check out the actual ruins. The place is huge! A whole town built out of mud and rocks.  There’s an irrigation system, ventilation. The Aztecs even put a special finish on the walls to ensure their integrity. Dozens of rooms throughout and even a town hall in the center called a Kiva. A lot of the walls are damaged or nonexistent but it really is a thing to see.  It loses some of it’s magic when I read some of the informational plaques around the site that say a lot of what I see today is refurbished recently.  So they aren't the original walls the Aztecs built but it’s still cool to see how it would of looked.  I’m disillusioned further when another plaque  informs me that even the original ruins weren't form the Aztecs. It’s actually a Pueblo indian site it’s just that when it was first discovered someone called it the Aztec ruins and the name just stuck. I shake my head and chuckle.  The title on this plaque says “The Aztec Ruins.” 

After an hour or 2 of wandering the ruins my plan is to head into Colorado to Mesa Verde National Park and camp while I have a look around.  The sweet ladies in the mislabeled “Aztec Ruins” visitor inform me that all the campgrounds to the north are still closed.  They won’t open for another few weeks. It’s still cold up there they tell me. So with Colorado still closed for the winter I decide to check out the Four Corners Monument and then head south to warmer climes.  

I pull up to the gate at the Four Corners an hour or so later and read the sign. Hours of operation: 9am-5pm. I look at my watch. It currently reads 5:09pm. I look from the watch to the sign a few times, shake my head and check the horizions.  There isn’t anything for miles in any direction and it’s so early that it doesn't make sense to waste a whole day to camp out and see the four corners in the morning. How cool could it be anyway? I shrug it off and head south.  

With all the driving I'm doing, I cover a lot of ground and have a number of minor observations that aren't terribly exciting but still deserve mentioning.  A sign that says you only need three things in life: a backbone, a wishbone, and a funny bone.  I like it, and make a point of writing it down later.  Another I jot in my note book is the fact that a condom machine in a rest stop bathroom has the phrase “Sharon Horse Bitch” on it more than once.  And they’re in different colored ink with different different signs of aging.  I wonder to myself if it was two different guys that felt the need the immortalize Sharon’s horse bitchiness in bathroom graffiti. Or was it the same guy that came back multiple times to do it.  Either way, Sharon must really be a Horse Bitch….

27.) Getting Intimate With Strangers ......Holy Beer.....Panic....

     Halfway through my hike back I encounter a figure leaning it’s backend on a lone boulder in the middle of the trail. Head hidden deep inside a hoodie, brown trekking pants and boots; back to me.  I step hard for a few strides so I don’t scare anybody, nod, say hello, and continue on my way.
“Did you go all the way up?” from behind me.
“I did, yeah. You on your way?” I’m asking and turning at the same time. 
Unkempt tufts of hair, a deep almond brown, pop out each side of the hood past her face. On the very end of a nose already showing the first rosy signs of wind burn cling a pair of oversized tortoise shell glasses. 
“I think I’m gonna try” she says, standing up from the boulder and looking towards Chimney Rock. 
“Well, don’t dawdle. Don’t wanna get stuck up there in a storm” I say as I gesture toward the darkening sky.She squinches her face at the clouds, “Yeah….Think it’s gonna rain?”
“Well,” I say looking back to the sky and laughing a little. A this point a relatively obvious dark grey cloud is marching it’s way towards us.  “I’m no meteorologist….but it doesn’t look promising.”
“Hmmmmm. You’re headed back? Maybe I’ll walk down with you if you don’t mind. I made it to the top last year, so it’s not the end of the world.”
“Right on, let’s keep moving though, try to stay ahead of this storm.”  And that’s how I meet Michelle.  
     Snugly bundled up in her hoodie, with her heavy duty trekking pants and clunky boots she's all padded corners and smooth edges.  Sweet and harmless. I like her immediately.  She lives in Boston but is originally from Chicago.  We share the requisite high fives over being from the Midwest and chat as we hike. 
We exchange stories and it turns out she's traveling solo too. Attending a writing retreat back at Ghost Ranch.  She's been here before and just fell in love with the place. I can’t blame her. Even under an ominous sky the landscape really is something to take in.  The conversation flows easily and we bond over our agreement that travel is simpler when you go it alone. Less drama, more freedoms and the like.
When we get back to the cars neither of has anywhere to be. “Wanna get a beer?” and I’m taken aback when I realize it was her asking me instead of the other way around.  
“I do.” I nod.
“I know this place down the road thats got this monk beer.”
“Monk beer!?”
“Yeah, it’s brewed by monks….in a monastery.”  That sounds made up to me. But then I think well if its true, that’s pretty cool. And if it’s not true and she just made it up to screw with me, well thats pretty cool too. Either way I like her even more now.  
 
With the beer obtained we set out to find a place to drink it. We pull off the highway at a small grey structure.  Perfectly square with a pointy, mushroom like dome on top. The words mosque or Taj Mahal come to mind.  Two men are talking outside and one waves and climbs into a waiting pickup truck as we pull in.  We chat with the remaining man for a bit and ask about the strange little building.  Turns out he built it himself. It’s an art studio for his wife, she likes to paint he says.  There’s not much to it, just a single room, wooden floor, and windows on opposite walls. Just big enough for a chair and an easel, like a tiny little clubhouse.  
It seems like a meaningful place to the man so Michelle and I decide against using this spot to swill beer, even if it was brewed by monks.  The man suggests Plaza Blanca……The White Palace.  Seems like as good a place as any so with the man’s directions fresh in our minds we set off to find it.  Down a dirt road, left at the telephone pole, through the archway.  The strange directions are surprisingly accurate and we pull into a dusty gravel clearing that acts as a parking area.  In the distance we can see big sandstone walls and columns more grey than white but we get the idea. We hike down a hill, through some scraggily brush, and into the White Palace.  We spend the better part of the afternoon together climbing the rocks and ledges of sandstone searching for the best view of the wide open desert.  
     
The flow of conversation is easy and comfortable.  Coming organically with none of the hitches and stutter steps that strangers are likely to contend with.  It’s amazing how intimate a conversation you can have when you’ll never see a person again. (And you’re nearing the bottom of a growler of beer that may have been brewed by monks).  No hang ups or judgment.  Just two people whose currents have diverted from the river to circle one another in an eddy. To whirlpool together for a time before being spun back out to rejoin the main flow. 

     We talk of the masks we all wear.  Different masks for different situations and different people.  The masks we wear in front of our parents. Our significant others. Our family and friends.  We discuss how sometimes the masks slip on so flawlessly we ourselves don't even realize we’re wearing them. Like a long ago chipped tooth, so familiar now your tongue no longer notices it.  
     She tells me about her brother having some sort of illness and how frustrating it is, for both of them, that he is unable to just be himself.  I tell her about my brothers death, a thing I rarely do with anyone.  Upon hearing it, Michelle stops abruptly in her tracks, turns, and locks eyes with me for a moment. Head tilted slightly… really pondering. Then without a word, she hugs me.  One of those deep, full on, all encompassing bear hugs that you just sort of fall into and lose yourself in.  Where with a deep sigh you could go completely limp and still this person would hold you up. It’s the sweetest gesture I’ve been privy to in a long while and I struggle to keep the moisture in my eyes from welling to the breaking point, where it finally rolls over the eyelid and becomes actual tears.  She pulls back, hands still on my shoulders and looks me straight in the face. “I’m sorry,” she says. 

     The honesty and purity of the statement drill down to the marrow of my bones.  I look around and there’s no one. Just me and just her.  Then back to Michelle.  She’s looking deep into me, deciding if I believe her.  This isn’t an act…..or a show for someone else’s benefit. This is just a decent person being compassionate towards another.  This concept weighs heavy on me and and I’m moved by it.  I can FEEL it when she say’s it…”I’m sorry.”  Something in the ether makes me KNOW she means it…..no question.  
“Thank you” I say, because what else can you do when compassion like that, so raw and real, comes your way.  I do what I think is a good job of drying my eyes before Michelle can see they're wet.  The reality is that she's just too sweet of a girl to admit she noticed.  By now it’s getting late in the day and we turn and start our hike back to the cars.  The conversation picking right back up like it never lost any momentum.  
We speak of normalcy, and how it’s really just an idea as opposed to anything concrete.  “Normal” is where you grew up.  Your school kid days insulated in your safe little bubble where nothing could go wrong.  But thinking back now you realize that particular “normal” was unique to you and you alone. Which in reality makes it not very normal at all. And it’s only normal for the kid you once were because that kid didn’t know anything else at the time.  The bubble is your whole world. 
This spirals into a discussion of outward travel as a conduit for inward travel.  Take your old, boring, everyday self and put him in a new place and watch the show.  Be open to anything. Be conscious of your reactions and your feelings and of what triggered them. You’re bound to surprise yourself.  Michelle and I dub the idea The Weight of Desert Solitude.  It’s just a strange occurrence that naturally takes place when you spend time in the desert; and it’s multiplied ten fold when you’re out here alone.  It’s the expanse of the place, I think, that causes one to reflect.  The vast, endlessness of the desert makes you realize how small and insignificant you are and helps you to realize that the only thing we have any control over is ourselves.  

We’re still hiking along and jabbering on about how difficult it is to live in the now.  To be present in the things that you do and the moment you’re in instead of always planning the next one. Constantly searching for the greener grass, the clearer skies you tend to miss whats right in front of you.  It’s here that I finally break out from the conversation and come up for air.  
“I think we should make an attempt to live in the now…right now,” I say looking around; “because I’m not completely sure where we are at the moment.”  When Michelle looks around I can see a moment of panic on her face and I realize she was as deeply consumed by our conversation as I was and neither of us have been paying any attention to the distance or direction we’ve been hiking.  We’ve been walking out, a lot longer than it took to walk in….or so it seems and I think we have missed the cars and parking lot completely.  There is nothing around us.  Just dust, rocks, and the White Palace receding into the distance.  
     “Don’t panic,” I think to myself. Ummmmm….. “High ground!” I yell out as the idea forms somewhere in my animal brain and I take off up the nearest hill.  On my climb I’m really not too worried.  We couldn’t have ventured too far off course.  I’m convinced we parked just on the other side of this hill and simply wandered around the wrong side of it while talking. And if not there then at the very least I’ll be able to see the cars from the top. But when I reach the summit all I see is more desert.  What the Fuck!? How could we walk right passed it?  The first threads of panic begin to take hold and the hairs on my neck stiffen.  

Michelle is trudging up the slope behind me.  “Hmmmm….Still don’t see em!” I yell back to her and take off down the opposite slope and up the next one. I can feel the dread looming in my chest, threatening to pounce, if the cars aren't on the other side of this hill. Stories flash through my head of sun scorched bodies being found in the desert just a half mile or so from camp, or water, or….their Jeep.  You can really fuck yourself if you pick the wrong direction to hike in the desert.  You can fuck yourself even harder if you panic after you realize you’ve gone the wrong direction and do something stupid…..like running up and down the nearest hills with on plan or forethought.  
     I reach the top panting heavily. I pass through a line of scraggly desert trees and finally, off in the distance I can see our cars.  I let out a sigh of relief as I hear Michelle yelling my name over the wind behind me.  “I see em!” I yell as she stumbles through the trees out of breath, hunched over with hands on her knees.  Between puffs of air she manages, “I thought you were a desert illusion!”  I have to laugh because maybe that's all it ever is…..The Weight of Desert Solitude.

26.) Surplus of Douche Bags and Eagles......And a Ghost Ranch.....

     I venture on, piloting the Jeep through the northern New Mexico mountains. 41 degrees at the summit, 58 when I reach the bottom. On and on I drive.  I smile as I pass a traffic stop because the offender is driving a bright yellow Corvette with 2 think black stripes from nose to tail.  The quintessential douche-mobile.  My grin widens when I see the drivers skin tight red t-shirt and white sunglasses.  If you ever really wanna look like a douche bag get yourself some white sunglasses.  I pass a sign that makes me chuckle. ‘Double Eagles 2’ airport. Double eagles 2!? Ha! Thats at least 4 eagles already…thats a lot.  
The flat desert is interrupted by more of the red rock cliffs.  They loom on the horizon slowly growing as I get closer until they're right on top of me.  The highway leads me through and not long after they disappear in my rearview like they were never there; while in front of me another expanse of desert humbly sighs into existence and stretches to the limits of my vision.
Along the way I stop at a few indian casinos just for bathroom breaks.  Mostly slots, one appeared to be nothing but penny slots. There’s a few lightly populated table games but the indian dealers and the elderly players look equally depressed.  It makes me a little sad and I choose not the linger.
Abiquiu is what I’m looking for.  Abiquiu, New Mexico. I seem to remember a woman referring to it’s beauty as “where you go when you die.” I locate it in my atlas and head in its general direction.  What I find is Ghost Ranch and it doesn’t disappoint. 
At the end of another long dirt track Ghost Ranch is, or used to be some sort of christian retreat or camp. It’s a secluded and tranquil group of buildings and cabins in the middle of the desert used by a number of groups and clubs to host a number of sermons or seminars, or gatherings.  I wander around for a short while but quickly get bored with the camp itself and venture toward the Chimney Rock Trail.
I see the huge ‘chimney’ rock formation before I even reach the trailhead and three miles later I’m right behind its peak enjoying another gorgeous view. This one being capped by grey, overcast skies has a different feel to it.  A sort of drab, muted foreboding that’s hard to explain. At the trail’s summit the rock underfoot is grey, almost white.  In the distance the cliff faces ooze from this off white to tan and orange. To pink through a reddish maroon. It’s all very……Something.  It looks like a storm is heading this way from over the cliffs behind me so I head back down in hopes of avoiding a soggy afternoon.   

25.) Rudderless Daze....Back Roads......Kidnappings....

      Highway 35 leads me through wide open ranch land broken only by red rock boulders.  Massive, rounded things protruding form the the ground like a zit ready to pop.  I imagine a peaceful life here with long slow days of moving cattle, mending fences, or just surveying the land. It seems nice.  Then almost immediately a wall of pine trees. Standing straight and tall like soldiers on guard. The road cuts deep into the forest; a roofless green corridor without visible end.   

     Eventually I come out of the woods high above Bear Canyon Lake.  Longer than it is wide and surrounded by steep grassy hills.  The trees sparse but constant. It’s a post card image. Memories of past family vacations when life was simpler and nothing could possibly better than a day at or on the lake.

I stop in the town of Gila today to pick up some boxes from my Mom.  Dried food stuffs, snacks, even some candy.  I lucked out pretty hard on the whole Parents front.  Also in the box was my renewed driver license. The old one was set to expire on my birthday. So now I’m good till 2020.

     So far the best choice I've made is not using my GPS to get from one place to the next.  I’m enjoying immensely, the meanderings in between. These back roads are magical.  They differ in only style and scope of magnificence. Rolling hills as far as the eye can see set on a backdrop of forest laden mountain sides. It’d be tough to be in a bad mood if you can just go out side and look at all this.  Highway 180.

I consult my map to find my next destination and stumble upon the Baldera Volcano and Ice Cave. Fire and ice. Two extremes, sounds cool. Plus I’ve never seen a volcano or and ice cave, let’s do this. I hike a mile or so up the trail that winds around the outside to the volcano. Active 10,000 years ago, now the whole area is covered with porous lava rock called cinders.  I get to the top  and look down into the crater.  1400 feet wide and 800 feet deep it’s humbling.  I shake my head in awe. Imagine the power, enough to blow off the top of an entire mountain! Incredible. The ice cave is a little bit of a let down, probably because I was spoiled by the Carlsbad Caverns.  You can’t venture into the cave itself, it’s inaccessible. A wooden staircase leads to a viewing platform above the mouth of the cave.  It’s shaped sort of like an amphitheater so I can see all the way to the back of it from here.  What makes it interesting is the cave floor.  Its made entirely of ice and covered in algae.  The way the sunlight refracts through the ice gives the cave floor a neon green hue. I’ve never seen anything like it.    
 
     In the little visitors center where I pay my small fee. Janice and her husband tell me they own the surrounding 4000 acres. 15 volcanos on their property, 29 total in the area.  A slender but hardened women, in her 60’s I’m guessing.  She tells me that her great grandpa built the first school here in town. He bought the land and it was eventually inherited by her grandmother.  Grandma’s husband tried to sell some of the land by forging her signature.  When she got word of this she sweet talked a neighbor for a ride to her lawyer.  He tells her that what her husband is trying to do is illegal so she swiftly returned home and kick the man out. 
Another story follows about a distant cousin.  As a young boy her cousin was kidnapped by the Navajo Indians and later traded to the Apache. He lived with them for years, grew up within their tribe. They accepted him as their own, he even had an Apache foster mother.  One night the Apache kidnapped a young girl and brought her to the tribe.  Janice’s cousin snuck out with a horse and returned the girl to her parents.  He stayed in town too but would always venture back to the tribe to visit his Apache mother.

When her grandma died Janice’s parents inherited the land.  They were attending Arizona University at the time and low on funds for tuition.  They decided to move up here to the volcano and open it up to tourists.  They started with a saloon and dance hall.  Then they built a few cabins for the overindulgent to sleep it off or families to spend the weekend.  Eventually the saloon was turned into a house, additions were added and now Janice and her husband run it as a visitors center and curio shop.  What a family! 

24.) We go to New Mexico when we die!?....Headed Toward Somewhere......

     I’ve spent a week in the Gila National Forest now, hiking around to all the cliff dwellings and pictograph sites.  Over and around rolling hills and deep into cliff lined valleys.  Pine forests cover most of the area, tall and slender.  Their branches don't really fill out till further up the trunk so passing through is relatively easy.  All over I see signs of past fires. Acres of dead trees, burnt to black, crumbling ash. I’ve heard about forest fires TV in the past but they're always in some far away place. Being face to face, surrounded by the aftermath, is unsettling.  The land looks devastated. Beyond repair.  But in reality they release nutrients into the ground and clear space for new trees and grasses to grow.  It can take years for an area to fully recover but in the long run the fires are actually beneficial. 
This thought makes the sight of all those black, haunted stumps slightly more tolerable as I emerge from the woods and back onto the main road the runs through the park.  The jeep is parked a mile or 2 up the road so I start off in that direction.  I’ve taken less then 10 paces when an SUV stops next to me. The driver leans out and asks whats it like back there pointing in to the woods I've been hiking through. I turn around to look back into them and think for a moment. I turn back to the driver and smile.  Peaceful I tell her  We get to talking and she offers me a ride back to the jeep. Her name is Terri and she extremely apologetic about the state of her car.  In truth it doesn’t look all that bad to me considering what my jeep looks like at the moment.  Turns out she's doing something similar to me.  Living out of her car, piloting it to beautiful places taking it all in.  She can only get away for a few weeks at a time but she does it whenever she gets a chance.  We exchange a few stories of life on the road.  She's headed to some of the places I’ve just been so I tell her about my favorite spots so far and she tells me of Abiquiu, New Mexico.
“Abiquiu is where you go when you die” she says.  “If heaven is half as beautiful as Abiquiu I’ll be very content there.”  Ghost Ranch and Christ in the Desert Monastary are the only details I can recall later, while I’m scribbling about my day in a notebook but I do remember Terri’s passion.  The love I hear in her voice when she’s speaking of these places is enough for me to want to see them.
Lightfeather Hot Springs are the only ones in the area that I have yet to visit.  I decide to hike the few miles to them and spend the night out there somewhere.  An early morning soak might be a nice thing to wake up for.  At the trailhead I hoist everything I need onto my back and set off into the canyon.  It’s late afternoon, the sun and the temperature have both started their nightly decent.  Less than a half mile in and I’m forced to ford the Gila River.  It’s wide and slow moving so there is very little danger aside from getting my pack wet.  At its deepest the water comes up to the middle of my calves and by the time I step out on to the opposite bank my feet actually hurt from the glacial water.  I have to stop for a moment to flex my toes and get the blood pumping again before I can put my boots back on and continue hiking. I cross the river three more times and before long, I’m sure I've passed the hot springs somewhere along the way.  They’re only supposed to be a mile and a half or so from the trailhead and I’ve already hiked twice that far.  The sun is nearing the horizon so I find a sandy spot on the river bank and set up camp.  I dig a small fire pit slightly lower than my tent in hopes of catching the rising heat while I sleep and also not setting my tent on fire.  With camp set, fire cracking, socks drying I take my camera and walk down onto the rocks in the rivers floodplain.

     My little camp on one side of the river, a forested hill gently climbs behind it and shelters me from the wind.  Across the river the rock face is straight up and nearly bare.  I watch the boulders and ledges for any movement; this is mountain lion territory.  But for now all is still.  The only sound is nature. The wind whistles from deeper in the canyon, the river gurgles by, my fire crackles into the night and I think to myself, “I like this.”
No animal encounters in the night but not long after I break camp and begin the hike back I come across some tracks.  They are either wolf or lion...something with claws, I can’t tell which but it’s in the soft mud in the middle of the trail.  If it was here when I hiked past yesterday, I would have noticed it, it’s too obvious.  Now i’m grateful I made the effort to keep the fire going through the night. It may have changed the minds of some would-be visitors.  

        



I run into Lightfeather hot springs on the way back. I try... and fail,,, to explain how I missed it on the way in. I chalk it up to a glitch in the matrix  Where the water first emerges from the rock it’s hot enough to burn flesh.  I have to go a few yards down river before the temperature is even tolerable.  I stand here and warm my feet but decide against dropping my pack and putting on my bathing suit for a full soak.   Once my feet are warmed sufficiently to cross the river the last few times I’m on my way back to the jeep. Then out of the Gila National Forest and back on the road heading nowhere in particular.

23.) The Mystery of Legitimacy..... Majority Rule........

     I plunge 44 miles up and down Route 15. Both mountainous and serpentine through thick pine forest and passed panoramic views of the valley below.  Every street sign pockmarked with buckshot holes sparks a thought of bored, small town teenagers in a disintegrating pick up truck, slingshoting around hairpin turns.  One hangs out the passenger side window with a shotgun ‘borrowed’ from Dad’s collection. Empty cans of Natural Ice rattle around the truck’s bed while full ones are dispensed to each of the occupants from a cardboard case on the back floor.   The gunshots echo across the valley, followed loyally but hoots and hollers of elation or the boos and jeers when someone wastes a shell with an errant shot. 

At the end of The Trail of Mountain Spirits are the Gila Cliff Dwellings.  I saw the name on my map and thought it sounded cool so here I am. I’ve crossed the Continental divide and am officially in The West.  
Through a persistent drizzle I follow a tiny creek whose babbling I can hear the entire way, a mile or two back into a sheltered canyon. From the canyon floor I can see the the caves in the wall above me and my first thought is of the natives hundreds of years ago.  Who knows how long they'd been wandering around the rugged terrain nearby?  They had to be pretty stoked when they stumbled upon these caves. A dry place to sit!? Hell yeah!  Shelter? Protection? It had to be the find of a lifetime.  And rightfully so, they exploited it to the fullest. Six of the seven caves show signs of human inhabitants.  The seventh is unreachable with out climbing gear.  A total of 42 rooms were constructed of handmade bricks throughout the system of caves.  The ceiling is black with soot from hundreds of fires for heating and cooking.  It’s known that the rooms were built and inhabited sometime around the 1200’s but the different uses of each room are more difficult to identify due to explorers and vandals over the years.  No matter what exactly took place in these rooms it’s still eye opening to wander through them and think that this was once a place someone called home.  

Back on the road a sign points me toward Gila Hot Springs and I turn onto a dirt track down a steep hill and through fields of sheep, goats, and what were either lamas or alpacas, I don’t really know the difference. Maybe both are in there.  Five dollars get me a site for my tent, the ability to have my very first camp fire of the trip, (due to dry conditions there’s been a burn ban through the whole of Texas and into parts of New Mexico) and access to more hot springs.  The campground is no more than an area in the woods thats dirt instead of undergrowth. When I pay my fee the owner shows me pictures of how the place used to look.  A massive flood a few years before drowned what appears to be a lush, deep green, Eden-like grove. Each of 3 hot spring pools secluded by tall grasses and moss covered rocks.  Just out of frame I imagine pixies dropping sparkles on the waters surface. It’s gorgeous.  I look from the old man’s photos into the reality of today. Dry, hard, compacted dirt. Sad, decrepit tiki structures cover the hot spring pools.  Looks be damned I say. Each pool was naturally a different temperature so I Goldilocks my way through them until i find the one that's  Just Right. I lounge for the better part of  two hours by myself in a hot tub in the middle the of the New Mexico wilderness while reading Mississippi Solo.         

After I’m sufficiently prune-y I stumble back to my campsite, engage in some fireside note jotting, and I sew up a hole in one of my gloves. I do a pretty kick ass job, Pam Melik would have been pround.  It’s the first time in a while I haven't slept in the jeep. While the extra room is kinda nice the jeep is far from uncomfortable.  There's a lot to be said about sleeping up off the ground, no matter the situation, that’s soothing.  I lay awake in my tent and think, What am I trying to prove with this trip? Theres no real purpose to it.  The purpose IS in the process.  I’ve said it before, or something close to that and I want it to be that so bad but it’s hard sometimes.  The point of going is supposed to be just to Go. To show myself that an alternative life style is possible.  That you don’t have to nest somewhere.  But sometimes just going for the sake of going feels like just killing time.  But that's what were all really doing anyways…just killing time. Might as well have fun along the way…right?  Explore the world outside your door and the one inside your head and heart.   And what makes going to a job you hate everyday any more legitimate than what I’m doing?  And whose to say whats legitimate and whats not. Majority opinion is not synonymous with right, or correct or anything really.  Except for that a lot of time it is.  Even if you’re completely right, if everyone around you thinks you’re wrong, you may still be completely right, but you're still completely fucked.  Majority doesn’t mean reality.