Tuesday, January 12, 2010

LA Stories: Manifest Destiny Pt. 8

Driving through the final part of Arizona was excruciating- all I wanted was to be in California, and like those steam-mirages in the distance, it seemed to be just a little ways off- perpetually. We were so close- and suddenly, we were there! Without any fanfare or "Welcome to the Other Side of the Country" signs, we drove through what we thought was still an Arizona town and then realized we were, in face, in Needles.
In California.
Cue the music! Lights! Strike up the band! Where is the parade I ordered?!?
Instead, we sort of slipped in the back entrance of California- but it was still beautiful. Our ultimate stop lay just beyond the horizon, but first, we had to cross one last part of the desert. The hot, awful part.
The adrenaline rush of our arrival wore off, and I was dozing as we made our way through the Mojave. Jaime, however, was not only fully alert but kept waking me up to call out random names. I didn't really understand this until I bothered to look out my window and saw a long stretch of raised earth running parallel to the road. This was where they'd pushed some desert aside to lay down the asphalt for 66, and it rose about chest high, winding like a never-ending snake along the highway.
All along this levy, people had collected stones that populated the desert, and spelled out messages and names. James, Tim heart Sarah, Laura plus R.J.,, Pete loves Jenn, Mike, Jesus. (Jesus had done this multiple times.) For miles and miles, this scrolling message runs on and on. In a way, it reminded me of Newspaper Rock, and the petroglyphs left behind all those years ago: "I was here."
Jay asked me if I wanted to do one, and as he asked, the name "Jay" scrolled by. We decided not to at first, but as the miles wore on, the siren call became irresistible. We pulled over, ran around in the road because we could, (we hadn't spotted another soul for at least 40 miles) and began gathering stones. It was a time to ga-a-ther sto-ones to-oo-gether.
We chose dark, slate-gray colored stones, and began constructing a large letter "J," which we decided would be the most effective way of leaving our mark while not dying of heat exhaustion. Slipping around in the soft ground, my feet would scorch every time the sand slid across or under my feet. A dry desert wash ran under the highway, and some jackrabbits hiding underneath watched us with interest while we worked. When we finished and approached, they bolted off, probably pissed to give up their shady refuge. I struggled to make it back up the steep incline to our car, and completely lost a flip flop. Jay made it up no problem, but then had to go back for my shoe since the ground was literally burning my feet.
I liked laying the stones- people had obviously been doing this since the road had been created, and it looked (as far as we could tell) like no one disturbed anyone else's work. They just added their contribution. There were some stones that people who'd made the trip a few times had planned ahead- we saw some names spelled out in blue tiles, or spray-painted neon-colored rocks, but all of it was to spell out simple messages or names. Some were pretty elaborate, and probably involved multiple people or one very hot sweaty passionate individual, laboring alone. Either way it's awesome, and we had fun gathering blazing hot rocks in the sun to spell out our letter.
At some point during the lurch up the hill back to the car, my necklace broke off. Here's where it gets sad: the day before I left, my brother and sister-in-law gave me a special, one-of-a-kind necklace made by one of their artist friends. It was a neon pink heart-shaped necklace with Charlie the Unicorn on it, and I wore it every day of our journey as a protective talisman. I took it off only at night, and put it on first thing in the morning. I know it didn't fall off in the car, and it was still on my neck in the photographs we took in Oatman, so it had to have fallen off at that point.
It wouldn't be impossible to find that place again- after all, there is a large black letter J, and a wash, but as I learned in the Painted Desert, nature will claim whatever you leave behind. If Route 66 was covered by sand and brush, surely a neon pink heart would vanish in a single night of winds and tumbleweeds. They say you have to leave a part of yourself behind when you make a journey like this. Cross the Desert.
Well, dammit- why'd it have to be my favorite new necklace?
That night, when I realized it was missing, I cried for a long time, bitterly. The necklace had been the last thing James and Lori had touched, had given to me, and I felt as if my tangible physical connection to that world had been lost. The exhaustion from the trip, the malnutrition, the heartache I'd been delaying with the Mission At Hand, it all came crashing down on me. I cried till my teeth hurt, because I missed everything familiar so much, I missed my brother, I missed Lori, I missed my mom, I missed feeling protected- and this was just the first taste of the Without.
Plus it was Charlie the Unicorn. I love Charlie the Unicorn.
However, at that point, I had not realized it was missing, so when we got back to the car I was in high spirits. We drove for a while then made a U-turn to gape in amazement at an enormous tree growing in a wash, because the tree was covered in shoes. Absolutely bedecked, as if sneakers were its foliage. Probably 500 or so pairs adorned this tree, and it just sits out in the desert, silently waiting for more.
As I only had 2 pairs of shoes packed, (flip flops and cowboy boots) and neither one had laces to tie and hurl, I resisted the urge to add to the collection, but we enjoyed looking at it and marveling at what compelled the first few people to begin this. "We were here..."
A little ways after the Shoe Tree is Amboy's an old-fashioned filling station. We bought 2 cokes in glass bottles for $1.25, although we would've paid much, much more.
After traveling though the desert, a coke in a glass bottle was exactly the most perfect thing in the world. We sucked them down like wolverines as we drove past massive dry pools of chlorine, and finally made our way out of the desert and into fields of giant windmills.
These are the ones you see in the movies- fields and fields of these silver Giants- Quixote would crap himself. Jaime really liked them. They're so uniform and mechanical, trying to harvest something so wild and free-form as wind. It's incongruous. They were beautiful, but my supreme destination was just around the corner, and I couldn't think about anything other than getting to Cabazon...

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