| The occasion was my 70th birthday. Our
three sons, son-in-law, and an old family friend, did me the honor of helping
celebrate it by joining me on a two-week tour of that fabulous stretch of
the American West that reaches from Death Valley, California to Moab, Utah.
This land of stark deserts and awesome canyons, astonishingly punctuated by
the giddy glitter of Las Vegas, is in my view one of the most inspiring bits
of geography in the world. We started our adventure on Friday, April 26th, 2002. Three of our number flew in from Europe: our friend Trig, our son-in-law "Durango Dutch", and our son Richard. These three joined up in Cincinnati with the three US-dwellers: our other two sons, Arthur and Peter, and me (Dick). The following day, the Europeans valiantly slogging through the fog of jet-lag, and all of us decked out in the Stetsons and boots that Arthur had scavenged for us from e-bay, we flew West to Las Vegas, rented a van there and kept on going, driving to Death Valley and our hotel in Stovepipe Wells. Death Valley We arrived in Death Valley after dark, and it was only when we woke up at dawn, that we had our first spectacular view of the desert. We put on our duds and went out onto the dunes, where much swaggering about ensued, fast-draw gunsels throwing long shadows in the dawn. After breakfast we were joined by our guide Claudia Reidhead, a native of, and expert in, Death Valley. We spent the day being escorted by Claudia from one spectacular view to another, enhancing our experience considerably not just by her knowledge, but by her unfailing enthusiasm for the endless marvels of the area ("Lookit that!"). The photographs we took speak for themselves. During the course of that day, we visited many of Death Valley’s famous sites: Devil’s Cornfield, Ubehebe Crater, Scottie’s Castle, the lair of the Pupfish, Badwater and the Devil’s Golf Course, the lowest point in the continent (282 feet below sea level, while the walls of the valley soar to a height of over 11,000 feet). We then lunched at Furnace Creek, visited Artist’s Palette, and finally, steeped ourselves in the sunset at The Dunes. Back at our hotel, Stetsons and boots covered with desert dust, we bellied up to the bar and drawled out an order for beer. "So..... where’re you guys from?" asked the bartender, "New York?". The next day, on our own, we visited Dante’s Point, Dante’s View, and Zabriskie Point before setting out to return to Las Vegas. (Arthur’s ongoing and diligent search for rattlesnakes had turned up, against all odds….. none). En route we stopped at the village of Shoshone, on the southeast corner of Death Valley - half a dozen Quonset huts, one of which housed a (a-hem) "museum", and another a French restaurant (really! – the "C’est Si Bon" – lots of cheeses, and Thai tea). Madame la proprietress, a lovely lass, wanted to know who or what we were, in our dusty boots and Stetsons. We explained that we were vache-garçons. She looked quizzical for several seconds, then bubbled up a fountain of merry laughter. As we drove back into Nevada, we passed the trailer town of Pahrump, where billboards assured us that their "massage parlors" were legal in Nevada. Las Vegas In Las Vegas we checked into the MGM, with the lions. While we saw a show or two, treating ourselves to "Jubilee" on my birthday, the real theater was Las Vegas itself. For two days, after really greasy breakfasts at Denny’s, we cruised the Strip's hotels and casinos. Or most of us did. On the second afternoon Richard and Jan Willem hired themselves a Harley and vrooomed on that Hog to Hoover Dam and back. Las Vegas incidents that will mean nothing except to those who were there at the moment: - Got $5 free gambling credit at the Aladdin – promptly lost it all in the slot machines Our sojourn in the glitzy, good-natured hedonistic Las Vegas, occurring as it did between the starkness of Death Valley, and later, the vast grandeur of the canyon country, made of our trip a sort of spiritual sauna. On May 2nd we left Las Vegas and drove from Nevada to Arizona, to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, where we gazed in awe over parapets and clambered along several of the trails under the rim. The views were of course majestic, having a grandeur the scale of which a camera can capture but a hint. The next morning we went early to the local airport, and in two shifts, flew out over the canyon in a four-seater. That was not only awesome, it was also quite a thrill. Bryce Canyon The following day we drove through spectacular countryside, going from Arizona into Utah, crossing Lake Powell (the reservoir created in the Colorado River by the Glen Canyon Dam) at Page, then going north past the Vermilion Cliffs and the Grand Escalante to Bryce Canyon ("A helluva place to lose a cow"). There, we watched the sun set from Sunset Point, and, in the morning, the sun rise from Sunrise Point. Our hike in the morning through the canyon’s spires, fins, pinnacles, and mazes (collectively called "hoodoos"), was a breathtaking experience (in my case, quite literally). Long Canyon, Lake Powell At noon we set out for Monument Valley, Arizona. The journey itself was a delight. Forsaking the main road, we took a "short cut", via Torrey and Boulder, over the Burr Trail, a mostly dirt road that runs through the towering walls of Long Canyon, which crosses the southern tip of Capitol Reef National Park. The drive was unforgettable, particularly at its eastern end where the road, dropping steeply, twists through massive, otherworldly rock formations. Eventually we reached Bullfrog, where the ferry, which was to take us back across Lake Powell, shuttles back and forth to Hall’s Crossing on its eastern bank. We’d missed the mid-afternoon run, so the more intrepid amongst us took advantage of the leisure time while we waited for the next crossing, to have a dip in the very icy lake. (The lake may be in a torrid desert, but the waters of its feeder, the Colorado River, are snowmelt from the Rockies). Valley of the Gods The road onward from Lake Powell toward Monument Valley, ran along the top of a mesa. We reached the rim just as the sun was starting to go down; below us lay the Valley of the Gods. Reaching it required another adventurous drive down the mesa face on a steep, writhing, gravel road, letting us out onto the valley itself – peaceful, eternal, its stone formations mystic and evocative. Except for the 17-mile dirt lane circling around in the valley, there’s no sign of man here (it’s where John Houston shot many of his Westerns, eg "Stagecoach"). We'd entered the valley as the sun set and dusk was falling, and continued meandering through it well into the ghostly gloaming. We just barely made it to Goulding’s Lodge in the Navajo Reservation in Arizona as the dining room was closing. The Navajo restaurant staff was stoic about it (what else would you expect?). Monument Valley In the morning we took a "Jeep" (aka any 4-wheel-drive vehicle) tour through the famous rock formations of Monument Valley. Our driver, Raymond, was a Navajo, as were all personnel in the reservation and at Goulding’s. The tour he gave us around the "Mittens" and through the other monuments was every bit as awesome as it was supposed to be, and was entertainingly embellished by his anecdotes of movies and commercial shoots made in the valley, for which the bemused Navajos are paid handsomely. Horseback Ride That afternoon we met Evelyn at her corral, whence we were to go on a horseback ride. When Evelyn asked us to give assurance that we could indeed ride horses, we said Of course, though some answering more firmly than others, and got saddled up for a jaunt through the desert and around an extinct volcano. As we set out, our guide, Danny, a lean, young Navajo buck, shook his head and muttered something about Look at all them palefaces, and me just one Injun; it was meant as a jest, but the subtext was bitter. When, shortly after we set out, Richard’s hat blew off and he had to dismount to chase it, Danny shook his head even more. Then when Richard let go of the bridle to pick up his hat and his horse decided to go on walkabout, Danny made no effort to hide his disgust while he rounded up Richard’s mount. The trail, as it snaked up the side of the volcano, became ever narrower, the wall face steeper the terrain consisting entirely of a jumble of sharp shards of loose shale. While we picked our way very carefully, our compulsion for caution was leavened by the heady ambiance of our surroundings: the air was crystal clear and the view, when we dared raise our gaze from the trail to look out over the desert, was terrific. When we arrived back at the corral and dismounted, we were amazed to watch one of the horses inside the corral reach over the railing, and, with his teeth, remove the bridle from one of our just-returned horses. "Does in all the time", muttered Evelyn. Before calling it a day, we visited Oljato, a real Navajo trading post (Goulding’s is also real, but also caters heavily to tourists). Durango The next day, we made another circuit of the Valley of the Gods before setting out to see the monument at the point of the Four Corners, after which we turned northeast into Colorado. We drove past Mesa Verde via Cortez to Durango, where in the morning we were to ride the Durango-Silverton railroad. Poking through the town of Durango that evening proved to be an adventure in itself. The main street was done up à la classic Western – good fun, and if primarily for the tourists, so what. There were several notable stops: one was the Stetson Store, where the "Stetson Gal" showed us how these famous chapeaux are made, and fitted Peter for one. But most memorable was the saloon at the Strater Hotel, the Diamond Belle, where Louis L'Amour wrote some of his Sackett (Sackett!) Westerns, and where the present-day gemütlichkeit completely justified the big-sky bar bill we ran up. The (Belgian!) bar maid was as intrigued by the satellite images of Durango which Arthur showed her on the bar’s computer, as we were by the fringes on her costume. Richard put her up to giving me a surprise birthday kiss, with Arthur at the ready with his camera. Then, as we sat around the bar swapping stories, a superannuated blond piano player showed up and treated us to a properly raucous singalong evening, belting out an endless stream of naughty ditties. The Durango- Silverton Railroad The Durango-Silverton railroad is a narrow-gauge steam railway drawn by vintage locomotives. The line was constructed to haul silver and gold ore down from the San Juan Mountains, but what it offers now are spectacular views, which us guys, though seriously hung over from the previous night’s carousing in the Diamond Belle, managed to enjoyed. We couldn’t take the full ride to Silverton as the passes were still snowed in; instead we stopped half way, picnicked, then took the train back, reaching Durango still in time to pack up and set out that afternoon for Moab. Moab The final destination of our trip was the uranium mining town of Moab, Utah. The focus of our stay there was one of traveling through its dramatic, gorgeous canyon and desert country, and can best be told by looking through our pictures of Canyonlands: Dead Horse Point, Shaffer Trail, Pucker Pass, Elephant Pass, and Needles; then afterwards, of Arches National Park. We ended our stay in Moab on a light note, going on our last night to a "dinner " where a Wild-West shootout was staged, and where some of us "got volunteered" to get up on the stage and demonstrate our prowess twirling lariats. After all, we were wearing cowboy hats and boots. Vail It was time to go home. The first stage of our return trip was the spectacular highway across Colorado through the Rockies to the Denver airport. We stopped for lunch at chi-chi Vail, providing a nice contrast to the rough-and-ready Moab, and making a fitting closing chapter to our collection of Out-West memories. |