The Road Otter

First published 8/5/2008

Many years ago, my mother described the freeway system in Salt Lake City as having been designed by a drunken snake. Downtown Santa Fe used the same snake and added a sadist.

My needs were simple. I wanted to see the Loretto Chapel, the one with the miraculous spiral staircase. Maps were unfolded, instructions were requested of local hotel staff, and off we started.

And discovered you can’t get there from here.

Roads in the heart of downtown Santa Fe are, of course, leftovers from horse and buggy days. And from the days when laying out streets in straight lines was a thing for the future. They were narrow and often one-way. And not quite the way the map showed them to be. Due to road construction, and due to the fact the central plaza was blocked to auto traffic, we meandered all over the place, frequently totally clueless as to where we were in relation to where we wanted to be. “The map says we want to turn left here.” “Wait, we can’t turn left here.” “Well, then, turn right.” “Turning right… oh, the road’s blocked down there, now we have to turn left.” And now we’re headed in the totally opposite direction. We did get to see the Santa Fe River several times, as we criss-crossed the downtown area.

Jim can’t read really small print, and the street map was in really, really small print to be able to fit it all in. I finally found a free public parking lot, the sign of which told me that I would be given a ticket if I didn’t get a parking pass from the attendant. There was no attendant. I parked anyway. I read the map. One of the blessings(?) of being dreadfully near-sighted is I can read really fine print. I found where we were, where we wanted to go, the streets to get there, and started off. Silly me, I didn’t verify the names of some of the other streets.

Out of the parking lot, still with no attendant, left onto Paseo de Peralta. Right on Washington, which according to the map turned in to Santa Fe Trail.

I found upon reaching the point where Washington should become Santa Fe Trail that a building now occupied the space, requiring a left turn because the right turn was blocked to thru traffic. Now, I’m “off the map” again. Left, right, blocked, left, left only because it’s a one-way street, right, past a wonderful unreachable multi-story parking lot because the entrance was on a one-way street with traffic against me, with the other end of the street somewhere around a bend, around in circles (Paseo de Peralta makes a big horseshoe shape around downtown), and back to that very same parking lot.

By this point, however, I knew how far it was to walk to the Loretto Chapel. So off we went, on foot. I found several things on foot, one of which was Santa Fe Trail, the right turn off Washington that was blocked to street traffic. The other end of the street to the wonderful parking structure was a narrow, one-way road with a street name different than the one the parking structure was on. Since you couldn’t see the parking structure from the point of entry onto the road, and the road changed names at the bend, finding that parking structure required a native guide.

Santa Fe is suffering from a “beautification” project that said every building on a major street has to look like a pueblo. Gas stations, cheap eateries, even a no-tell motel. Housing tracts, hospitals, the fire station. The McDonald’s!! Downtown not only was suffering from this disease, but was suffering this disease in the exact same “adobe” brown color. There were a few buildings built in an “Old West” style that had so far escaped adobification. But the rest, OY!

And I used to like pueblos.

Loretto Chapel

Some of the claims made for the staircase have been disproven by Snopes. It’s still an amazing structure, and amazingly beautiful. I’m one of those people that likes to know how things are built, so knowing this doesn’t destroy any of my sensawonda. What’s also amazing is that almost all the pictures I took came out blurred. I can take decent shots from a moving car, but not here. Here are a couple that came out ok, as well as one of the front of the chapel.

Start Of The Day

The day started out beautifully, heading east out of Gallup. Clouds chasing each other across the sky, rain in the distance.

 

 

Or not so distant.

 

In typical desert rainstorm fashion, it rained for about fifteen minutes, trying mightily to wash all these pesky cars off the road.

 

The shadows of the clouds allowed the brilliant color of the cliffs to stand out even more. Topping a rise, the mountains rise blue in the distance. Up close, the color of the land glows red thru the green of the grass. Every so often, the earth’s volcanic nature rises above the soil, leaving narrow tongues of broken lava littering the landscape. Sweeping vistas are broken up by buttes scattered in the distance. And up close.

Albuquerque

When I first saw Albuquerque, thirty years ago, I came in by Greyhound bus at sunset. The red of the mountains behind the bowl of the city framed Albuquerque in a ring of brilliant flame. For this trip, the flames live in my memory. Albuquerque lives at the base of the far mountains.

 

Downtown Albuquerque. If you look really closely, you can see the red of the hills behind. I see the color best with my heart, with my eyes closed.

 

Road North

 

I drove from Albuqueque to Santa Fe, so there aren’t so many pictures. The landscape was filled with hills and the long road ahead.

 

 
Coming in to Santa Fe, tucked into a bowl in the mountains, the city looked deceptively lovely. The fiendish desire to turn it into a modern pueblo village was not evident until much later. After realizing that I-25 went past the city, not thru it, we backtracked thru town to find our hotel. Then off all innocent and unknowing, to fight our way thru downtown Santa Fe.

An oft repeated phrase during this trip: “It is an adventure!”

First published 8/4/2008

The plan today was to drive from Prescott thru Jerome, Sedona, Flagstaff, Winslow, and on to Holbrook and the Petrified National Forest. The trip started out that way, under gray skies. Jim drove as the road to Jerome was a bit mountainous and twisty. I don’t do well with twisty and mountainous. Either one alone is enough to slow my normal foot-to-the-floor driving to something less than the posted limit. Add the two together, and I am driving pretty much at a dead crawl. Jim said he wanted to make the drive at something faster than 2mph.

“Mountainous and twisty” was a major understatement. There were places where there wasn’t even a token guard rail, nothing between the road and oblivion several tens of thousands of feet down except some sticks with reflectors on them. I’m sure it was tens of thousands. It looked like it went down forever. I practiced my deep-and-even-breathing techniques. I practiced a lot. In a couple of places, I closed my eyes to improve my deep-and-even breathing. I couldn’t face the edge of the road, the twists in the road, or the distance to the bottom if we fell off the road. If I hadn’t known what a hairpin turn was, I was given far too many examples today. Jim mentioned Sunday night that my “waHOOs” thru the thunderstorms had unnerved him a bit. He had a bit of revenge today, as those roads unnerved me a lot.

 

 

For those of us not comfortable with mountain roads, seeing the road before you, or in this case, below you, is, um interesting.

 

 

 

That’s where we were. At least there’s a railing.

 

 

 

On an overcast day, the heart-stopping beauty of the red rocks of Sedona can’t be seen here. Having been thru here at dawn, the colors are breath-taking.

 

Jerome

 

Jerome was just as I remembered. It’s quite literally built on the side of the hill.

 

 

 

 

but the best view for seeing the shape of Jerome is from below.

 

 

 

Jerome has the same twisty roads and hairpin turns as the road above. But there was no chance of falling off the mountain, as the buildings would get in the way.

 

At one point, we got stuck behind some poor guy who couldn’t quite make up his mind which way to go. The sign said “parking.” The road to parking was a narrow, one-way road, going steeply up the hill. A deep breath was taken, and the driver went up the hill to “Parking.”

 

The buildings were old, quaint, and in some cases, falling down. The town has turned into an art community, with stuff ranging from locally produced really cool stuff to kitschy tourist trap stuff.

Road To Sedona

The road to Sedona was quite green as befits an area called Verde Valley. It’s apparently growing quite nicely as there were several new buildings under construction, and large sections of the roadway were being widened.

 

 

Under the gray skies, the gorgeous red rocks of Sedona, normally vivid enough to take your breath away, were merely striking.

 

 

Red Rocks of Sedona

The spires and pillars of Chimney Rock and other well-known formations were a stunning backdrop to the homes and businesses of Sedona, even without the sun’s direct light. (The blue stripe at the top is the shading on the windshield.)

 

Oak Creek Canyon

It turns out there’s a longer, less mountainous route to Flagstaff, and a shorter route thru, you guessed it, twisty mountain roads. The shorter route, Highway 89A, went up Oak Creek Canyon, lovely and green. Sycamore, pine, spruce, ivy twining thru the trees.

 

The cliffs above us showing the bones of the earth in stripes of rust red and beige. Scattered along the creek are homes, shops, campgrounds.

 

 

As we go further up, the canyon narrows, and finally we ascend the cliffside to Flagstaff. At the top was a visitor’s station, very welcome restrooms (it was a long way up the canyon), and a view point. A truly stunning view point, back down a segment of Oak Creek Canyon.

 

Road to Gallup

This is probably the east side of the thunderstorm over Flagstaff that almost drowned us the night before.

 

 

 

 
Catching I-40 again, heading east. The vegetation changes from pine forest to scrub trees to sage and other small brush scattered across the landscape.

 

 

I adore that part of Arizona. I have many summers’ worth of wonderful memories spent in Winslow, on the high desert. I feel very much at home here.

I decided that I’d seen the Petrified Forest already, and wanted to go on into New Mexico, which I had only seen once, from a bus window thirty years ago. I drove from Winslow, so there aren’t as many pictures. The landscape around the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert had mesas with those wonderful Painted Desert colors. Not too far from the road were several mound-like mesas, looking remarkably like petrified layered deserts.

 

As we approached the border to New Mexico, the land rose and got greener. Water could be seen in some of the washes, and there were thunderstorms in the distance.

 

 
Then we came over a rise and saw the most amazing mesa. It looked like a painted backdrop for stage. The road to the right of the main highway is old Route 66, the Mother Road. I-40 paralled Route 66 all the way into Albuquerque.

 

 

 

The cliffs up close.

 

 

 

We arrived in Gallup, in plenty of time to find a new hotel when the first one couldn’t get their wireless connection to work in the area of our room. They said it was due to the thunderstorms in the area. So we pack everything all back up, head back down the road. Check in to new hotel, set up the computer, finish a project and collapse for the night.

 

 

Sunflowers behind the hotel.

 

 

 

 

Man, it pours.
First published 8/3/2008

Eastbound on Highway 40, just west of Ludlow, for those following at home. Just ahead were some lovely thunderheads, with that wonderful desert phenomenon of rain-that-doesn’t-reach-the-ground. At ground level, the winds were kicking up some serious dust clouds. Yet, there had to be some water in there somewhere, as one of the ground level clouds looked to have a segment of rainbow in it. We’ll know when we get there.

Dust blowing almost sideways, dust devils twitching over the ground, the sound of the paint on my car being scoured off. I so wanted to bring the other car, as Brunhilde has a trunk you could pack a pigmy mammoth in, but driving thru this stuff, I’m glad I didn’t. She’d just gotten a new paint job.

Then a raindrop. Another. Harbinger of things to come, as within minutes, I was driving thru a massive downpour. Drivers experienced in this sort of thing had their flashers on, the rest followed suit. It made sense, as flashing lights can be seen a bit better thru a wall of water. Because that’s what we had. Wind and the speed of my car blew the rain up the windshshield; never touched the wipers. Everybody slowed down, partly because we couldn’t see diddly, but also because hydroplaning was getting to be a serious issue. I was keeping an eye on the trucker behind me, as he could see the traffic flow farther than I, being higher off the ground. When he changed lanes, so did I.

Then the out-of-state wusses started pulling over to the side of the road to ride out the storm. Guys, that ain’t gonna do you no good. This storm may sit here for hours, dropping rain in this one spot. You hafta go on thru. Which I did. I let the trucker I’d been watching pass me, then tucked myself in behind. The rain was still blowing up my windshield, but now at a rate that was almost blinding.

And I’m having a great time! Just enough adrenaline rush to keep me focused, furious rain thundering on the roof and sides of the car, and the Kingston Trio’s “South Coast” playing, an appropriate song for the adventure. Poor Jim wasn’t too sure of me, as I kept laughing and saying “Wa-HOO!” every so often. He did get a touch of revenge, as he pointed out this is the kind of weather that generates flash floods. Now I’m really glad I’m behind the trucker. If he stops, you know it’s bad.

And then we broke out the other side. Rain lessened, then dribbled down to nothing, just as we passed the exit to Ludlow.

Starting out a little late

We started out three hours later than I’d planned, four hours later than the official time. Plans were to start out between 8 and 9am. By 10am, things were getting put into the car, and those last minute “OH! I need this.” was being found and packed. (Flying keeps your wants pretty much limited to your needs. Driving means there’s always one more cool thing to take along.) When it got close to lunch time, we had lunch, and then on the road.

And then back to the house because I can’t drive anywhere without my Kingston Trio CDs.

The desert is glorious!

From Barstow, Interstate 40 runs thru a chunk of the Mojave Desert, a land cut down to its bare essentials. Creosote bushes and sage dot the landscape. Mesquite trees, looking almost ephemeral with the trunks of the trees showing thru their sparse leaves, take hold along the highway where drainage gives them a bit more water. Yuccas and joshua trees take hold in areas with a bit more water. The bones of the land are seen everywhere, from the piles of rusty stones and broken lava flows from long-dead volcanic activity, to the sedimentary layers resting like hats on top of basaltic pillars. Distant pillars and mesas float on haze, seemingly unattached to the ground below. Close at hand, the road meanders in and around the landscape, maze-like in the randomness of the mesas. When vistas opened, I could see how high we’d come, driving into the mountains ahead. Often the only sign of human life is the double ribbon of US 40 stretching away into the distance.

As we come up on that last bit of mountain, I could smell water, water from the Colorado river, the lifeblood of the Southwest. Topping the mountain, the green of the valley stretched away in long rectangles, with a sprinkling of buildings scattered about. Spread before me was the thriving metropolis of Needles. Three offramps later, I’m headed for another row of mountains.

The road slides thru a cut, and there is the Colorado. Slow, narrow, obviously deep as there are no rapids. Cross the bridge, past the warning signs for those bringing in livestock, slide into the cut in the mountains on the other side. Colorado river, come and gone.

The road to Kingman is as stark in its own way as the Mojave, but on this side, it’s the stark of desert mountains. The pillars and mesas randomly scattered thru the Mojave have morphed into wind-carved sedimentary rocks in faded reds, ochers, and sands. Occassionally, the terrain widens out to a valley, with a few buildings to show that humans are stubborn enough to live anywhere.

The final climb to Kingman is steep and twisty. It passes thru some amazingly layered sediment showing the stresses the earth put on the land to build these mountains. There are pictures of one of these currently living in the camera. I’ll add them later, if they came out clear enough. There were also some tremendous thunderheads, but when we finally stopped to eat, there was a huge sign structure right smack in the middle. So you’ll just have to imaging thousands of feet of billowing cloud, lighting reaching down to strike the mountain tops.

As we pulled out of Kingman in the twilight, headed for Ash Fork, the lightning inside that thunderhead lit up the clouds like some gigantic photo studio. As we drove, lightning lit up the sky, cloud to cloud, or cloud to ground, sometimes forking down, once in an amazing s-curve on the mountain tops in front of me. Somewhere between Kingman and Seligman, the promise of rain became reality. Once again, I was driving thru a wall of water, this time in the dark. On the positive side, flashers on all the other cars were much easier to see this time. Once again, I drove on, still disturbing Jim with outbursts of “Wheee!” and “Huzzah!” and “I love Arizona.” I spent some childhood summers in Winslow, and have always loved Arizona’s thunderstorms.

By the time we got to Ash Fork, the rain had faded to the occasional splash. Turning south on Hwy 89, the rain became a steady drizzle. This wouldn’t have been too bad, except instead of having a four-lane divided highway, two in each direction, I’m now driving on a two-lane highway that often just had painted lines without reflective dots. In the rain in the dark, this meant the road markers would disappear. I kept my eye on the truck ahead of me, the center line when I could see it, and Jim kept an eye on the right side of the road to make sure I didn’t slide off that way. Earlier in the day, when it was clear to do so, I was moving at 90mph, but at this point, was happy to ride behind the truck at 65. When we finally made Prescott, the rain had stopped. It’s close on to 10pm at this point, and I told Jim we were taking the first motel we found that had a name we recognized or any kind of rating in the AAA tourist trap book. We found a Holiday Inn Express and checked in. I grabbed the bag with the medical supplies so I could redoctor Jim’s toe, said we can get clothes out tomorrow, blogged and went to bed.

I wish I had pictures of all of it. But if I’d stopped to take pictures, I’d still be on the road. I’ll see what I can do on the way home.