A JAGGED, TWISTED HOMEWARD SPIRAL

 

The Super 8 in Grants Pass, Oregon had decaf. A civilized way to start the day, the big screen in the breakfast room showed live hurricane coverage. 

There was also a machine that, when you waved a hand over a sensor, cooked and spit out two miniature pancakes. Will we soon see 3D food printers? Or Star Trek-y replicators?

There were franchises out every window. This was the United States of America, all right. You could check in here from any part of the country and find something familiar to consume.

Grants Pass also had a mural that looked like a transdimensional portal, 

a store with big, red eyeball, 

and another where they cared about everybody's souls but weren’t open.

Out in the countryside, Bigfoot got patriotic with a winged companion.

We went through Reddings into the unsprawled interior of NorCal that looked a different planet from SoCal.

Gas was mostly over $4/gallon. The cheapest was $3.99. The guy at the station said his boss told him they make 5 cents a gallon. Greed makes the world go round.

The Red Roof Inn we stayed at only had regular coffee. Another caffeinated morning. Can civilization function without its designated legal psychoactive drug?

Then we had a fantastic Journey to the Center of the Earth-ish experience at the Oregon Caves National Monument & Preserve. 

Not as much out-of -this-world as inside-this-world.

 

Like the moon in places. Other times it looks like the mouths of a horde of monsters.

Inner worldly beauty.

Back on the surface, blow-up Halloween decorations hung out with the flag.

Next was Lassen Volcanic National Park,

Manzanita Lake,

and the Devastated Area,

That got that way because of volcanic eruption that, among other things,

Threw humongous rocks about the landscape

Then there was an area devastated by non-volcanic fire,

There were also bears, but we didn’t see any.

I wasn’t the only one having visions of Mars.

There was the smell of brimstone, and bubbling.

And danger.

In Bridgeport gas was $6.59 a gallon.

And at the Quality Inn, we had to take all the food from our car up to the room. Hibernation season was coming, and the bears were fattening up, breaking into anything that smelled like it contained food.

The next day we couldn’t get into Yosemite. You have to get reservations. It was probably for the best, since it probably would have been like being stuck in a long traffic jam, even though the scenery would have been spectacular.

Instead, we went on a five-hour jaunt through the Great Basin, which was also spectacular, but wasn’t bumper-to-bumper, and we could stop, get out and take pictures whenever we wanted.

Not only were there wide-open spaces, and natural beauty, but astounding places like Benton Hot Springs, still in California, near the Paiute reservation, with rusting farm equipment,

abandoned gas stations,

and vehicles, 

and structures from a bygone era. 

Not a national park, but well worth seeing.

Nevada was its old surreal, post-apocalyptic, Mars-colony self, 

complete with a solar concentrator blazing like a second sun in the desert. Is that a mirage? Could it be real?

In Tonapah, gas was $3.78 a gallon. No beer cans floating in canals, but you can get your McDonalds rewards . . .

And there actually is a Great Basin National Park.

Clouds hovered like camouflaged UFOs.

As the sunset, we entered Utah.

Utah is different. Planet Mormon. Or maybe Mormon settlement on Mars. 

Where a monumental Native warrior cleaves clouds with his tomahawk, 

corporate America flooding in through the highways,

Wild West heathen homes decked out for Halloween,

alligator jerky for sale (still no of sign those elusive Utah alligators),

cowgirl coffee, 

and in Delta, an ice cream place called the Mix, that was  run by a lactose-intolerant woman. 

A robot dripping with string-of-pearls plants. 

This was it. America. Small towns. Alternate realities, visions of futures, geological formations, ruins and artifacts from lost civilizations. Evolution. Revolution.

And rock shops.

Joe’s Rock Shop, Home of the Utah Septarian Nodule.

The Orderville Mine Rock Shop,

where metal dinosaurs threaten to run off with the merchandise,

and we were warned of the danger of grabbing glass and obsidian.

On the final day we cruise homeward along the Fabulous 89.

Gas was $3.31 a gallon

Another landscape radiating surrealism. Were those really secret Morman marijuana farms? And that datura garden was lush and well cared for. In Richfield, there was a Mexican Restaurant: LA GRINGA. Not many coffee stands in Utah.

A sign suggested RELAX, THROW AN AXE. In Circleville, a black guy sold barbeque on Sunday morning. Not far away a Trump flag flew over a farm. In Panguitch, the taco trailer was closed, but we found a coffee joint.

Most of Utah is closed on Sunday. Everybody seems to be in church, or in the rock shops worshiping older gods. Yet people are driving around, looking for . . . something . . .

Soon we re-entered Arizona. The Rez. The Navajo Nation.

Gas was $3.25 a gallon, and the sun sent curtains of light through the clouds.

Back in Phoenix, it was still an inferno. I could hardly wait to get to work on this travelogue.