Here is no water but only rock*
As I drove through the deathly hot Mojave desert on my way to southern California, the temperatures soared above 110 degrees on the world's tallest thermometer in Baker, NV. That was outside my car--my trusty, yet not-too-appreciative-of-100-plus-degree-temperature truck, which has no air conditioner and demands that the heater be turned on to dissipate the excessive heat surrounding the engine on such occasions. Wind blown by the hot desert air roaring violently through my open windows and tortured by the oppressive heat coming from both the interstate-via-windows and engine-via-heater, I doused myself constantly with splashes of water and rubbed ice on my head and body while driving through the hot, barren waste land now lined with I-15 and gobs of cars doing the LA--Vegas route in search of...well, I don't know what exactly--fast money? cheap thrills? cheap breakfast buffets? places to throw away money? glitzy entertainment? golf courses?????(in the desert?) air conditioning? water?
I was merely in search of the other side of the desert, the end to the sandy (concrete) road, and some relief from the heat.
Rock and no water and
the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Well, even in the desert these days, there is water, way too much water. Las Vegas just happens to rank number one in per capita water consumption in the U.S.A. Oh, beautiful Colorado, with your wild flowing waters and ribbon like meanders, what have they done to you?
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Las Vegas marked my gateway to the uncontrolled growth, consumption, and egregious impacts of the large mass of humanity that lives in the megalopolis of southern California, which has drunk the Colorado River dry.
Hot and dry and flush, I didn't dare let up on my water and ice dousings.
Sweat is dry and feet
are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
I drove on with the beating sun pelting my car, penetrating through the wide open windows onto my hot face and exposed arms, shoulders and legs. Vehicles zoomed by as I kept my speed down to prevent pushing my engine temperature into the red danger zone. Cars dotted the shoulders, presumably having done just that.
Could there be relief? Thunderclouds built south of Las Vegas and the radio called for maybe a hint of a possibility of a probability for the potential of localized, isolated thunderstorms that afternoon, perhaps.
There is not even silence
in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
A few dozen drops made their way to my windshield and I held my breath in vain for more. The clouds flew away and the sun returned with a vengeance. I let out a huge sigh of yearning and drove into the inferno.
There is not even solitude
in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
I drove on and on into the heat, through the barren beauty of a desert paved over and desecrated by the concrete and cars of Interstate-15, the LA--Vegas expressway. I drove towards the ocean, the great blue Pacific, and yearned for its cool waves. I yearned for my home grown, cool, Colorado rain. I yearned for a wham bam, splash and bash thunderboomer storm. I yearned to dance naked in big, heat swollen rain drops let loose from a torrent of heavenly deluge. I yearned for a natural, beautiful body of water in which to dunk my own.
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water.
At last, I reached San Bernadino and the metro freeways, gateway to hell. After a brief traffic jam, I exited I-10 and followed Jay's directions to his house in Redlands--which is next to Loma Linda where he's attending medical school, which is next to San Bernadino, which is next to...and so forth. All cities run into each other in Southern California, like bright colored clothes do when washed in hot water. You can literally drive for a hundred straight miles on the freeway in the LA metro area and not see anything but city and sprawl and concrete and development and, of course, other cars and people and smog. The denizens of this madness become "used to it" (so they say)...in a sick, demented sort of way. Is it any wonder the crime rate soars in such megalopolises? Subconsciously, the human species is not evolved to handle such urbanized torture and to be so far removed from the natural world.
At any rate, I arrived in the upscale Redlands neighborhood and found Jay's house. It looked like a very clean, safe neighborhood, but the first thing he had me do was to put my bike in the garage as a prophylactic against theft. Then, I soaked in the requisite swimming pool in the small back yard. Ahh, relief.
I'll skip commentary on the race. Suffice it to say that it was hot. Damn hot. Hotter than... Well, it was hot and the lake...well, in reality, the reservoir called Lake Perris State Park was a zoo all weekend with recreating Californians. "Por favor, usar el bano / Please, use the bathrooms," read the signs on the beach. Questions about the safety of the water quality arose at the pre-race meeting (one beach of the reservoir was closed due to poor water quality) and a frustrated woman asked people to be on the look out for her bike which was stolen from her campsite the night before.
Ah, southern California. One only needs to spend a few days in this place to understand the dire consequences of our severe overpopulation problem on this planet.
Everything in California is packed. There is no solitude, or at least it is very hard to find. Cars, traffic, vehicles, automobiles and lots of people everywhere. The one thing it has going for it is the diversity of the people. One can flip through the radio stations and find several Spanish speaking stations. You can walk from one end of a city (there are several, just pick one) and hear a variety of languages being spoken. If everyone in the state were to actually vote, Pete Wilson and his Republican legislating anti-immigrant, xenophobic, anti-union, contra-bilingual education, anti-welfare, against universal health care cronies would certainly be out of power. Keep hope alive.
Well, the weekend came to an end and I ate one final meal at Souplantation, the salad buffet place in Loma Linda, before heading out of hell on Monday afternoon in search of the majestic Rockies and cool, clear Colorado rain.
There's nothing more beautiful than a raw, untouched desert setting. There's nothing more ugly than a city, paved with concrete and freeways, choked with smog and pollution, set right in the middle of a desert, in the midst of a heat wave. Heaven and hell have nothing to do with ethereal intervention; they are merely products of our own imaginations and actions. They firmly exist on Earth.
So, I left the urban desert entrapment of San Bernadino et al, where the air quality rating was unhealthful (which is the middle rating on the scale) and drove away from the sprawling cities, into the desert, skirted north of Palm Springs and climbed up to Joshua Tree National Monument. As I topped out at the elevation of the town of Joshua Tree, I found clean, fresh desert smelling air. I breathed deeply and noticed the temperature to be a cool, refreshing, and unusually low 79 degrees beneath the cloud cover I had had since the beginning of my drive. Nice! As I said, the air smelled uniquely refreshing and enticing. It had that dry, altitude desert aroma about it, and it was quite different than the air in the ugly-hot and barren stretch of the Mojave I traveled a few days before between Las Vegas and LA. Perhaps, the smell originated from the weirdly beautiful and comforting Joshua Trees that dotted the desert here.
I drove into the national park and filled my eyes with the beauty of the barren desert alive with life and character and enticement. Solitude. Beauty. Few people, merely thousands of Joshua Trees standing in their own, uncrowded space with flailing arms outstretched to the sky as if waiting or pleading or enticing the rain to fall on the smoothly wind-sculpted rocks that jutted above the land amongst the mountains and under the lemon-yellow hydrogen sun.
I made my way up to Keys View, which is at 5,185 feet. I looked south over the valley below which holds Palm Springs and Indio, a large date growing region. The Salton Sea, which formed in 1905 (or 1935?) when the Colorado River broke its banks near Yuma, AZ and filled in the old lake basin, was barely visible. (Yeah, Colorado, bust loose again and break free!) The Salton Sea is actually below sea level and measures forty miles across. On a good day, it is possible to have a good view of the Salton Sea and look across into Mexico. Unfortunately, good days are hard to find as the smog and haze and general pollution from overpopulated, urban southern California makes its egregious presence known. That same egregious presence is even felt at the Grand Canyon, which was my stop the next day.
My drive from Joshua Tree took place in the late afternoon and even though I drove out of the cloud cover and into the barren, sun baked floor of the low desert after descending from the park, it was a much cooler drive than on the way out to southern Cal. It's amazing to note that the temperature at ground level can reach 180 degrees when the temperature several feet above ground is a mere 100. That's hot! Yet, in the winter, snow can dust the landscape with its cool presence. It's a beautiful and fascinating glimpse at the extremities of the desert to look at pictures of the place after a snowstorm compared to what you're seeing in the middle of the summer. I looked at pictures of winter snows gracing both Joshua Tree and the Grand Canyon at the respective visitor centers during my stays. Quite awesome!
The peaceful, calming and cooling presence of dusk and the setting sun arrived as I made my way through western Arizona, along I-40. There isn't a more beautiful and emotionally exhilarating time of day. I thought of the Joshua Tree, which looks like a tree but is actually related to the yucca plant. It has no growth rings and thus age cannot be determined by counting rings. Heading towards Williams and the turn-off to the Grand Canyon, I drank in the evening light and let the cool dusk air glide over my skin, while I listened to U2 on my stereo, as I did for a while when driving around Joshua Tree.
Desert sky, dream beneath
the desert sky
Rivers run that soon run dry, we need new dreams tonight
Desert rose, dreamed I saw a desert rose
Dressed all in ribbons and in bows, like a siren she calls to
me
Sleep comes like a drug
In God's country
Sad eyes and crooked crosses
In God's country...
There's nothing more beautiful than a raw, untouched desert setting. Heaven on earth.
"Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world," Jerry sang to me as I drove into Williams, AZ in the dark. I could sense the woody, cool altitude presence of lovely pines and knew I was through the hottest of the return drive to Colorado. I drove north to the Grand Canyon National Park entrance and found all the camp grounds to be full. Duh. But, found a forest road that lead off the main highway with pull-out spots on which to primitively car camp. That's all I needed, a place to pull into so I could sleep in the back of my truck. Ah, the freedom of the wanderer. Tired, I promptly hit the sack. Not far away, other campers were doing the same, albeit in tents, replete with camp fires. In fact, a few midnight mountain bikers were out for a moonlight ride. I heard them tearing down the trail outside my camp spot.
I woke up early (the sun always comes up early in Arizona in the summer since they don't do Daylight Savings) and eager to get up and into the park. Of course, I had to fork over $20 for the entrance fee, but hey, I hadn't been there since I was a kid, even with all the traveling I do in that area, so it was worth it. Luckily, my early rise put me in the park by 7:00, while the hordes of tourists were still on their way. I managed a few views in relative calmness before it started getting crazy by mid-morning.
Upon viewing the canyon, the immense Grand Canyon, the most astonishing surprise is the vastness of the three dimensional depth that jumps out at you. It's nothing that can be adequately portrayed in a flat, two dimensional photo. It's a perspective that can only be dug in person. It would have been quite amazing to have been an unknowing Indian or the first European explorer to have stumbled upon this jewel of nature. What a fantastic surprise and grand astonishment to have seen the Canyon in its most raw and sublime state without any forewarning.
But today... People! Everywhere people!! Everything packed and filled. Campgrounds are filled months in advance, if not longer. The noise of cars and shuttle buses and trucks filled the road along the rim. Helicopters, planes. It was a stark contrast to the solitude I found in Joshua Tree. It's a developed natural wonder. It's a tourist spot, not just a place for those who appreciate natural beauty. I saw Japanese teenagers walking around in fancy shoes and American families snapping pictures of their summer vacation to take back to their photo album. It's amazing the amount of people that visit the Grand Canyon. I heard more languages than I did in southern California just walking down the paths near the rim. It's wonderful that it can be such a shared, international experience, yet we're smothering its naturalness. Bruce Babbit, help us save our natural treasures before they're all destroyed!
Yes, photochemical smog from southern California even affects the visibility in the Grand Canyon, especially in the summer. In the winter, weather patterns bring in smog and pollution from southern Arizona (Phoenix) and northern Mexico. Industrialism is destroying our soul and natural beauty in an incessant race to produce more of nothing!
I left the hordes and masses and hazy views by noon and headed away from the park and into the more peaceful desert to the west. Through Arizona and the Navajo reservation, to the Four Corners, where I stopped to urinate (in the porta-toilet, not on the survey marker/monument.) I did stand on the spot where the four states meet and walked around in a circle, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona. What the hell, it means nothing, but it was just off the highway and I needed to stretch anyway. Then, I drove into Colorado! Home again! Ah, I was getting closer and closer to my beloved Rockies.
Through Cortez, on into Durango, then north into the San Juan mountains, towards Silverton. What raw, fantastic, unadulterated beauty! This was what I longed for in the heat of ugly San Bernadino. I breathed deeply and pulled into Little Molas Lake to camp. It's the most sublime setting I've ever driven a vehicle to--absolutely gorgeous! A sight for sore eyes and a cool comfort to a heat baked traveler. It was that glorious time of day again--evening, dusk, the hour of the setting sun, when the light softly vibrates through the deeply colored sky, reverberating both warmth and coolness, a cool warmth that tantalizes the senses with wonder and awe and inspiration for great thoughts and dreams and emotional clarity and beauty. I love Colorado!! This is heaven! I walked down to the lake and washed the grime from my body, while receiving its blessed refreshment. I was in pure ecstasy and prayed to the collective soul of humanity that this heaven would remain un-molested. Something so sublime must never be turned into a hell. I would rather die before letting my heaven be turned into another hell.
Sad thoughts of the profligate impacts our species is wreaking on our home can lead to pessimistic thinking. Yet, there is no room for such pessimism among such beauty. My face beamed with a radiant smile and hope for a yet-to-be-shaped future soon to come, shaped by the thoughts and actions derived from the beautiful inspirations of a present evaporating with every breath.
I woke up from a restful sleep to a glorious morning, after a refreshingly cool mountain night. Ahhhh! I headed out for a nice, peaceful, sublime two hour trail run amidst the solitude of the Colorado Trail. I only saw people during the last few miles of my run before returning to Little Molas Lake and my camp spot. I hope to hike the trail next summer. I couldn't think of a better way to spend a month or so.
I want to end this account with a lingering picture of beauty, but also with a plea to seek out, shape, preserve, and demand beauty. Without beauty, we have nothing but ugliness...
*Excerpts from "The Wasteland" by T.S. Eliot are in italics.