This is a section of the country that I am very familiar with, as it was the location of many childhood camping trips that my Dad took me on. I guess you could say I’ve been a citizen of the American West for my whole life. I never had the family trips to Disneyland, My dad would load up the truck and I would tag along and we’d head out to the west. In the best tradition of Ed Abbey, distances for my dad were measured not in miles, or hours, but in cans of beer. I never quite understood what it was we were doing out there. Was he running away from something, or looking for whatever was next? Maybe both. Watching the wreckage of a failed marriage is always best done through the rearview mirror. At any rate I loved almost every minute of it. And as I continue to live my life after my Father’s has ended, I am constantly reminded of the gift he gave me. The gift is not so much that of the American West, but rather the ability to notice it. To really notice it.
After a brief respite in Escalante and an ice chest refill, I headed back out, and hopped onto Cottonwood Canyon road, just west of Henrieville. This is a nice long dirt road that wends its way down to Kanab. It takes its own sweet time about it too. It is a landscape of names. Kodachrome Basin, Cads Crotch, Mollies Nipple, No Mans Mesa, I stopped at Grosvenor Arch.
Then hit pavement again. (such a disappointment, such a letdown) From there it was but a hop, skip and a jump past Buckskin Mountain and across Telegraph Flat. It was 5 o’clock. I had covered 250 miles in 10 hours and was still in town too early, Damn. I’m a victim of high velocity society. “Even my conditioning has been conditioned” It’ just like Hassan told me at Ait Benhaddou, “Slow down, white people are always “Hurry, hurry like Ferrari”. So I headed up to Coral Pink Sand dunes to take a peek at those. They were nice enough, but the Sahara’s better.
So here’s a question for you: As I’m driving along in my truck, watching the landscape of my youth unfurl past the windshield, am I looking for my Dad, or trying to become him?
