#12

January 25, 2008 – Catching Up


OK, so we woke up to three degrees in Gallup and got some hot coffee & hit the road for the Painted Desert & the Petrified Forest and, really, I had to re-think my position on the desert; it was that impressive. There was a 28 mile drive through the Petrified Forest & we liked it so much we turned around & did it backwards. Anyway, this was the scene of our first felony where, despite repeated and dire warnings continually escalating in tone, we each took a rock. Megan feels guilty but I, oddly because I generally feel a lot of guilt about just about everything (WWI, WWII, the crash of '29, the Depression, Vietnam, Watergate, etc....and y'know, I didn't do half those things. But I digress.), do not. It's a very nice rock. Actually, I think it's a piece of petrified wood, which gives me a great deal of smug satisfaction because it makes me that much more felonious. I mean, goddamn....they were all over the damn place.
After making the getaway with our precious rocks we continued on to Flagstaff, a surprisingly pretty town, all hilly & piney. Somewhere just before Flagstaff there were suddenly real trees. It was all snowy there and very cold, but clear. From there we headed north towards the Grand Canyon & had a beautiful drive up there watching the sunset & the almost-full moon rise. It was after dark when we got to the park & that's where the trouble began. Y'know how it is....you're not exactly sure you're going the right way & you're going down a hill & maybe you're going just a little too fast & the next thing you know is there's red lights behind you. Turns out the speed limit was only 35 & the very, very nice law enforcement officer said Megan was going 58. I personally do not believe she was going anywhere near that fast, but of course we were in no position to argue. So she got a ticket, but we avoided any serious unpleasantness such as cavity searches or unflattering photographs in harsh lighting or nasty inkstains on our fingertips. And most importantly, they didn't find our rocks. Or anything else.
After that ordeal, we managed to find our way to Grand Canyon Village, where we got a room at the Maswik Lodge. We smuggled 'Nali into our room (no pets at any of the lodges?!?) and I christened the nonsmoking room with a Kool. Because that's just the way I roll. After playing outside in the snow a bit & ascertaining that there seemed to be no other guests anywhere near our room, we locked 'Nali in the bathroom & went over to the main lodge building & had a coupla drinks at their little bar & then got some food. The next day we put 'Nali in Dog Jail for the day & took the shuttle bus over to Yaki Point. Still beautifully clear but very, very cold. Megan wanted to take the rim trail back, about 5 miles but it was just too damn cold for me & I went back to the lodge & took a nice little walk along the rim that took me behind all the other lodges. I stopped at the historic El Tovar Hotel where I had a very nice glass of wine from Oregon, of all places, a special one commemorating the El Tovar's 100th anniversary and a very pleasant conversation with the bartender; she was going to Denali National Park in Alaska to work in the spring. On my way back, I also stopped at the Bright Angel Lodge & had another glass of El Tovar. It was a much more appropriate afternoon for a woman of my age and tastes.
Megan was soon back from her walkabout and we changed, picked up 'Nali, left her in the room & hoped for the best & went back to the El Tovar, where we had dinner in their dining room with a view of canyon at sunset in front of a big stone fireplace. We had another bottle of the excellent El Tovar and I had an appetizer of mozzarella roulades with pesto and prosciutto and deliciously politically incorrect lamb chops. Megan had some vegetarian silliness and, I might add, did not enjoy her dinner nearly as much as I enjoyed mine. Y'know, I'm just sayin'...
After returning to our lodge, we had another glass of El Tovar - I liked it so much I asked the waiter where I could buy it & they sold me one - and then headed back over to the little bar at our lodge. We had planned to leave the next day, but after seeing a notice for the full-moon rim walk, we decided that was worth staying for & figured we'd stay another day. We ended up partying with a buncha locals & a couple followed us back to our room where they forced us to share the rest of my El Tovar and to open the bottle of absinthe I got in Mexico - I knew that would come in handy on this trip!
Oh, that absinthe - pirate juice, the little Grand Canyon boys called it....looks and smells like Nyquil and tastes even worse. And kicked my ass so bad I couldn't get up the next day. Megan, being much younger and more resilient than I, went and hung out with some of our new buddies and later went on the full-moon walk. It sounded fabulous and all, but it was just too cold. And, besides, I couldn't get out of bed anyway, on account of dancing with the green fairy. It was all I could do to get showered (I had to sit down because my knees were shaking so bad) and repack my luggage to try and get out of this den of iniquity.
Got loaded up the next morning only to discover a flat tire, but thanks to the excellent service of AAA and the employees of the Grand Canyon Village garage, we were soon on our way....very sadly for Megan, but that's her story.
We had originally planned on going to the Skywalk thing on the west rim & to go through Vegas & Death Valley, but after learning from my friend Richard the night before about a concert in San Francisco saturday night with Phil Lesh (from the Grateful Dead) & Friends - a quintessential SF hippie experience - our attorney advised us to drive at high speeds across the desert. (To those of you who are confused by that last sentence...as your attorney, I advise you to read the brilliant Hunter S. Thompson's 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'.) We reckoned we could hit that stuff on the way back...to the coast we must go. So we got to Bakersfield last night, after I drove over the mountains between Barstow & Bakersfield in the dark AND the rain. I did OK, too. Slow, but OK. Slow is good.
And I felt pretty good about that and headed off bravely into the unknown mountains between me and San Luis Obispo, where we planned to join the spectacular Highway 1, up the California coast towards Monterey, our goal for the day. Where I proceeded to take perhaps the hairiest and most beautiful and satisfying drives ever. High mountains, ice, hairpin turns....but I did it. We crawled and crept up and down that mountain, following a big-ass truck I thought whose driver must have been insane to take this road. But I figured if he could do it, I could. And we all made it over the mountain & everything was lovely.
Ran into heavy rain as we neared the coast & part of the way up Hwy 1, but then miraculously cleared in time to give us rainbows that followed our car up the coast - for real! Megan has video! - and a ridiculously dramatic sunset.
Ended up here in Monterey a little after dark & went out for awhile, but being off-season & what with the weather, not much was open. Continuing up HWY 1 tomorrow and will probably spend tomorrow night somewhere along the coast north of San Francisco and then onto Novato on Saturday to meet up with my friend Richard. Then we'll spend awhile in SF before heading north to see my friend Dori. Alas, 'Nali will be going back into Dog Jail for a few days on saturday while we carelessly have fun in the city with nary a thought or care for her. She wants me to add that she asks y'all to write your congressman to prevent this enormous injustice.
I'm too tired & my connection is too bad to upload any pics tonight....perhaps tomorrow.