Day #9: Grand Canyon to Williams Arizona (p.m.)

The East Entrance to the Canyon had always been my least favorite way to enter the Park. I usually arrived by the elevated and back canyon road from Flagstaff known as Arizona Rt.# 64.  Alpine and rural, it was more than a mile up in the clouds. Today though, I had no other choice and would enter the park from the lowest depths of a barren landscape.  It was dusty and hot (106’) when I passed the old Cameron Trading Post just before the Park’s entrance.  I turned onto the park road and looked high up into the distance before me. The greatest sight visible anywhere on earth, and the standard bearer of all God’s creation, was just beyond my reach — but it wouldn’t be for long!

I climbed the twenty-six miles toward the rim, and as the temperature dropped, my spirit soared.  The memory of Sam was now a spiritual bead on my Rosary to be remembered in my thoughts and prayed for every day. I saw two great hawks soaring overhead.  They were not moving their wings and remained motionless as they went higher.  I knew they were caught in the great updraft of something whose true height could not be measured and whose depths would never be fully explored.

The Comfort Zone Of Relative Size And Dimension Was About To                                           Disappear

At the top, I saw at least 100 cars parked along the canyon’s edge.  This marked the first series of rims and lookout points for what no first visitor was ever ready to see.  As I searched for a place to park the bike, the returning vision of something I had never been able to explain rushed out and overtook me again.  

I knew, after so many visits, you never looked into the Grand Canyon without permission. The only way to truly see what your eyes were about to embrace was to accept the changes happening inside of you as you stood in her presence. The Canyon took hold of all searchers and played with their sight while making it her own.  Finally, she gave back to the lucky few a new vision of themselves, affirming those things that they had up until now denied.

It was a mid-August day, and I had never been here during the height of tourist season.  As I walked to the Canyon’s edge, I had to weave through the packed in crowd of European and Asian tourists lining the rail. Looking off into her distance, a blessed transformance emptied my soul. It created space for what I was hoping to take with me, and with each visit I knew the cost increased. Each time I left, there would be an even greater part of myself left behind — a part that would call out when my confusion returned.  The Great Canyon cared not about reasons or circumstance, she stood only as she is, a GIANT, isolated from all ordinary things, a connective force that allowed us to dream beyond ourselves … and to eventually see.  

It led you beyond what you thought yourself capable of before.  And without guidepost or roadmap, it brought you only and exactly to where you most needed to go.  The Great Canyon began where your imagination ended and, by looking into her depths, you were at once changed and transformed.  Transformation being measured by what you left behind.

The Great Canyon neither pretended to know what you know nor portended your future. Timeless and unchallenged, she stood guard over all that is. Your questions here were but echoes from a distant memory.  It was, the one spot on earth, where you stood and heard the answers returned to you for what they were — disturbing reminders that much of your life had been spent in denial.  

She neither blessed nor forgave, and her message spoke only of today. Whether you looked one time or stared into her unending depths forever, she treated you the same.  All meaning was derived from what she taught and the immediacy of how that made you feel.

Like two things that must be shaken together to be truly mixed, the Grand Canyon joined your mind and spirit in a cocktail that intoxicated your soul. She inebriated your entire being.  Yes, she was that big and more.  To say otherwise only reinforced what you still needed to know.  She continually poured all that she was, and is, into everything that you were not. Like the arid canyons and valleys that were overflowing with her waters, our spirits hoped to become a small tributary into what she had become.  

Becoming was all that mattered in the Canyon, yesterday and tomorrow were for those already dead inside.  I looked up again and saw the Great Hawk. Its wings were tucked back in dive position, and it was headed toward its destiny in the Colorado River below.  All of life’s summation was contained within its dive, and all that would ever matter in my own life was contained in the connection I felt.

I stopped at ten different rims that afternoon, but one would have been enough. What stared back at me never changed until everything inside of me was again new. My first look into the eyes of my Spiritual Mother 30 years ago, and the one again today, released me from ever having to be in only one place. She called to me in the most distant reaches of my isolation and reminded me that whenever lonely or confused, with her — I would always have a home.

There was never a way to come ‘to terms’ or to ‘make peace’ with what the Canyon taught. The very best you could hope for was to live unguarded and within the message of her timeless beauty. Within your spiritual awakening there would be found an eternal connection, and in the release that it brought you … you could make peace with yourself.  

There were no rooms, either inside or outside the park, as I passed by Canyon Village. I gladly bypassed the tourist frenzy that happened at both sunset and sunrise and pointed the bike further South.  I did not resent or begrudge the tourists for what they did or for what they thought they wanted.  I just needed to be alone with my mother, but for today that might have to wait.  As I left the Park, I spotted the long gravel road that was used only by the park service. It was open and still had not been paved.  I turned left and traveled its half-mile length to a ****** rim which faced off to the East. I had worried, when coming up from Cameron, that it might no longer be accessible.  It was here that I had always been able to talk to my mother alone, and the place where her voice had always been loudest and strong.

  As She Sensed My Approach, The Ancient Memories Returned

It was a private access road, and by design was restricted to all trespassers like me. My mother had called loudest to me from here, and I liked thinking of this place as hers and mine alone. After less than five minutes in her presence, two hikers came out of the bushes saying: “WOW, the view is really spectacular from here.”  I realized at that moment that the concept of ownership was still one of my many faults and one that I had to work on if I was ever to become totally free.  I shared my mother with the two German hikers, as we celebrated in communal reverence an unspoken reflection.

An hour later, and having made two new friends, I was again on my way. I eased the bike down the old service road and made the left turn onto Rt.#64 toward Flagstaff.  From this spot on the Canyon’s Far South Rim, I had only eighty more miles to go.  In her neither giving nor taking away, my mother had put me at rest about Sam. As she said goodbye she left me with the words: “Your sympathy will never change what only your empathy can set free.”  

I exited the Park in a southerly direction and saw no other people.  The only sound I heard was my mother’s heartbeat. It was from the current she carried deeply inside of her so far below.  I thanked her again for having kept me close and reminded her of how much my father loved her. By returning me to her this week, he reaffirmed his deepest feelings.  And from the High Northern Regions that fed her each spring, he stood forever vigilant and on-guard. She smiled back at me from her great distance and expressed with her silence the things that only he could hear and the things that a son, no matter how dutiful, could never truly understand.  

The high pines that lined this back road out of the Canyon made it one of my favorite rides.  It was getting to be late afternoon, as I rolled past the cattle herds and cut timber that filled this high mountain plateau. Most would never associate this landscape with Arizona, as it more resembled Idaho or Northwestern Colorado. This part of the Great Canyon State was atypical of what you expected and special unto itself.  In thirty miles, I came to a major fork in the road.  To the left was Flagstaff, but to the right was Williams.  Both towns sat on Interstate Rt.#40, but Williams was closer, and since I had never spent the night there before, I took the fork to the right.

        Newness Was Always Birth Mother To My Anticipation

In a long hour I was in Williams. It was one of the old original stops along the Mother Road. At one time, Rt#66 was the main artery East and West across America.  It was along its corridor, and before the interstate highway system was built, that the great motorized migrations of Detroit iron began. Williams was still trying to eke out a living based on the myth of the old road, and a resurgence and hunger for 1950’s glory kept the tourists coming … especially those fifty and older. It was quaint and touristy, but then it always had been. It was also mostly authentic and looked just as it had when the autos were carbureted, the air-conditioner was a hand crank on the inside of the car’s door, and families were large.

After I circled the town twice on its two parallel (and 1-way) main roads, hunger overtook me, and I was in search of good food.  I was lucky enough to get the last room at the Red Garter Inn where I parked the motorcycle for the night.  After a quick fresh up in the bathroom, I left my helmet on the bedside table and hung my Kevlar riding jacket on the back of the closet door.  I was still in the lower half of my riding suit, with my boots on, as I headed into town.  It was something that I had learned years ago and was now a rule that I carefully observed. Staying in my riding suit prompted conversations with strangers and other motorcyclists that would never have happened otherwise.  Tonight turned out to be no exception.

It Also Allowed Me To Travel Out From Pennsylvania With Only                                          One Small Bag

As I walked up a side street from my hotel into town, I heard one of the two things I was looking for, ‘Live Music.’ The guitar player was halfway through ‘Gentle On My Mind,’ by the great Mississippi River banjo player, John Hartford.  Most people thought Glenn Campbell had written the song on his famous Ovation 12-string guitar. He did have a big hit with it back in the 60’s, but it was actually written by John Hartford and a song that I had always loved.  As I followed my ears, the guitar player morphed right into the great instrumental, ‘Classical Gas,’ by Mason Williams.  By now I could see the café/restaurant at the next corner, and from all outward appearances, it was everything I had hoped for.

It Was Called Pancho McGillicuddys, And The Food Smelled As                             Good As The Music Sounded

The waitress seated me at an outside table with a view of the street.  I was less than thirty feet from where the guitar player sat, as he started to play the great Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg song — ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow.’  This is the greatest American song ever written, and he performed it well.  Upon finishing, he took a break, and the waitress came back for my order.  The quesadilla combo, refried beans, and local micro-brew, sounded perfect, as the sun disappeared behind me and off to my left. The last table was being seated, as the gas lights came on that lined the streets, and darkness became a backdrop to a magical sky.    

I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this hungry.  The waitress brought my food as the guitar player returned.  The first song of his new set was ‘Fire And Rain,’ by James Taylor, which is my favorite song of all time. I knew at that moment, that on this night, and in this town, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.  I decided to give my mind the night off and just go with the music.  If you’re ever in Williams, and in need of a travel break, I can’t recommend McGillicuddys highly enough.

Sometimes, Like Tonight, The ‘Road’ Presents You With A Special                                                    Gift

A big smile was permanently implanted on my face, as a family of four came in and was seated at the table to my left.  It was a father and mother in their late forties, and two teenaged boys. The father was wearing a lacrosse t-shirt from a school I didn’t recognize, so when he looked over and smiled, I said, “Nice to see a Lacrosse shirt so far from home.” He answered: “We’re from Portsmouth Virginia and out here on vacation, I played at Woodberry-Forest, and both boys now play at their respective schools.”

He then said, “So what are you riding?” The boots and the riding pants were a dead giveaway, as the guitar player started ‘Cheeseburger In Paradise’ by Jimmy Buffett.  He was sure it was a Harley, as I explained I was riding a Honda Goldwing. I told him that after 40 years of riding, the Goldwing was the best touring bike that God, or any engineer, had ever made.  As I explained to him the benefits of shaft drive over a belt or chain, his eyes widened, as he finally grasped where my travels had taken me during the past ten days.

“You went from Vegas to the Canadian border and then south to Arizona, all in a long week?”  Yes, I answered him, and every mile was a joy to ride. I wish there had been more time because then I could have gone further north, maybe even to Alaska.  At this point his wife’s eyes glassed over, as women’s often do, when mentally picturing their own husbands riding a motorcycle. They often saw only the danger and not the thrill and joy of riding to new places.  It was a shame, but it was a reality and a major hurdle that most men had to get over at home when they made the decision to ride later in life.

We continued to talk while they ate, and I came to find out that their oldest son’s high school coach had been a teammate of my sons when he was in high school. They were both on a team that had won the Pennsylvania State Lacrosse Championship back in 2000.  Sometimes, the very best things in life also had the smallest following.  Small, in terms of the numbers they produced, but large in the effects that their participation created.  Both long-distance motorcycle touring and lacrosse had been two of those special things in my life.  They created a spiritual and permanent bond between all those who had either played or ridden together and resulted in lifelong friendships that are cherished to this day.

On 9/11, Almost 100 Of Our Beloved Lacrosse Alumni Lost Their                                              Lives

His wife then asked me where my son had gone to high school.  “Haverford School,” I told her.  She brightened up immediately and said, “I went to Haverford College which is right next door.”  “Amazing,” I said, “how small the world really is.”  She then wanted to know what the college lacrosse recruiting process was like during the third year of high school. I was glad to share with both her and her husband what my son and I had gone through only ten years ago.  That small world we rediscovered through our common experience continued to get smaller throughout the evening. We continued to share more of where our lives had taken us and, in being together in this remote spot along old Highway Rt. #66, we grew bigger inside.

As the waitress passed my table again, I realized that I had already had one beer too many and was enjoying myself entirely too much.  I said goodbye to my new friends and started the walk back to my hotel glad that I didn’t have to get back on the motorcycle again tonight. After four beers, I knew that I would never try to ride, but the removal of temptation went a long way.

Sleep came easy on that night, and I did not dream —the effects of having lived beyond what on most days I only hoped for.  I thought to myself while still awake in the darkened room, with only the light from the train-yard filtering through my window, how truly lucky I was … even if everything ended tonight.  

Just then, the high-pitched whistle of a distant train approaching Williams, came through my wall.  It was a fitting exclamation point to another day beyond all planning and another example of why without a fixed itinerary, I continued to ride.  Just before sleep, the immortal words of Crazy Horse and the Oglala people flashed before my eyes. “HOKA HEY’, it is a good day to die.”  The Lakota knew that a good day to die was an even better one to live, and on this incredible day that ended in Williams Arizona, so did I.

My Prayer That Night Was To Avoid All Future Mediocrity, As The Back-Half Of My Life Continued To Unfold



Authors Note:
These chapters became longer as the sweetness of the days they told of increased.  Each one built upon the other until blockages were unstopped — with all knowledge running back to its source.

Day #8: Cortez Colorado To ‘The Grand Canyon’

Thoughts of Monument Valley, Mexican Hat, and the Grand Canyon consumed my morning, as I quickly repacked the bike to get back to my ride.  It had rained during the night, and the windshield of the bike was dotted with the dried residue of raindrops. Not enough to be bothersome, but just visible enough so I knew they were there. The pattern they made across the large plexiglass shield told a story of what had happened during the night while I was asleep.  

It was cool this morning, and the temperature on the bike’s dashboard registered only 53 degrees as I pulled out of the motel parking lot onto Rt.#160W. I purposely avoided any breakfast and thought only about the delicious frybread at the 4-Corners National Monument. 4-Corners was where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico all met in perfect symmetry, and at its southern end was a rickety old trailer run by a Navajo family that served some of the best frybread between Phoenix and Durango.

To my great disappointment, the frybread trailer was still closed when I arrived at 4-Corners.  The jewelry stands were all open and staffed, and the stone parking lot was full, but the old trailer that advertised Navajo Frybread, located in the extreme southwest corner of the memorial, was still dark and empty inside. I asked the friendly Navajo lady in the jewelry stand, to the right of the trailer, what time she thought they would reopen.  She said: “It was always hard to tell, because they never showed up on time.  They should have opened over a half hour ago, but they couldn’t be counted on to keep to a set schedule.” With that, she shook her head in disgust and said something in Navajo that I didn’t understand.  Trust me — it wasn’t good.  

It was now past 9:30 in the morning, and my stomach had started to growl.  I thanked her for the information and asked her what spot on the radio dial the Navajo Station was coming in on this far from Kayenta.  Her name was Rosita, and she told me it was coming in clearly at 6:60 on the a.m. dial.

What was it with multiple sixes in this part of the west?  The infamous highway now called Rt. #491 used to be labeled Rt.#666.  The locals referred to it as the ‘Devils Highway.’  It got so much bad press that the route number was eventually changed. There was even a Hollywood movie (Natural Born Killers) filmed along its route.  At least this radio station had only two sixes, but still the connection was strange, and it made me wonder again about the choice of location. Maybe there was no choice, and 6:60 was the only spot available on the dial for the Navajo Station, or maybe it was something more …  

I wanted to believe it was just co-incidence as I headed back to the bike. On my way to the parking lot, I noticed that the monument had changed, and so had my opinion of it.  The Memorial itself was fine, but the four rows of shops that surrounded it — forming a perfect square with the flagpole in the center — were much different than before.  

Instead of the old rustic wooden stands that used to form the rows, the shops were now a modern masonry (sandstone and adobe) and all connected with one no different from the other.  They looked like rejects from an out of work architect’s bad dream. My connection to the Navajo Nation used to be strong here, but today I felt nothing more than a nagging anxiety to get going, and for the first time ever I had no desire to return.  

I headed west on Rt.#160 and turned right onto Rt.#191 north until it connected with Rt.# 163 in Bluff Utah. This would take me through Monument Valley and then back in a southerly direction to the Navajo town of Kayenta Arizona. In many ways, the Navajo Nation was frozen in its own time warp. It observed daylight savings time, while the rest of Arizona did not, which always caused me to smile when coming through here in the summer and looking at my watch. This truly was a nation, with its own sense of time and place, and being a visitor was all I would ever be.

Being A Welcomed Visitor Would Always Be Good Enough For Me

The loop north, through Utah, was a longer way to go, but the road went right through the great Valley Of The Gods, and Mexican Hat, and was more than worth any amount of extra time.  As I made the right turn onto Rt.#191, I was visually assaulted with the vastness, and awestruck wonder, contained within the sand and rock of the American Southwest. It was unlike anyplace else, and I was reborn in its spirit every time I passed beneath the shadows of its ancient monuments.

I looked off to the west and remembered the first time I came through here back in the spring of 1971. I had had to stop repeatedly, as my spirit breathed in what my eyes wouldn’t accept.   It was on that day that I first realized that one of your senses could lie to you about what another one held dear as the truth.

Alone on the road, the miles were again my only companion, as the sand and the rock measured me for who and what I was.  Beneath their great shadows, I was but a transitory annoyance in the mega-millenia history of all that they knew.  Like the occasional fly or gnat that landed on my face shield, I was something only to be swatted away or ignored, with no real significance, and deserving of no serious thought.

As I passed unnoticed beneath their immortal grandeur, the changes they inspired, and the walls they tore down, would live forever inside my new insignificance. There was nothing symbiotic, or co-authored, about my place in this desert.  Monument Valley existed as it always had … welcoming, but with an unsettled message you had to measure yourself against.  In the beginning, I thought the message was coming from somewhere deep inside the towering Mesas and Buttes only to discover that it was coming from deep inside myself.

In what seemed like an instant, and without warning, Mexican Hat appeared off to my left.  Today it seemed bigger than before, and for that I am grateful.  Most things appeared smaller, when revisited, than they were in my memory, but this morning Mexican Hat was larger than ever before.  It was nestled against the horizon on the mesa’s edge, far enough away to ensure its own safety, but close enough to remind us of how small we really were.

I stopped the bike on the apron and took pictures while burying in the sand something of myself I never wanted back.  I brought small tokens of homage on these trips hoping to trade them for a deeper spirituality. What I left behind was only a tiny symbol of thanks for what they had already given me.  It felt good again to say thank you after having worshipped for so many years in their shadow. As I re-crossed the road, with my limitations offloaded, in the timelessness of the Valley’s eternal presence — I headed West.

In what others saw as only desert and rock, I saw as the exposed truth of a landscape beyond reform.  It welcomed me back while happily letting me go. It knew I was on the way to see my Spiritual Mother, and it also knew that the great hope chest of her arrival was created here.  

I got on the bike as the radio came back on.  I heard the Navajo commentator say the word Walmart, as the rhythm of her native words danced through the air.  Thank God there was still no native word for that modern symbol of consumerism that so much of our society had become slave to.

‘Lowest Prices Every Day, Lowest Expectations Inside Of Yourself’

The veneer of Native America masked the same problems shared by the rest of our country but with one major difference.  In trying to hang onto, and preserve, their own culture, they served to dignify their struggle.  Wasn’t a dignified struggle a definition of life itself? Without it, how could a life be truly lived? Without it, one is just being observed or marking time?  Marking time had become the catalyst, and the driving force, behind all cultural suicide and the one gift from the Industrial Revolution that we needed to give back.  It was where the spirits of the unfulfilled died from reasons unexplained, and all that was left behind was just excuse. The great illusion was that the machines had saved us from everything —everything but ourselves!

       Idle Time Was Its Undoing — A ‘Bad Day To Die’

I said goodbye to Mexican Hat as it disappeared over my left shoulder. I was again the only one on the road.  It was more evident to me than ever how fond I had become of this motorcycle during the past eight days. It did everything I asked of it, while doing it quietly, and was a reminder that I should be doing the same.  

Alone with my thoughts, the spirits of my ancestors — and their ancestors before them —crowded into my subconscious mind.  The word subconscious was an anglicized term for those places inside of us that never should have been divided. I bled for all the things in my life still left undone but hoped that by the end of this trip they would not remain unsaid.

The history of the Navajo people lay buried in the sand and would forever hold the spirit of the things they had taught me. As I waved to two Harley riders headed in the opposite direction, I wondered if they ever thought about how we got to this place.  Was it an accident or accidental fortune or something words would never know?  Ahead, I saw a sign warning of a sharp left turn in less than a quarter mile.  When I got closer, the image of the San Juan Trading Post rose like the Phoenix from the desert floor.  Sitting low and deep in a knoll by the river’s edge, it beckoned you to stop without telling you why.  

Why — was a question I had refused to deal with since leaving the motel. As I parked the bike in front of the Trading Post’s Café, the smell of something wonderful drifted through a window in the back.  In the back, and to the left, was where the kitchen was located. The smell was so overpowering that I was frozen in place, and I stood there in the bright sunlight taking in as much as I could.

          Why, Being The Question I Tried Most To Avoid

There was usually a reason for why most things happened even when not apparent. The closed Frybread stand at the 4-Corners Monument made more sense to me now.  Had I eaten there, I would have probably bypassed the Trading Post altogether.  All who have had the good fortune to stop there know that their Frybread is the very best. It’s served in the round, comes with powdered sugar, and is the size of a small pizza. I have always tweaked mine with maple syrup on top.

I asked Sam, the Café’s manager, and an old friend, if they still had the maple syrup that they kept hidden in the back.  He said, “Yes Kurt, you’ve been one of the few, if not the only one, that’s ever asked for it.  It may not have been out front since the last time you were here.”  I liked the thought of being the only one that enjoyed Frybread that way.  I thanked Sam again, but I also noticed something about him that seemed disturbing and strange.

Sam was limping with his left leg, dragging it is more apt, as he headed down the forty-foot-long corridor to the kitchen pantry for my syrup.  As he started back my way, I could tell from the look on his face that he was in a great deal of pain. Already knowing the answer, I asked Sam what was wrong.  He said: “I have an arthritic hip.”  At this I smiled, lightened up, and said: “Sam, I had my own left hip replaced just a few years ago.  It now feels like the real thing and allows me to do everything I like to do.”  This motorcycle trip of almost 5000 miles is no problem,” I told him, as he grimly smiled and looked away.

“How much did it cost?” he asked, as he cleared my table and walked back to the register.  With that, I grew sad because I did remember — and it was over $32,000. I did not tell him the cost hoping there was a health plan on the reservation that would allow him to get it done.  He looked at me again and said: “I’ve seen three doctors, and they’ve all said the same thing.”

They all told him that there was nothing more to be done, at that point, other than having it replaced. “I could have had it done in Phoenix or Tucson and been back on the reservation in three days, but the cost is what’s stopping me.” “I know Sam, I was in and out of the hospital myself in less time than that”… still not commenting on the price.

I left cash on the table as I paid my bill. Sam and I hugged one last time and he walked me outside to the bike. Before putting my helmet back on, we looked at each other once more in the eye.  He knew and appreciated that I understood what he was going through and that his pain would continue until his hip was replaced. It was more likely than not, and something I hated to admit to myself — that his pain would continue.

I asked him, as I was leaving, about any V.A. (Veterans Administration) options. He looked at me through very sad eyes and said: “They told me it was not degenerative enough for the V.A to transfer me to a private hospital, and they don’t perform that kind of operation here on the Rez.”

He had told me inside that he remembered the many years I had limped, and how badly he always felt when watching me leave.  The desk clerk at the adjoining motel actually mentioned me to him. She told him that a guy just left the Cafe on a motorcycle and was riding with his left leg completely down (straight) and not on the foot-peg.  He told her it was because I could not bend my left leg, and my only choice was to ride with it extended and straight down.  He also told her it was not a good option but better than the other alternative of not riding at all.

     So Many Times In Life We Have To Live Inside ‘Plan-B’

Sam looked seventy-five, but he was actually ten years younger than I was.  At fifty-two, he had far too many years of pain left to endure.  With all the money and resources wasted, and given away to countries that hated us, here was a crippled veteran of the United States Marine Corps who was in desperate need of real help. In my mind, no one could have deserved it more.  I watched Sam slowly limp back into the Café as I climbed the steep parking lot road back onto Rt. #163S.  

As I headed into the great Monument Valley, I thought about all the Native Americans who had served their country and were in dire need of health care. Within a 100-mile radius, I knew there were forgotten thousands suffering in pain.  Because of a broken health care system, and the apathy of an ungrateful nation, the only choice available to most of them was to quietly soldier on.

Their Pain And Suffering Continues Long After The Battles Have                                   Been Fought

As I headed east toward the Canyon, I thought about everything that had been so savagely torn away from them. Life on the reservation was challenging enough and the simple elements of life, that most of us take for granted, should not be denied to them.  I gave Sam my current cell number before I left and asked him to contact me in two weeks.  I was hoping that the great doctors who did my hip might be persuaded to take a pro-bono case like Sam’s. I told him that I would be more than willing to provide the airfare to Philadelphia and back — and he could stay with me. I wish I had had the resources to pay for the operation itself. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend money that, unfortunately, I didn’t have.

Sam promised he’d be in touch but in my heart, I didn’t believe him.  Native American dignity has always both inspired and confused me.  They bear life’s darker side with an acceptance that few of us could ever understand and even less endure.

                I Knew I Would Have To Call Him

The final thirty miles to Kayenta was a tribute to the great film director, John Ford, and his mastery in this valley. I felt his strong imagery call out to me with every bend in the road. His camera was magical, and he truly understood both the mystery, and the majesty, of these sacred lands. The time he spent here, and the stories he told, both changed and shaped our image of the American West forever. It was a romanticized image, yes, but one where the intrinsic beauty of the canyons and desert jumped right off the screen and into our imaginations. He lives inside of me now, as he lived inside me then.

A Five-Year-Old Boy Was Changed Forever By The Images Coming From The Small, Eleven Inch, Black And White T.V.

As the mesas and buttes became larger, my thoughts and feelings did the same. It was a shared epiphany of expansion as I crossed back over the Arizona line, but the sadness that I felt for Sam lingered inside. Even the towering imagery of the distant monuments had not chased it away. I remembered my own hip pain and could feel what he was suffering.  Before leaving them, I prayed to the God’s of this valley to enter my thoughts and force these dark clouds to leave — and to bless Sam with good fortune.  

It was mid-afternoon, as I entered Kayenta through its northern end. I was both thirsty and in need of gas.  As filling as the Frybread had been back at the San Juan Cafe, I was hungry again. After an egg salad sandwich and grape juice out of the cold chest at the Mobil Station, I felt much better. This quick stop would be enough to hold me over until I arrived at the Canyon later in the afternoon.

Kayenta put me back on Rt.#160S toward Tuba City where I would bear left onto Rt.#89 for the short trip down to Cameron. Rt.#89 was one of my two main roads of discovery, and it was always good to see it again — we knew each other so well. Cameron, the low-sitting town on the high desert’s floor, had served as a major trading post for Navajo artists and rug makers for over 100 years.  It was also the East Entrance to Grand Canyon National Park.

Day #7: Vernal to Cortez

The next morning, I was on Rt #40 and headed from Vernal Utah to Dinosaur Colorado. I wished that I had had the time to go into the dinosaur museum again.  When I was last there, over fifteen years ago, they had a fossilized dinosaur, and it was almost half uncovered from the side of the cliff where it was buried.  They had built the museum around this discovery, and its walls connected right to the cliff on both sides of the dig.  I made a bet with myself as I passed by that they had entirely uncovered it by now.  It was hard to believe in this dry arid climate that the greatest creatures to ever walk the earth once roamed here.

This Week Was Not About Museums Or Sideshows, It Was About The ‘Ride’

At Dinosaur, I took Rt. #64 East toward Rangely where I gassed up and connected with Rt. #139. I then entered the great flat regions of Western Colorado where the only towns were Loma and Fruita with Grand Junction sitting just off the interstate twelve miles farther to the East.  

Just before Fruita, I passed the old farming community of Loma Colorado. Loma sat just off interstate Rt.#70 and looked like another one of those towns that time had forgotten.  I stopped to photograph the old two-story Loma School that sat in the weeds 100 yards off the road.  As I approached the front entrance, I could feel the excitement of the students who had attended there reverberate around me. I thought I heard their laughter, as I pushed on the double latch of the large front entry door.  Sadly, it was locked. As I looked in through its glass panels, I thought I saw a figure carrying books and making a left turn into one of the deserted classrooms — or were they deserted.  

I have learned to no longer question what I see but to be thankful for the gift of being able to see at all.  While closed, I was gratified that the county had not torn the old building down and had allowed it to stand. It was a living testament to all that had happened there and to what, in a passing visitors imagination, just might happen again.  I smiled realizing that I would soon be like that old building, a memory, whose retelling would overshadow any new thing that I might become.

There were two deserted schools, that sat dormant, yet vibrant, along the pathway of my discovery this week.  I had put my hands firmly on the front doors of both hoping that they would empty into me all the mystery hidden within their corridors and halls that they had been previously unwilling to share. Forever, they would remain unsettled in my thoughts because of what they once were and even more for the stories they might tell.

At Fruita, I got on the Interstate (Rt #70 East) and missed my exit for Rt.#141 South which would have taken me across the Uncompahgre Plateau.  I went twenty miles too far to the East before turning around and on the reverse trip made the same mistake again.  The exit for Rt.#141 was not marked, so I got off and followed the signs for Rt.#50 and stopped at the first gas station for better directions.  The clerk behind the desk smiled at me as I asked for her help.  She said, “Not so easy to find Rt #141, is it?” Many things in the West were not easy to find, but the ones worth keeping had been worth looking for.

After a series of three right turns, I arrived in the tiny town of Whitewater Colorado and saw the sign for Rt.#141.  I didn’t refuel back at the gas station — I had simply forgotten. The next town on Rt.#141 (Gateway Colorado), was still 43 miles further West.  I knew I could make it with what I had left in my tank but would Gateway have fuel?  If not, I would become the remote victim of an unknown fate caused by an unfortunate memory lapse.  

If the first twenty miles of this trip hadn’t been mired in road construction, the remote beauty of the canyons, and the road they stood as bookends against, were worth any chance that I might run out of gas. The manual said that the Goldwing could go over two hundred miles before running out of gas. Today would test both the veracity of that statement and my belief that the road was always there to save you when you needed it most.  

Road construction in this part of the West meant that two lanes had been reduced to one totally stopping the traffic in one of the lanes. A long line of idling vehicles waited for the pilot car to come from the other direction, turn around, and then take them through the construction zone to where the second lane opened again. Once there, the pilot car positioned itself at the head of the opposing line of stopped vehicles wanting to go the other way. It slowly began the whole process all over again going back in the direction from where it had started.

There’s an old Western joke about the West having four-seasons —Fall, Winter, Spring, and Road Construction. If you’ve traveled west of the Mississippi between Memorial Day and September, you undoubtedly have your own stories to tell about waiting in line.

If you’ve been lucky, you didn’t have to wait more than twenty or thirty minutes for the pilot car to return.  If not lucky, you could’ve waited forty-five minutes or more.  On this day, the thermometer on the bike read 103,’ so I turned off the motor, dropped the kickstand down and got off. I removed my jacket and, within sight of the bike, went for a short walk.

  The Heat Was Coming Off The ‘Road’ In Waves And Made    Standing On Its Surface Both Uncomfortable And Severe

As I anticipated, in exactly twenty minutes the pilot car emerged from around the mountain in front of me. Within three minutes more, it had turned around, positioned itself in front of the line where I was number five and, with the flagman waving back and forth in our direction, had us on our way.  It looked like it was going to be a slow dusty ride through the Grand Mesa National Forest toward Gateway for another ten miles.  

Slow and dusty yes, but it was also gorgeous in a way that only a San Juan Mountain Road knew how to be.  With all the temporary unpleasantness from the heat and the dust, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.  This was what real travel was all about. I had learned its true meaning on the many Wyoming and Montana back roads of my youth — and on a much smaller motorcycle — over thirty years ago.

It’s What You Can’t Control That Allows For The Possibility Of Greatest Change

Casting my fate again to the spirits of the road, I passed the four slower cars in front of me and was again by myself.  The awe-inspiring mountain’s drifted lower into canyons of incredible beauty.  The descent was more than just a change in elevation.  I was being passed off from one of nature’s power sources to the other. As the mountains delivered their tenant son to the canyons in waiting, the road, once again, proved to be smarter than the plans I had made to deal with it.

               The ‘Road’ Had Once Again Proved Smarter …

Typical of many small western towns, the only gas station in Gateway had a sign on the front door that read … ‘Back In 30 Minutes.’ The two pumps did not accept credit cards, so the decision was to either wait for the station manager to return or to continue south toward Nucla, and if I had no luck there then Naturita. “One of them surely had gas” I said to myself, and with still an eighth of a tank left, I decided I would rather take the risk than wait, as daylight was burning.  Betting on the uncertainty of the future was different than dealing with the uncertainty of the here and now.  One was filled with the promise of good intention, while the other only underscored what you had learned to fear.

                                I Decided To Move On

Just outside of Gateway, and like a mirage in the desert, I saw a large resort a half-mile ahead on my right. As I got closer, I realized it was no mirage at all as the sign read ‘Welcome To The Gateway Canyons Resort.’ Nothing could have stood in greater contrast to the things I had seen in the last fifty miles.  This resort looked like it should have been in Palm Springs or Sedona.  It was built totally out of red desert stucco with three upscale restaurants, a health club, and an in-house museum.  

What I cared about most was did they have gas?  Sitting right in front of their General Store were two large concrete islands with pumps on both sides.  It was a welcome sight regardless of price, $4.99 for regular, which was more than a dollar a gallon higher than I had paid anywhere else.

                                  Any Port In A Storm

After filling the Goldwing’s tank, I walked inside the General Store to get something to drink.  The manager was standing by the cash register and talking to a clerk.  She looked at me and smiled as she said: “So where are you headed?”  When I told her the Grand Canyon, and then eventually back to Las Vegas she replied: “Hey, tell all your Motorcycle friends about us, we love to service the Bike trade.”  

I told her I was a writer and would in fact be doing a story about my ride. But based on her overly inflated prices I would have to recommend filling up in either Whitewater or Naturita.  She grimaced slightly and said something about business in this remote region dictating the price.  I returned her smile as I wished her a good day. Joni’s immortal words about “repaving paradise and putting up a parking lot” rang in my ears, as I walked back outside and restarted the bike.

Sometimes We Had To Cross The line To Know What The Line Meant

This place had been recently built by John Hendricks the founder of The Discovery Channel.  He and his family discovered this valley on a vacation trip in 1995.  Instead of becoming part of the surroundings, he decided to turn his vision of the valley into an extension of what he already knew.  It was a shame really because a museum with classic Duesenberg Cars was as out of place in this remote canyon as any notion that you could then merchandise and control it to suit your own ends.

I couldn’t leave fast enough! Without even one look back through my rearview mirrors, I rounded the bend to the right that took me away from this place.  Once out of sight of the resort, I was deep in ****** canyonland again where only the hawk and the coyote affirmed my existence. I wondered … why do we do many of the things that we do? At the same time, I was grateful, as I looked up and offered a silent thank you for the gas.

Asking ‘Why’ Throws My Spirit Into Reverse Gear, And I Know Better …  

Just past Naturita, I made a right turn on Rt.#141 and headed south toward Dove Creek.  It was farther than it appeared on the map, and it was past 7:30 in the evening when I arrived where Rt.#141 dead-ended into Rt.#491.  I took the left turn toward ****** where I continued south toward the 4-Corners town of Cortez Colorado.  This time life balanced. The trip to Cortez from Dove Creek which looked at least as long, or longer, than the one I had just traveled, was only 36 more miles — and I could stop for the night.

I raced toward the 4-Corners as the sun disappeared behind the Canyons Of The Ancients. I averaged over 85 MPH again alone on the road.  My only fear was that a deer or coyote might come out of the shadows, but I traveled secure inside my vision that on two-wheels my life would never end. I knew my life would never end that way, but a serious injury was something to be avoided.  

The trip to Cortez was over in a flash, and in less than twenty minutes I saw billboards and signs that pointed to a life outside of myself lining both sides of the road.  As I pulled into the Budget Inn, the sign that directed you toward Rt. #160 west and the Grand Canyon was right in front of the motel. There were only two other cars sitting in the parking lot with a lone Harley-Davidson Road King parked in front of a room at the extreme far end.

The desk clerk told me that he was originally from Iran but had been raised in the Los Angeles area.  He had a small Chihuahua named Buddy who would perform tricks if offered a reward.  I took a small milk bone out of the box on the counter and asked Buddy if he’d like to go for a ride.  He barked loudly, as he spun and pirouetted in the middle of the lobby. I thought about my own dog Colby, who I missed terribly, waiting faithfully for me on our favorite chair back home. As I walked across the parking lot to my room, Buddy had been a proper and fitting end to a ride that left nothing more to be desired.

I splashed water on my face, left my helmet in the room, and rode back into Cortez. All I wanted now was some good food and a beer.  Lit up in all its glory, the Main Street Brewery sat in the middle of town, and its magnetic charm did everything but physically pull me inside.  It was an easy choice and one of those things that you just know, as I parked the bike against the sidewalk and walked inside.

The ribs and cole-slaw were as delicious as the waitress was delightful. It disturbed me though when I asked her about road conditions on the way to The Canyon, and she gave me that familiar blank stare.  “You know, I’ve lived up and down these San Juan’s all my life, and I’ve still never been down there.”  My heart filled with sadness as I said: “It’s only three hours away and the single greatest sight on earth that you will ever see.”

She looked at me vacuously, as she cleared my table, and promised she’d have to get down there one of these days if time and money ever permitted.  Amazing, I thought to myself! Here I was, a guy from Pennsylvania, who had visited the Canyon over thirty times, and this local person, living less than three hours away had not seen it — not even once. I cried inside myself for what she would probably never know as I got up to leave.

             Crying For What She Would Never Know …

As I turned around to take one last look at the historic bar, I was reminded that some things in life served as stepping-stones, or stairways, to all that was greater. I was in one of those places again tonight. The people who served in roadside towns like this saw the comings and goings, but never the reasons why. They were spared from feeling that outside their immediate preoccupation there could ever be anything more.  I needed to be thankful to them for having provided sustenance and shelter along my travels, but my sadness for the things that they would never see, which were many times just over the next hill, overrode any gratefulness I would feel in my heart.

         The Blessed Among Us Are The Blessed Indeed!