Rising from the Ashes

There is no easy way to get out of bed at 5:00am.

In my case, at least, if I’m planning on getting up early I always sleep badly the night before. It doesn’t matter whether I’m worried about missing a flight or missing a chance to take some photos, the end result is always the same – fractured, restless sleep. In the end, looking at the clock and seeing it was a viable time to get up, it was relief more than anything else.

I drove up the Joshua Tree National Park Road in darkness and alone, passing the shuttered park rangers hut and headed onward and upward, following a winding road enlivened only with the occasional desert mouse or jackrabbit playing chicken with the Escape.

Thankfully, the morning’s efforts were far more rewarding than the previous evenings, with some hopefully promising shots at Live Oak and Hall of Horrors. Mind you, everything looks promising on a 3” screen – it’s when you get to see it up close and personal in a print or on a monitor and you go “hmmm, that’s a little bit out of focus” or “wow, I didn’t notice that in the picture” (see previous days entry) that you really know what you’re dealing with. Still, gotta have optimism!

I returned to the hotel after filling the car, had a breakfast of biscuits, sausage and gravy (oh, those American’s and their wacky breakfast foods!), crammed the kids in the boot and packed the baggage in the back seat, and we headed off, once again into the park but this time taking a left turn to Cottonwood, stopping at the Cholla (Choy-ya) Cactus Garden and Ocotillo (Occa-Ti-yo) Patch along the way, before hitting I-10 and heading for Blythe (Shit-Hole), near the California/Arizona border. We stopped to eat cupcakes outside a hotel optimistically named El Grande Verde, or something similarly ludicrous, where a couple of pudgy denizens lurking in the shadows of the veranda wearing wife-beaters, Monsanto caps and clutching Buds, eyed us unnervingly. The moment a slightly cock-eyed one with buck teeth started picking at a banjo and the other said I had a purdy mouth, we knew it was time to go.

Although much of the USA is absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful, it’s got to be said the trip between Cottonwood and Blythe will never make it on anyone’s “most beautiful scenic drives” list – it reminded me a lot of northern Nevada in its unrelenting desolation – just a ragged mountain range running to the north of the interstate, and not much else. Once you cross over into Arizona, the initial impression is that the bleakness just continues – the town of Quartzsite seems to be nothing but kilometres of weed-broken concrete on either side of the interstate, littered with motor homes. As soon as it’s safely in your rear view mirror however, Arizona begins to unfold with broken, majestic mountains to the east and south, studded with the state’s signature cactus, the Saguaro, some in excess of 10m high. 

Another couple of hours later, we’re doing battle on the interstates surrounding Phoenix. If you’ve ever seen the freeway chase sequence in The Matrix Reloaded, it’s less frenetic and heart-pounding than rush hour in Phoenix. Cars careen from all directions on four and five lane interstates, weaving in and out of traffic, slowing down fleetingly at the scene of an accident before abruptly lurching across three lanes of traffic and starting up the chase all over again. I’ve driven happily in LA and New York, but Phoenix seems to require far more concentration than either to avoid being collected. It’s a concrete rat maze and every subject is on sugar water, keen to complete the test in the shortest possible time.

Eventually we cleared the loop road and headed south toward Tucson on I-10, turning off on Chandler Boulevard to grace a Super 8 hotel with our presence for the first time this trip. The kids hit the pool before we headed out on a futile attempt to make it to Casa Grande National Monument before closing time – I’d only just gotten used to Pacific Time, and now we’re on Mountain Time. I conceded defeat, trudged off into the wilderness a few miles shy of the intended destination to take a few shots of some obligingly posing Saguaro cactus, hit the I-10 back to Chandler and gave the scotch the belting it so richly deserved.