A Few Days in AZ

Arizona, Days 163-166, 11/18 - 11/20/24

I think one of my biggest take-aways from my road trip is how so much of the country could easily be mistaken for Wyoming. I remember thinking that driving through the high desert in Oregon, when traversing the Cache National Forest in Utah, and I was thinking it again as I crossed the California Desert into Arizona and neared Flagstaff. The dry desert and distant mountains eventually gave way to beige rolling hill sparsely covered in conifers under the gaze of Humphery’s Peak.

Driving through the desert felt surreal and liminal. It’s like you can’t see where the road you're driving on is heading or where it went behind you, yet you can see for miles and miles in every direction at the same time. My final moments in California were spent being the only car driving past abandoned buildings in a wide, flat expanse of desert that was the floor of a humungous bowl made by mountains that looked so distant, I was convinced I’d never reach them. When I did, I couldn’t tell how the road was going to travel through them up until the moment that my tires touched the ground there. I couldn’t grasp the landscape was changing right up until it finally did; I think this is what made the five hour drive feel so much longer than it really was.

This drive brought me a timezone closer to home. This made me feel like I was officially heading back, which was bittersweet. It got colder as I continued into Arizona which brought back my wishes to go to San Diego. I think my longing to go back to California already was amplified by the nervousness I felt about returning home; I don’t do well with any kind of change and I’m sad my trip is just about over. Even though living in a van is challenging—especially a van without a toilet, shower, stovetop, or even room to stand up in—if I had the funds, no other obligations, and no one I missed too much at home, I would keep driving. I’m holding onto the idea that this won’t be my only vanlife stint to get me through the anxiety of this one ending.

The day after I got to Flagstaff, I headed for the south entrance of the Grand Canyon. Before getting some stickers and post cards, I watched a traditional Hopi dance performance outside of the visitor’s center. Then I spent the rest of the morning walking along the south rim. I peered into the canyon for hours, and processing what I was looking at never got easier. The enormousness of it is indescribable. It makes you question whether or not what you are experiencing is real life or not. On top of that, the canyon walls and crevices were constantly changing as the sun traveled across the sky.

After a quick lunch, I hopped on the Hermit’s Landing shuttle which made nine stops along the canyon for tourists to get off and on to see that Canyon at many different angles. While riding along, I did some research about people who had fallen—either voluntarily or not—into the canyon. The stories of murders played off as accidental slips—and also of genuinely accidental slips—made me uneasy and want to stay a little farther back from the edge than I already had been, and despite the frequent guardrails. The canyon epitomizes vastness; falling to the bottom must take forever. I wondered if the shock of being airborne would wear off after so long and if one would have the time to be able to fully think about what was happening to them. Thinking about it made me dizzy. At many of the stops and on the way back to the first shuttle checkpoint, I watched a helicopter with a ladder dragging in the air behind it flying around the canyon, perhaps searching for someone; it looked as big as an insect or like a toy I could crush in my hand.

I felt better as I pulled into my campsite near Tusayan, a small town right outside of the South entrance to the park. I prepped myself for another cold night with layers of clothes and blankets; however, I woke up overheating and had to strip off a couple. At its coldest, it was 25 degrees. Originally, I had planned to get a couple hotels on my drive home, but if I was waking up sweating in 25 degree weather, I started to think I would be just fine as I drove up through the Midwest.

The next morning, I woke up early to watch the sunrise on the canyon wall. Many others joined me wrapped in blankets and bearing winter jackets. Once the sun was well in the sky, I headed back to Flagstaff for a Planet Fitness shower. However, their water heater was having issues, so naturally, I drove two hours out of my way to the next closest Planet Fitness for a warm shower; the extra time and gas it cost was well worth it. My next destination was Holbrook, a little town outside of Petrified Forest National Park. I had planned on sleeping in a truck stop parking lot that had decent reviews on iOverlander, but when I saw how wide open it was and how loud the highway was right next to it, I drove to a little park in a neighborhood and decided to take my chances sleeping there instead.

After not receiving a knock on my door during the night, I went into Petrified Forest National Park. This park is truly in the middle of nowhere. It seemed like the kind of place that you could be absorbed into; like if you walked out into the silent desert far enough, you would cease to exist and be forgotten by everyone who ever knew you. I had never heard silence like I did in that desert. A raven cawing nearly broke my eardrums at the Highway 66 roadstop in the park. Experiencing desolation like this made a stop in this park well worth it.

I also visited Puerto Pueblo, Newspaper Rock, Jasper Forest, Crystal Forest, and the Rainbow Forest Museum. Seeing the building remains and petroglyphs at the first two archeological sites was a lot more moving than I thought it would be. As I stared at the handprints and drawings on the rockface, it was difficult to fathom that an individual made them thousands of years ago; I couldn’t comprehend just how old they were. It was different than looking at a mountain or a river that was also thousands or millions of years old, because these markings were put there intentionally by a person who had a unique life in this desert and friends and families they loved. And now I traveled thousands of miles and hundreds of days to come see it. I wanted to know the people who created the markings and whether or not they thought about how long their handprints might stay on the rock and if they thought about who might view it in the future--or if they didn’t think about that at all. If they thought the scope of their reach was much more limited than that. It made me feel so connected to humans as a species and I found it hard not to cry.

I read most of the plaques in the “forests”, which of course are not really forests anymore. I thought the felled trees that were now eternally crystalized looked like churros, which was a little funny. Back in Route 66’s heyday, Petrified Forest was quite the destination for travelers. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t see over 500 visitors a year. After seeing the whole park in just a few hours, I headed for my next and final destination: New Mexico.