It was drizzling and mysterious at the beginning of our journey. I could see that it was all going to be one big saga of the mist. "Whooee!" yelled Dean. "Here we go!" And he hunched over the wheel and gunned her; he was back in his element, everybody could see that. We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move. And we moved! -Jack Kerouac, On The Road

On the road 4:15pm Sat April 13.
Josiah driving. Dave E. has shotgun, I'm in the back. It's warm & nearly raining - but it's been nearly raining for 2 days. We got food, clothes, computer, books, blankets & smokes. Oh, and a guitar. Getting gas @ the Gulf/Cumby's. I dug out my Tevas (for the first time this season) today. Yeeee-haw! Of course, we're leaving the first days of warm springness behind to head through the treacherous Rocky Mts route then south. We're heading out of our way north today, to Sherman & Nancy's (Josiah's uncle & aunt's) to get the key to the cabin in Colorado. Next stop - banking in Amherst somy account doesn't go empty. Then we head out of town!

11:10am
Sun 4.14
Finally in Ohio - Cleveland, in fact. Made it to Sherman & Nancy's at 9pm last night, got the key to the cabin & sat around & shot the shit awhile. Met Josiah's cousin Anna. We drove through rain & fog all night till about 3am when we stopped at a rest stop till sun-up & kept driving. So far only Josiah has driven & only I have slept.

6pm Central Time
Dave driving now, me up front. Josiah slept through Indiana & woke up just as we entered Illinois. We'll head straight across I-70 to Kansas City where we'll pick up I-35 to Rte 50 to Colorado. The rain finally stopped & now there isn't a single damn cloud - ok, maybe some whiffy things down near the horizon, but they're hardly worth mentioning. Wow. Big shit-huge Cross - looks like it's aluminum sided. Bleck. It's 74 degrees here in Central Bumfuck, USA. Just split off from I-57. Kinda wish we were taking Rt 6, but that's too far north for So. Colorado. If we were heading for Denver we could meet Bee. Oh well. 97 miles to St. Louis. Yawp. Then to cross Missouri. Maybe I'll drive soon. (shrug) S'okay if I don't. Gonna have a smoke & go back to the adventures of Mr. Dean Moriarity. :)

7:42pm
sunset over Illinois...
Josiah just fixed the "michelinman hose" (the turbo intake) w/ duct tape & superglue. I squeegeed the windshield and after approximately 2.5 minutes on the road it's all disgusting with bug crap already.

Josiah's driving again. Now with questionable car stuff, they'll never let me drive. Fuckers. I guess that's OK. My feet stink. Damn Tevas. I don't think I'll really feel like we're on the road till we get to Missouri. I've been in all these states. After Ohio I felt like we were at least out of the northeast. For some reason I've had a headache since Sherman & Nancy's. Pisses me off. I've slept, I've had caffeine. Had smokes. What the fuck!?

8:40pm
Just drove around the arch in St. Louis. Pretty amazing - from far away it's a grey steel rainbow - made by the god that is men - and up close the blue-purple spotlights shine off it & illuminate the huge panels of metal like a disco ball stretched like silly putty or taffy. I couldn't tell if it was more amazing at the horizon towering over all the skyscrapers or being able to see its feet & watching as for 3 seconds it was a black streak in the sky - it was so close it seemed like we could get out & touch it. Even as the road dipped into an underpass, the tip - shining with a red light blinking - was visible over the edges of the elevated highway. Now we're in Missouri. I wish I could sit in the front & talk to Josiah. I feel isolated & awake & antsy back here. I'm too awake. Hope Dave can ride in the back soon.

Monday 4.15.02
4:45am Central Time
I just finished my 1st driving stint - 2.5 hrs across the nothingness that is Kansas. [sarcasm] I love Kansas - it's so interesting & diverse, lots to see, the roads are well paved & well marked & laid out so well, and the whole state smells so good...[/sarcasm] yeah. we just crossed 281 on Rt 50. The next "metropolis" is Dodge City - then we're most of the way to Colorado. Remind me to never navigate us through Kansas again. 185 miles to CO. It'll be daylight. Josiah's going 90mph. Yawp.

7:35am Mountain Time!
C O L O R A D O ! We made it in 40 hours from when we left our house. We're in a Mickey D's in Lamar, just over the Kansas border. Everything is ug-lee. But it's so amazing to be this far in such great time. I want breakfast. I guess I should make me some oats & honey. Really, I want tater tots. And coffee. Num num. Dave slept from when i stopped driving till just about 10 minutes ago. Josiah got 2 calls from work. Pigfuckers. Laurie made it known that he was available. Gonna try my phone, see if it's free. The praries in the sunrise were amazing.

breakfast in the McD's parking lot. Big fire or something black & burning on the side of the road. Overhead some old guy talking in the McD's "it's not like that Jew-boy they killed up there..." Yikes. On to the Cabin. Oh, got some scrubbie prarie shit.

3:33pm (Mountain Time)
Gunnison!
We made the cabin! It's adorable. The view is amazing, the wind is sighing in the pines & naked aspens. The Rockies are majestic across the valley - I'm sitting out on the front porch waiting for Dave & Josiah to turn on the water down at the main switch. We have electricity! How about that! I lit a fire already - it was colder inside than out - that's well insulated. My headache is back - dunno what that's all about. I think I'll lie down on one of the beds in a minute. Wish I had the digital camera to take pictures of the view & the cabin. The outside is sided like the front of David Erikson's house. Obviously much newer. I wish we could live here. It's so worth the 8 hours out of our way to get the key. Wow. Naptime.

Tuesday morning 9:50am
4.16.02
I'm eating breakfast (oats & trailmix w/ honey & cold milk; coffee) and looking out over the snow-dusted scrubland. we heard dave wake up this morning and laugh at the snow. I'd already gone out to pee at around 8am. I took some pictures then just in case we slept late & there was no snow left. When we heard Dave get up, Josiah and I finally decided to get up - that was probably around 9. Then while Josiah played waterboy (bringing jugs up from the car & taking empties to be refilled at the spring) I lit a fire & attempted to make coffee in the glass percolator thing. I probably did it all wrong (especially taking the lid off while it was still perking) but it made fairly decent coffee. a little close to bitter, but that could be the 5 scoops I put in, rather than the process itself. I found out that the little scrubby bushes that almost cover the ground here are sage. I'm going to harvest bunches of it & make smudges for people for presents. When we head into town I have to remember to get string & more baggies.

later...11:50am
There. I just collected a whole ton of sage. I would have gotten more, but I wanted to preserve some of the seed stalks I got so I can give them to people - Em, Kris, Jonboy...I'll go out for more later.

11:10pm Tues 4.16
Adventures! Dave & I took the Audi to get water while Josiah visited the neighbor (laurie?) but the brakes beeped & died (car stalled, I think) and then it stalled at the bottom of the "driveway" or whatever this gated road is. So Dave & I had to hike up the hill which was really only about a 2 minutes walk, but damn, was it the longest 2 minutes I've had in a long time. Anyway, after I quelled my panic attack at the idea of hiking up a mountain in the dark in bear territory, we got to the house where Josiah was. The neighbor lady gave us a ride down the hill & the car (of course) started immediately. The alternator belt did squeal a lot, so Josiah's going to replace it tomorrow. I made 8 sage bundles altogether today, which I'm happy about. They're drying next to the fire till we leave. We made popcorn for dinner. And hot chocolate. Dave & I played checkers this afternoon for about an hour. It was a pretty intense game. He beat me, but he only had 2 men (kings) when he jumped my last guy. Dave took a hike up the mountain at around lunchtime to take pictures. Josiah & I stayed here to read & do other stuff. I hacked one end of the fire-poking stick (an old 1x2) and then whittled & sanded it so it has a smooth handle. I also hauled in a lot of firewood & closed up the shed. We'll pack up & head for Monument Valley in Utah tomorrow. Yeeha. Now, it's bedtime & I'm going to join the bear-boy for some welcome snoozin'.

Wednesday 4.17.02
Leaving the cabin @ 10:15am MT cleaner than we left it - yee ha. Got into Black Canyon of the Gunnison park for free, stopped at the 1st lookout & climbed down the trail - took some amazing pics & were scared by the mountain's desire to hurl us off. I felt no such desire - in fact I've been other places where men have felt the urge to jump or push and I never have. I'm also not afraid of high ledges, like cliffs - esp. over water. Hmmm. On to Monument Valley!

Monarch pass - "snowyrockies" pics.

2:43pm MT
On Rt. 141 South - is wild and windy - there is an amazing peak dead ahead. We stopped and took pics with both cameras. We just got on 141 from 145 West just past Redvale. Our next destination is Rte. 666 just above Dove Creek - we'll go west into Utah to 191 S. to 95 W. to the Natural Bridges Monument.

3:00
stopped to replace our wiper twigs & pick some "dark sage" which is clearly a different species. Dust storm in the valley to our right. You can taste it in your throat. Our road is curving away to the left. Thank goodness.

Route 666 was totally uneventful. I didn't even get a decent picture of the road sign that I wanted b/c Josiah said there'd probably be more. Nope. I got one in town - Monticello that says "End - 666" that's as good as I got. Now we're on 95 W @ 5:04pm - 52 miles till "next services." It's 68 degrees out. Sunny with dust storms. These land formations are so amazing. More pics will be taken. Yawp.

5:40pm
Just stopped at Mule Canyon Ruin - an "Anasazi" multi-family habitation: a small section of room-blocks, a kiva & a tower. There was a plant there - green & sweet-smelling with dried 5-pointed star flowers (very dry & brittle now).

7:03
Took a drive through Natural Bridges National Park & stopped to run around. Now we're driving up some windy mountain road to see where it goes. County Road 28or something. Lots of campfire sites - Mauti La Sal Nat'l Forest - a dirt road - started out gravel & is now really rutted red dried mud. South Long Point is a cliff. I was right. Dead end on moonrocks. 2761 San Juan County Road. We were between the bears ears! Elevation 9k feet on both. Those were our Butte Friends!

(SJ228 was the road to S. Long Point)

10:20pm Wed 4.17.02
what an amazing jam-packed day! It's finally rest & relaxation time after a full day on the road. Granted, Josiah drove the entire time, it was still exhausting. We got up at around 8 or so, ate breakfast of coffee & Ramen noodles & packed up & cleaned the cabin top to bottom. Then we headed out on Rte 50. We headed to Natural Bridges National Monument & stopped & ran around in a few places, almost getting blown off the tops of insane canyons & ran up & down the mountains. Josiah wanted to take a little dirt side road "just to see where it goes" but then we realized we were in some state park & all the roads through it led nowhere we wanted to go. The boys convinced me it was OK to keep going just a bit longer. We finally got to a sign that said S. Long Point 4 as well as Blanding 37 - which was the town we had left several hours earlier.

Josiah, convinced S. Long Point was a town or raod decided it was the way to go. OK, we go. I tell them I know it's going to be a cliff. We drive & drive & the land becomes a mystical grey susnset land - it was an odd landscape anyway - lots of green grass & pine trees and scrub sage. We drove past many campsites, a log that looked like a dessicated deer corpse, and finally an old farmer's corral that had obviously once housed the cattle. the old beaten paper sign sign said "Please close the gate" but the gate was in ruins on the ground. Finally, at a little past 4 miles, after winding along red clay road for ages, and going off-road through the woods to circumnavigate 2 downed trees in the middle of the road, suddenly, the road ended. To the right were some wide flat expanses of the same kind of moon-rock stuff we'd been dancing around on all over Utah. Straight ahead we could see sunlight on the pines, which in fact, meant the road did end in cliffs.

Next began began our perilous descent. The road we came up wound around the base of the mountain & we had barely clung to the side of the cliff face dropping away - literally - thousands of feet. So backtracking downhill (for it was soon decided to head the 11 miles back south the way we came) in the swiftly approaching dark was indeed so much fun. Dave & I held onto our door handles with vice grips & Josiah laughed at us.

We got back to Highway 95 without incident & headed for 261 which lead us down a 10% grade w/ 5mph switchbacks for 3 miles down Moqui Dugway. But first we had to go around a big black bull & his family in the middle of the road on 95, some deer & other cows on the open range. Dave caught a wild tumbleweed. It's so cute & little & spiny. After our descent, we soon found ourselves in Mexican Hat, Utah on the edge of the Navajo Rez. We cruised throught & Dave & I both liked this one motel set back from the road, up the hill a bit. There were several others, but we went back & rang the bell. An indian woman came from inside & called to us to come in & we rented a room & chatted w/ her while she filled out & rang up. I hope she's still here in the morning. the room is a total dive. Clean, tho. The shower just trickles, the toilet runs forever & the chair is broken. The door rattles & fills with san, but the towels smell nice & bed is cozy. Which is where I am now. :) Zzzzzzz....

Thurs 4.18 9:50am
Drove out to Mexican Hat Rock after staying in the town of Mexican Hat last night. We had breakfast @ the Hat Rock Cafe. (haw haw) Now to the Valley of the Gods. Pics of the lizzard on the rock in the Valley of the Gods under the castle. Josiah wants a Ford Econoline 350 for our next road trip.

11:45
driving south on 163 into Monument Valley across the Navajo Rez.

12:50pm
I just got a bracelet & an adventure map from Elvis Saltwater, Zuni/Navajo. We stopped in the Navajo Rez shops at the entrance to the Monument Valley Park (which we declined to enter) we talked about all kinds of stuff as i poured over his bracelets. I told him I'm a teacher & talked about Amy & her bugs & lizards. He said he used to bring lizards & frogs to school too, and when they were disecting frogs he let a lizard loose & said "Ah! Mine's alive!"

As I was trying to decided whether or not to buy the onyx bracelet (made yesterday by him because it was too windy to set up shop) a big-ass crow flew into view behind him out the window. He had told me that black is the north color, protection b/c "it puts everything to sleep." Black for the night & space. the crow landed and i looked at it & it was shiny & it hopped around & then soared off. We talked about crows a little & he said they get even bigger. (Apparently the birds we saw yesterday eating carrion on the side of the road were crows, sez Josiah. They were so big I thought they were vultures.) So anyway, I bought the black bracelet.
red coral = mother earth (in TX it's malachite)
turquois e= east, water
black onyx = north, protection, death
something yellow = west

1:40pm
sitting on the side of the road where we stopped on our adventure map. the road is too bad to continue - just all washboarded & bumpy. Dave just took a hike all the way around a butte. Josiah is building a fortress wall out of rocks. We notice all the colors other than red are sharper here. The contrast, I assume.

Elvis Saltwater was from Tuba City.

3:45pm
Heading down Rt 160 in AZ looking for Rt. 4 to 2 to the Painted Desert. Ate lunch in the McDonald's parking lot. Pork & Beans, green beans, pepperoni & summer sausage. Yummy.

Rt. 41 saw the Peabody Coal Co. sgn. This is Black Mesa where Deb excavated. Amazing view up here. Tires are melting on this damn desert road. Got to ask Deb what the green tube is for.

Coal. 4:25pm
The top of Black Mesa is totally strip mined. The smell of coal dust infiltrates the car & makes us cough. There was a "house" - some trailers & shacks - where people live up here. I can't imagine. Where it's not stripped, it's awesome desert. The roads are different from the map. 4 has become 41 & the main road to Pinion is blocked & the rest of "41" has been ripped up - no blacktop. i hope we make it to the Painted Desert by sunset.

ok, scratch that! the gods do not want us to go to the southwest Painted Desert. We kept getting thwarted, so we decided to stay on the nice paved rt 4/41 to Chinle. Then Dave noticed that 191 S. to 40 West leads to a) the Painted Desert and b) the Petrified Forest! Whoo! So that's the new plan.

Sunset
Intersection of 191 & Rt 40
Stopped at a trading post (see pic of sign) and sitting on a "Navajo Rug" was a scabby little black cat. I walked up to him & started petting him & he jerked awake & glared at me like "What!?" I petted him anyway & he put up with it, glaring at me. I walked away & looked at the "Indian Crap" for sale & soon I went back to the cat. I started petting him again & he was a little more into it. I said, "You're a stinky old cat! You're stinky!" and he suddenly rolled his shoulders over & put his whole head into the palm of my hand & was practically begging for a bellyrub & when I had to go he sat up & looked at me like "Hey!" and I explained "I'm sorry. I have to go!" I petted him again & said I had to go again & he settled down & watched me go to the counter & pay for my Twix & cough drops. I asked the Indian-trying-to-be-white fat lady with too much makeup what the cat's name was. The lady said, "Stinky." No wonder the cat suddenly loved me - I knew his name! :)

9:34pm
Plan failed. Park closed. Cibola on Rt. 66 sucks. Got gas w/ 1 gallon left in the tank.

11pm
On Historic Route 66 - crazy traffic jam on 40 so we backtracked (taking a left across the median) to Acoma & got on 66 West - 11:13 back onto 40 E at Cibola town line. 66 is awesome & amazing - apparently it's from "Pre-1937." Some of the road seemed like it hasn't been maintained since then - pretty nuts - dusty washboard and big ruts & chunks - it was like a ghost town. I could feel Dean Moriarity talking about life & death & pure reality - yawp! I'm so happy we got to go down Route 66 I really wanted to get a chance to do that. I think we were on 6 for a short time earlier in this trip - I'll have to double check. This has been a most excellent adventure. Dave did the driving on our Route 66 adventure. The stupid Mercedes just passed us - they were so wussy on 66. I don't know what caused the holdup - some sort of accident. It was several miles of backup - Laguna to Cibola line 5-10 miles, maybe. Exit 114 - Exit 126 (we got on at 126). Exit 158 off 40 - detour for construction.

4:35am Friday April 19 Central Time
Texas stinks. Big huge cow farm/slaughterhouse on the Rt. Poor overcrowded cows looked miserable. Josiah driving as of TX border.

9:54am Central Time
Heading for Tulsa on Rt. 44 out of OK City. It's already muggy & hot & sunny. What will it be like at 2pm? I must admit I'm happy to be out of the dust-devil sand blasted desert. My eyes & nose haven't recovered yet. Ahh sweet humidity. Hee hee.

10:30am
Tulsa seems like an insidious pit of fundamentalist conservatism. At least it's cloudy & not quite as hot. Despite the heat I could really go for a cup of coffee right about now. I can tell by the fact that buildings are more than 3 stories tall that we're heading into the downtown area. There's a town or area of Tulsa called Broken Arrow.

12:37pm CT
We've stopped at a rest area just over the Missouri border. Of course, I got to the women's bathroom behind a tour bus of old ladies from Ft. Worth, TX. One had a cute t-shirt that said GRITS - Girls Raised In The South. I thought that was great. Wicked hot & humid here. My sinuses are rapturous. Dave's turn to drive. I got the front again. I don't mind not driving at all - but I feel guilty. Need more sunscreen on my right arm. Sun, sun, sun. Oy.

10:29pm EST
Somewhere in Indiana...
...Personal thoughts...

11:14am Sat 4/20
Albany, NY
Well, that was interesting. At some point around 1:30 or 2 I took over driving from Dave...Dave had taken over at a gas station that was closing and on 270 N in Columbus, OH he pulled off on what was supposed to be an exit ramp & turned out to be a deserted 161 where I got in & started driving. Dave & Josiah & I talked till about 4:30 when Josiah took over driving & I just couldn't stay awake anymore. I slept hard till about 10am.

12:02pm EST
Massachusetts

1:14pm EST
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