The next stretch always brings up the dilemma of which way to cross. “Crossing,” this time, refers to changing the heading from Northeast to a bit more East and a bit less North. The straightest way, the Interstate, is of course the most featureless and also the safest. Who wants safety when  crossing the American West?

No! You must never travel the West on the Interstate, because the four-lane highway blurs the landscape into a simple world of pavement and perfectly placed fast-food joints and motels, full of travelers who consider the desert boring and traveling a burden. One doesn’t see America that way, just a plastic modern comfortable world where the road is just a path, and not the journey itself. Might as well be watching a movie about a road trip on that dreadful television. Might as well fly, if you take the Interstate, although you may marvel at the way in which we have made all Interstate Highways so similar. Similar in experience, in the way the MacDonald’s is exactly to the left and across the street from the Burger King (where is a decent roast beef sandwich from Arby’s when you need one?), exactly beside and at the same distance from, a Dairy Queen. Behind them, just a street over and near Motel 6 and Super 8, Denny’s grand slam breakfast awaits the loads full of tourists on the Interstate. And the bacon will taste the same whether you just stopped in Kansas, Nebraska, Alabama, Maine, Colorado...

As soon as possible, we get off the highway and head toward more mountains on a much friendlier, yet slower, two-lane road. Canyons lie ahead now, some with names and visitor’s centers, and others nameless and untried—it is these that we seek, so that we can play pioneer and name them ourselves. Testimony to the beauty of these lands is the number of National Parks that one can visit on the way through a stretch of only about 200 square miles. We rarely go into the parks themselves, with the exception of Zion and Capitol Reef, both of them having roads through them seemingly built for the delight of travelers just like us. But we count them as we pass them, once having passed by five in a single trip, more if we had care to deviate a bit from the set course. We don’t exactly plan our journey, but we set our course as we drive. “We will drive to here, stop there, have lunch over there, stay the night at that place...” The funny thing is, once set on a course, it is difficult to deviate, as if we had made a promise to the roads that we somehow must keep.

Since we will visit Zion in another month of so, to peddle my prints in a small art fest, we skip it this time and go North a bit, through Cedar City, in order to venture the pass at Cedar Breaks. There we leave the big highway to enter into a world of curves, mountains, streams, pines, and splashed with hidden clear lakes. Mountain roads beckon in a different language. Here they call travelers, not at a distance from the end of the expansive horizon, but from just ahead where the road disappears around the next curve—then the next after that–playing a playful game of hide and seek, giggling after us like a child. There is something beautifully eerie about mountain roads.

All mountain roads climb to a peak, seemingly taking a path that would have never occurred to someone wanting to get across the mountain. I am almost sure those road engineers must know what they are doing, although sometimes it seems as though they get playful with their chosen course. And all mountain roads, by their nature, produce what we call “parades,” where a slow vehicle collects a bunch of anxious followers that are too fearful to pass and too nervous to enjoy the scenery that extends itself as an invitation, a byproduct of the slower speeds. No, we must instead concentrate on the ample rear of the vehicle ahead, rubbernecking to see what the hold-up is, and never once glancing at the field flowers, the knotted pines, the darting birds, the scurrying squirrels, the occasional dashing deer. Front to rear, bumper to bumper we continue, up, down, around this ridge, across the stream, always faithfully following the edge of the mountain, to the top, then back down, the road emulating life itself and its many turns and convolutions.

Invariably, the road down leads to a valley—in the West, a desert—that opens the world again and takes a weight off our shoulders. Relieved, the anxiety subsides as we dash forward passing the offending obstacle to be the first at the helm and have clear view of the road ahead. Unobstructed and relieved of our self imposed claustrophobia, we await more visual gifts from the road. We demand, now, that our sense of sight we be rewarded every minute and every mile. We criticize when we pass by a stretch that does not meet our new standard of beauty. We demand from the road as it demands of us that we simply follow, that we keep going on.

Past Cedar Breaks, the valley lies along a long stretch of highway that connects the state of Utah North and South–not the new road, but the old highway 89. Farmland where irrigated and brush and desert where water can’t reach, the valley road winds little and gains miles fast, climbing hard on the way to the red canyons. Magic lands await us with the gift of fantasy formations and unbelievable, thousand year old works of art.

A funny thing happens when traveling, regardless of the preconceived plans to stop often and take time to know the small towns and charming cafes. Somewhere soon along the way, the road seduces to go on, to continue, to keep on driving. Like time, roads appear and disappear through the windshield. Like time, a beautiful scene appears and in an instant it is beyond the reach of sight of the rear view mirror. And, like time itself, once a stretch of road is past, it is truly past. We always think that we can go back and revisit roads past, but in reality we seldom do. In reality, we keep moving–much to fast–compelled by the act of moving itself, trapped by our desire to get “there.” There probably is a life lesson here, as there is almost in every experience if we care to introspect long enough.
 

East of Highway 89 the road opens to a high mesa speckled with canyons of sandstone so red that surely they must be rich with some mysterious and precious mineral. Sandstone formations pepper the landscape, form bridges and canyons and arches and kings and queens of thousand year old rock presiding over a magical kingdom of fire. Bryce Canyon lies to the South a bit, where tourists flock to view the silent cities of stone. We bypass the bustle and move on through towns with names that stretch the imagination and with sleepy streets that close at dusk. Motels now sprout through these small forgotten villages, but never at the right time, never when it is time to stop. Or is it that we miss the opportunity, closing our eyes and ears to anything but the beckoning road?

Stop we must, however, because stronger than the desire to move on is the basic need to eat. Today we will engage in what we named “the hot-dog project,” an activity that, I hope, needs not much explanation. The hot-dog project does have a few rudimentary requirements that must absolutely be met in the quest for success, the primary of which is a grill. If we were successful in packing, the other requirements should be met, they being some instant lighting charcoal, mustard and bread, and, of course, the hot dogs themselves. Matches are of essence and I always hope that I will not have to employ the skill and method that it would take to light a fire with a magnesium fire-starter, which I carry with me at all times (reasons for owning and knowing how to use such an item are well beyond the scope of this story and attempting to explain would only complicate matters). Once all the required ingredients have been gathered, with a little wind but not too much, anyone can have a fruitful hot dog project in less time than what it would take to obtain a hot meal at a sleepy small town eatery, and much more satisfying than simply exchanging a few greenbacks for a #4 combo.

Today we met Larry, a chipmunk whose name we did not know until his brother
Darrell appeared (no sign of his other brother Darrell, however, for the knowing curious). Larry liked grapes, it turned out, and he (presumably a he, since his name was Larry) also liked to wrap his tiny hands around my fingers until he was sure that he had a good hold on the grape in his mouth, as if he wanted to make sure I would not let go prematurely. He would then run off to some peaceful place to eat his trophy, all the while looking over his furry shoulder to make sure I would not try to take it back. Darrell, as it turned out, much shyer and slightly bigger and rounder, would not take the grape from my fingers but merely stopped just short of my hand and barked sharply for me to drop it nearby. Nervously, he would then proceed to run like his brother and occasionally peek from below the rocks to see if he maybe could get just one more. How a little chipmunk managed to gobble down three grapes the size of his own head we could not hardly understand. And true to his hoarding instincts, Larry gave the immense pleasure of snatching three additional grapes from my fingers only to find the most appropriate hiding places in which to bury the catch of the day. After clumsily identifying a few of the birds that serenaded our lunch place throughout the meal, the roads quickly urged us to move on. We will be back, after all, and there will be other chipmunks.
 

---

Click to Drive Onward...

1000 Woodcuts Home Page
Galleries	Meet the Artist	About Woodcuts	Contact	Purchasing Art