September 17, 2018

FORT STOCKTON, Tex.: We left El Paso refreshed and restored, but without a concrete plan for a next stop. We headed out I-10, got gas, and pushed past the industrial side of the city as it fell away to the south alongside Mexico, which stretched out green and rugged to the horizon.  This was the section that we had heard extends for some 90 miles with few services. Within 30 minutes we were practically on our own with the long-haul trucks. The two interstate lanes shimmered in the heat in front of us at 80 mph in miles-long curves and straightaways, bordered by the west Texas scrub.

We took turns driving, talking, going back over the trip, and what was to come. Even in its truncated version, the trip would be our last big splash for who knows how long. As we raced across the West, the future seemed sharply defined by what the doc would tell us September 26.

We had to get there first, we reminded each other. There were only a few “picnic areas” along this stretch of I-10. The rolling green scrub flew by. I pulled off at an exit labeled “Plateau,” but saw only a shut-down gas station and café. The road at the end of the ramp simply ended.

Occasionally we saw a structure, but no cattle, no farm vehicles, no human beings. This is West Texas, I reminded myself, while Sandy dozed—vast and nearly empty, prompting thoughts of Dostoevsky’s description of the Russian steppe that, he wrote, drove the insane political visions of the country’s 19th century radical fringe, most of whom were executed.

Eventually the interstate splits, with I-20 leading northeast toward Odessa and Midland, Texas’ big oil country, while I-10 simply drags you due east. We hoped, because of the mild weather, that we could find a state park for camping close to the highway. I studied the map—nothing. Finally, as the miles flew by, we settled on the Fort Stockton RV Park. I called, yes, they had a tent area, sites for $19.00. Sounded good. Did we need a reservation? “Never hurts,” the woman on the phone said. “We’re at exit 264, you can’t miss us.”

We hoped to avoid a commercial campsite, but this was it. We passed through a couple of Fort Stockton exits. Gas stations, stop-and-go convenience stores, mobile homes. There’s a Walmart, we were told, but never saw it. At exit 264 we saw the sign and pulled up to the office. Monster RVs lined the lanes of the place. The woman explained that the tent area had four sites, one already taken. “Take your pick,” she said.

We followed the map to the end of the lane. The tent section was squeezed between the RVs, the bath house—and the interstate. We stared as the big trucks roared by a couple of hundred feet from our assigned site, generating a constant breeze through the underbrush that served as the only buffer between our site and the highway. The site itself was OK, soft patio stone along with a picnic table. I set up the tent and we headed for the camp café for a Texas catfish-and-hush puppies dinner. While at dinner I squinted at our map to find Fort Stockton. It’s there, in slightly bolder print than Plateau. 100 more miles to Ozuma.

 

September 17, 2018

EL PASO, Tex. The Wall is already there. Not the one the Trump Administration is flogging constantly. A wall of about eight feet of stone, topped with razor wire, as well as a high steel fence, separates El Paso from Juarez, Mexico, at the international transit point between the two cities. It serves to channel the flow of motor and foot traffic towards the security checkpoints. Thousands cross legally in both directions every day: Mexican students at Univ.-Texas El Paso, and at various high schools, American students studying in Mexico, technical people, executives, and managers at dozens of high-tech and heavy manufacturing businesses, teachers, hotel managers, restaurant staffers, tour guides, and on and on.

The people of these neighboring cities, living their own lives, don’t generate conflict or animosity, which is imposed on border policy by scapegoating outsiders. Border security personnel surveil those thousands of crossers and frequently apprehend very bad people. But with a few exceptions, they are not of Juarez or El Paso. That’s not a theory of mine, but one validated by those with years of experience here.

We did walk over to the border and saw the wall and fence, and the security personnel doing their jobs. The tragedy of family separations of last summer didn’t occur among those who live, work, and study here tolerantly and respectfully of their neighbors. They occurred because desperate poverty, lack of work, and fear for life at home drove Central Americans to test the border.

The border here is a place of prosperity. Businesses of all kinds boom along El Paso Street, which extends from the international crossing the half-dozen blocks to our hotel. People stream through the gate, dressed for work or school, in large and small groups. Vendors chatting in Spanish and English arrange their shelves loaded with merchandise: clothing, shoes, small electronics, jewelry, oddball stuff—big sombreros, sharp-looking cowboy boots polished to a high sheen.  Shopkeepers smiled and waved as we walked by. It was the start of a new workday. Were desperate people hiding in Mexican culverts watching for their chance to make it across? They were, and are. But fast-paced business activity was taking place here, giving people economic purpose, decent incomes, and enduring hope.

 

September 16, 2018

EL PASO, Tex.: We were heading to El Paso, another warm place at the corner of the country. After our tough night at Pacacho, we needed a cool Sunday night at the El Paso Marriott Courtyard, a 350-mile trip. We backtracked to Eloy for Mass, then pushed on towards Tucson. The turn east after Tucson meant that our long southern detour was over and we finally were pointed toward home. We shared the driving, taking turns catching the sleep we didn’t get last night. I was excited about seeing El Paso, a key junction point of two cultures. Also, reported to be a lovely place with a mild climate, and a big college football town.

Across the state line into New Mexico, you face another anonymous landscape of sand and scrub. The remoteness of the state is brought home along I-10 by the breadth of the desert, out to the horizon in most places, here and there accented by bare, craggy peaks, and scattered shacks and mobile homes. In many states, I’ve noted, the prosperity of the largest cities is set off sharply by the poverty and accompanying social problems fostered by isolation of communities miles from the large urban centers that are rewarded by business investment and effective management by strong local governments. Not my original theory, but I think an accurate one.

The New Mexico leg isn’t a long one. The desert starts to show more green, and the approach to Las Cruces is spectacular, from a high point the city shows itself as a broad swath of attractive stucco, stretching for miles against a high ridge of the rugged Organ Mountains. The interstate then turns sharply south towards Texas. Crossing the border, you can’t miss the sign that announces the vastness of Texas: “El Paso 40, Beaumont 851.” Beaumont, bordering Louisiana, is at the easternmost point of the state. I gulped.

We unpacked at the hotel then set out to stretch our legs. “Go to the plaza and turn right,” the desk clerk instructed us. Within a few blocks we crossed San Jacinto Square, a lovely spot of green set off by twinkling, delicate white Christmas lights strung through the trees. Young people socialized and children played on the manicured turf while their parents relaxed on benches nearby. Unfortunately, we then turned left.

Away from the square, downtown was deserted, not a restaurant, bar, or coffee shop open. It was a Sunday evening, sure, but no one was on the street. El Paso, I guessed, has not yet figured out how to bring people downtown on weekends. The streets got darker, a little seedier. We kept walking until the legs were well-stretched, and then some. Finally, a few hundred yards from the international border, we turned back. A block away from the hotel, like Hemingway’s clean well-lit place, was a decent restaurant. We had a nice dinner, toasted our 350 miles, and went to bed.

September 16, 2018

ELOY Ariz.: Yesterday was a unique day—not unique in being wonderful, adventurous, and educational, although we had some of all that.

We had a great morning seeing the Grand Canyon. Spectacular beyond words. We fled the KOA early to drive the 50 miles of U.S. 64 to the national park, see the Visitor’s Center, and walk a half-mile of the Rim Trail, which follows the South Rim. Looking down, we were stunned to learn that creation of the baseline rock formation began 2 BILLION years ago. We gawked for a while, like throngs of others, picked up some books for the grandsons, and headed back that same 50 miles back to Williams.

After lunch at the same tourist place we visited three weeks ago (I winced at the “come back and see us!”) we got on I-40 to Flagstaff, then turned south on I-17 towards Phoenix. We were determined not to give up on camping, learning from our brochures that Arizona offers many camping options at its state parks. But in a comfortably air-conditioned vehicle, we forgot the climate problem.  

We settled on Picacho Peak State Park, 68 miles south of Phoenix. The ranger on the phone said the unique formation of the peak is popular with hikers and climbers. I didn’t tell him we wouldn’t be doing the climb—nor think to ask about the current temperature.

We plodded down I-17, enjoying the view of those majestic Saguaro cacti famous from the Old “Arizona Highways” magazines and hundreds of Westerns.  Driving through Phoenix the dashboard thermometer read 115F. I started getting antsy, but by then we felt committed. We passed the exit for Picacho, an unincorporated place, population about 400. Then we spotted the sign for the park.  We pulled up to the ranger station just before closing time. The ranger seemed startled that campers showed up, but gave us a site. “Are there any snakes or scorpions?” Sandy asked. He shrugged. “Haven’t had a problem this summer, but it’s the desert,” he answered, then took off for the weekend.

Now both of us had serious doubts. The dash thermometer showed 103F.  We drove slowly to the site. The park seemed deserted. No one in his right mind would be camping here tonight.  We parked. The heat hit us with blast-furnace intensity. Are we nuts? I thought. Anyway, we had not seen a motel in 50 miles. The site wasn’t bad, it had a shaded area.

I’ve read that the desert cools off quickly after sunset, which was then just two hours away. I went through the motions, hauling the tent out and setting it up on a sandy spot. On inspecting the surface, I kicked pebbles and gravel into a suspicious hole. Snake? Scorpion? I didn’t want to know.

We decided to forget about cooking our own dinner. Nothing but a Subway at the Picacho Peak exit, so we backtracked north eight miles to Eloy and ate at Denny’s. I hoped we’d see some cooling off by the time we got back. No such luck.

We hiked several hundred yards to the camp bathroom and got showers and sat in our lawn chairs, sweating again, waiting for that evening cool-down. About 9:00 PM a breeze kicked up, fanning us gloriously, giving us hope. Shortly thereafter we saw headlights. Another dumb camper? We watched. The SUV passed us slowly then stopped. Then moved along, then stopped again. It did several loops, as if looking for a site, but never choosing one.

Sandy was nervous. “There’s no one else here. This is creepy,” she whispered. That SUV kept circling. We decided to go with the coward’s solution: sleep in the van. We emptied all the gear out of the van, stowed it in the tent, and fit the air mattress into the van, which was roomy enough, but still stifling.  We turned in, setting the windows at half-open to allow some air flow. The roof of the van, with the Arizona sun beaming on it all day, radiated heat inside.

Stepping out of the van in the early AM, though, the night desert sky was spectacular, the stars appearing close enough to touch, Picacho Peak looming dark above us. The air still was warm, pure, and dry. I felt not a wisp of breeze, the silence was awe-inspiring. Two miles distant, the headlights of trucks on I-10 twinkled as they crawled along soundlessly.

Finally, it was 5:00 AM. Time to call this off. We heated up the water for coffee, suddenly dive-bombed by yellowjackets. Sandy, who’s allergic to bee stings, practically ran, waving a spatula around her head. They didn’t attack and sting, but showed they were really angry with us. I recalled the hole in the ground I had covered with gravel when setting up the tent. The nest, for sure.  We gulped some oatmeal and threw the gear in the van.

I stopped at the bath house to brush my teeth and get another shower. A multi-legged critter with a long erect tail sat in the middle of the bathroom floor. Unmistakable: a scorpion. I’d never actually seen one before, but I’ve watched lots of Nature Channel specials. For this one case, I decided on capital punishment, and stomped it. It scuttled backward but to my relief, expired. I grabbed my toothbrush, hopped in the van and we were gone. Still, in a weird way, we’ll treasure this memory. 

September 14, 2018

WILLIAMS, Ariz. : It’s no fun setting up a tent and cooking dinner in the dark. Another hard lesson in camping for Sandy and Ed.

To recap our last post of August 26, we flew home from Las Vegas the next day, leaving our van with daughter Kathleen, who’s studying nursing there. We cut short our original plan to spend five or six weeks driving across the country, seeing the Pacific coast, the Rockies, and of course, Sturgis, S.D.

We flew back to Vegas on Thursday, September 13th, a bit humbled when we recalled the somewhat extravagant vision with which we had started nearly a month ago. We tried to put the stress of a bunch of doctor’s appointments behind us. We junked the original plan; the road home would be, if not straight-line direct, more businesslike and hurried than our first meandering lark on the highways of America.

Kathleen picked us up at the sun-scorched McCarren airport and reported how she had completely reorganized our stuff in the van. It was a professional packing job, but would take us a couple of days to find everything. We had a nice dinner with her and her boyfriend, Steve, and got a good night’s sleep.

Kathleen and Steve are the elite campers/ mountaineers we couldn’t dream to be. They had just returned from a seven-day trek across California mountain trails and were heading, that weekend, for three days of hiking in the Moab and Canyonlands national parks in Utah. They showed us their arsenal of high-tech gear—a lightweight butane-fueled stove that “burns much hotter,” Steve said, than our clunky propane version; dehydrated and freeze-dried meals and snacks (we lugged groceries), lightweight all-weather gear, compact cooking kits. We’ll never get there.

Friday morning I splashed in the pool at their apartment complex, anxious to hit the road. We said our goodbyes and got the required photo beneath the “Leaving Las Vegas” sign at the southern end of the Strip. We then picked up some groceries at Walmart in Henderson, just south of Vegas, gasping in the Nevada heat. We then jumped on I-215 to U.S. 93, which takes you out into the desert (what else?) south of Vegas, past Lake Mead, and eventually to Kingman, Ariz. to pick I-40, which you can take all the way to Wilmington N.C. We weren’t that uptight, but no U.S. 66 on this trip.

We were headed to a KOA campsite in Williams, which I had booked online, a mistake I won’t repeat. Williams was a stop on our sweep along U.S. 66 in our first barrage of “On the Road” posts. A tourist stop on 66, the town calls itself the “gateway to the Grand Canyon.” Our plan was to see the Canyon—that is, see it and get going again.

U.S. 93 gets to be a grind, bordered by monotonous miles of empty, rolling sand scrub. We were worn out by the time we got to Kingman, with 100 miles still to go. We stopped for a shake at McDonald’s, then pressed on, noting how much faster darkness overtook us in mid-September than one month ago. Maybe it just seems that way when you have to set up a tent, unroll sleeping bags, light the grill, cook, etc., etc. I pushed us to upwards of 90 mph, dodging 18-wheelers, but then ran into construction lane closures 20 miles short of Williams.

We made it to the KOA about 8:00 pm. The campsite was basically a spot of dirt next to a road butted up to other sites on both sides. We wearily hauled our gear out, shocked that here, 50 miles from the Canyon, the temperature was at least 30 degrees cooler than in Vegas. We then discovered that our thumbs didn’t work very well trying to thread tentpoles into tiny loops and setting up the grill. Sandy took charge of the cooking and I struggled with the tent, suddenly needing two t-shirts, sweatpants, sweatshirt, gloves, and a winter jacket.  We finished off the dinner and turned in, tense and tired, but encouraged that we were on the way home.