Grand Canyon Bound

We are driving route 89A (A is for alternate) northeastward from Prescott. The green and rocky hills ahead of us are becoming our surroundings as the road plunges through them. We've got house music keeping us company, courtesy of Kevin, on our slow drive. The oil pressure-warning buzzer has already gone off twice today and we've barely driven! So, we are going more slowly - but all the better to see the country we roll through.

We have wended our way high up into these hills now, and can barely see the valley where Prescott lies below us. Pines are strewn about the hills with small-leafed oaks and shrubs. Trogdor struggles to continue on up the steep hill. We are at 6,800 feet - about 1500 feet climbed since Prescott, only 30 minutes or so ago. Patchy meadows dot the roadside now, as we descend to the other side of this small mountain.

I just caught sight of the burnt orange-red rock lining the lower cliff faces of the mountain range one valley east of this one. I imagine we'll climb that range too. Hopefully Trogdor will make it up and down all day.

Jerome reminded us each of a medieval French village and a lake island near Morelia, Mexico. It's built into the cliffs facing the red rocks across the valley. The older buildings look as if they will crumble onto the two-lane road any moment. As we descend into the valley, I see a 10-foot tall flower stalk, festooning its yellowness as if to say, "I am happy to be alive! Aren't you?" A bird stood atop the brilliant blooms. I caught sight of a curly-q plume and smiled at the two fancy creatures: a sedate quail, looking like a queen on its century plant throne. It is not a sight I will forget.

Sedona is nestled into the valley of seriously RED rocks. But the most amazing element of these geomasses is their shape. Color alone is not quite enough to make them incredible. I felt as if we were driving through a magazine photo. We stopped just beyond town, where every building is red just like the rock that holds it, and seriously contemplated getting massages and staying in a she-she bed and breakfast. We finally decided not to.

While we were searching around on line from the side of the van, a woman walked up to us and began to speak, though the wind carried away some of her words. We thought she needed help with her truck, but then we realized she was asking for food after a long trek. She was not shy about it. She declined my offer to make her a turkey sandwich saying in a far away voice that she was of "the vegetarian type." We gave her some: an orange, some cheese. She asked for more, and we offered her an apple, some bread. She wanted to make sure we were giving her whole-grain bread. She seemed disappointed that we did not have crackers. Her eyes constantly drifted off to look at the mountains, her thin blonde hair whipped about in the wind. Her skin was pink-bronze. She seemed almost to will herself ghostlike as she thanked us and walked back toward town, seeming to walk gently, but disappeared around the bend in the road in no time. I think when you are hungry and have no prospects for getting food by your own means, what others might think of you doesn't matter so much. You just ask for what you need, and you probably get it a lot. It reminded me of a story I read in the Sun Magazine, about a guy who walked over the Eastern US, living on whatever he found and received from others, an experiment in having nothing. Fascinating story.

We're now camped in the Coconino National Forest off Route 180, North of Flagstaff. Birds are calling out across the pines and dinner is on the stove, to which I must now attend!