May 07, 2004
A.S. Tour Beginnings Revisited
Farewell Left Coast
Lee and I started our journey, with only a filmic destination in mind.
The end of day 1 found us soaking up the sunset while soaking in a natural hot spring. Spencer Hot Springs in Nevada, three small pools in the desert. How must the frontiersmen, miners and the like, have felt coming upon this little oasis at the end of a dust choked day in the saddle? How revered might this site have been by the local 1st Peoples?
Elated by the big sky sunset dynamo, the perfectly smooth and utterly empty road, and by the thought of adventures lying ahead, we rolled along I-50 at a steady 85 miles per hour, straight into a classic speed trap near Eureka. We had just gone through a playful calculation of how long would it take us to get to Montreal if we drive 24 hours a day on this perfect, unobstructed highway: 68 hours.
The State Trooper, on duty guarding this mile-long stretch of the highway, mysteriously temporarily limited to 45 miles per hour, learning from us that we are on a one way journey to Canada, politely offered us a range of perfectly inconvenient ways to exercise our judicial right to appeal. He then suggested the very convenient postal payment of an aggregate penalty, county assessment, local and county tax. Add it up, and just send your check to the address provided on the envelope. Reconciled to making our donation to the local community, we moved on to Ely and a casino hotel for the night.
ALIEN INVASION at GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO
Our next twist of fate, came as we crossed the state line Utah into Colorado. Our intrepid Mazda 626 carried a 75,000 mile extended care power-train warranty from Ford. At precisely 76,020 miles Ms. Mazda dropped her transmission. After the usual paranoid stressing over ways a mechanic, knowing you are not exactly return customer material, might take a shortcut or two in his job. And after reconciling ourselves with the 2500$ US, our "mishap" would cost us, we settled into a pine cabin cum oven in an RV park. The Best Western in the booming metropolis of Grand Junction, Colorado cost a cool C-note a night, and we were likely to be here upwards of a week.
I am waiting for a local headline, “Wandering Californians Sighted”. Nobody walks here. I repeat, nobody. People transport themselves in monstrous trucks, sometimes merely large SUVs, the Escalade and Navigator type. You are more likely to see a Peterbilt towing an RV, in turn towing a Jeep, than you are to spot a bicycle here. I received an inordinate amount of attention walking 'home' from drug store to the RV park: Big Rigs stopped in the middle of the road just to let me cross, big blond women waved at me through their SUVs' tinted windows, an excitable group of youngsters shouted incomprehensible comments, passing by in their cherry red convertible. I looked forward to taking public transit the next day. The Best Western's cute teen receptionist giggled, explaining that “Yes, there is a bus, but it don't go into town, it goes out to the mall."
The Supersize Junction
Arid and empty Middle America
eats the tires off my Japanese car.
United in blue denim and
Insatiable appetite,
Heroic hunters of 2 for 1 deals,
Brave and Free, put the pedal to metal.
The mall's vivid urban landscape,
poured and prefab-ed in sweaty China
Marks civilization in the dust of God’s country.
SUPERFICIAL INSIGHTS, and the DEPTH of MIDDLE AMERICA
A brief ray of hope that we'd be set after 3 days has dissipated; it'll be another 3 at least. After the initial bout of despair we settled into a booth in the diner on the outskirts of our local mall: cheerful scrubbed young burger-flippers, perfect air-conditioned nostalgia, and a rigorous diet of sugar and saturated fats.
I am re-entering the long forgotten though newly familiar mode of being a female and a foreigner. It is clear that people here prefer to communicate with Lee rather than me. Thank God he can speak a convincing American form of English, (my own hybrid European accent seems to pain them.) We enjoy a superficial, polite interaction with people here since (a), our novelty is of limited interest to the average Grand Junctionite, and (b), we are leaving before long anyway. Even upon arrival, sat broken-down desolate by the side of the road, the several people who stopped, inquired from their air-conditioned SUV's, ascertained our distress, wished us a "Nice day" and "Good luck" and went swiftly on about their business. Was it fear we may pull out a gun? Or were they suddenly affected by the poetic justice in us Golden Staters' misfortune? Did the initial impulse to assist just get trumped by a closer viewing our “strangeness”? Certainly there couldn't be such a scarcity of Samaritans in this overtly Christian land.
The local library receives only one paper, the local Sentinel. International perspective can be gleaned from the plentiful USA Today boxes, or from the equally ubiquitous Good News, Magazine of Understanding. The lead article in July-August's Good News explained that military actions in the Middle East were prophesied in the Bible: Brits and Americans are actually the 10th, lost tribe of Israel, destined to reclaim the Holy Land.
“Everyone is Entitled to My Opinion”, reads the sticker on the bumper of the fat monster truck. The Yellow Pages of Greater Grand Junction include seven yellow pages of Christian churches; part of another page is devoted to various Schools and school-like entities; and one-fifth of a column on another page lists Retail Book-dealers (including Adult Video Exchanges).
We were criss-crossing yet another maze of mall parking lots at dusk. A teen was out on cigarette break from his deep-frying duties at KFC. Asked for directions, he replied with this enigmatic warning: "Got no car? Watch out for tweekers.” Squads of very young mothers load up their mini-vans and pick-up trucks with many young children and many big bags of Jack-in-the-Box and MacDonald's. Could these be tweekers?
The Walmart Faithful
Clad in Walmart gear, fed on Walmart goods,
extolling the spirit of super cost-saving...
"Voloptuous people, welcome to Walmart! "
They Walmart all the day
and then Walmart half the night
for cash enough to ensure they'll be back
waltzing through those blessed aisles.
Blessed be the WallMartyrs.
Will they inherit the Earth?
Or win a brief week outside those hallowed Walls?