The Petrified Forest – It Rocks!
This is the most incredible view I have EVER seen in my 31 years. This even beats the view from the top of the Empire State. I’m sitting on a promontory outlook point as I write this, looking out over a 270 degree view of the Petrified Forest, on the border of New Mexico and Arizona.
It is a Martian crater that stretches as far as the human eye can see. I wonder how far that actually is? I’m going to ask a scientist when I get back just how far our sight can go*. (*note to reader: 25miles, due to the curve of the earth!) The heat on the back of my neck as I crane forward to write this, is like pressing my naked back against a full on December radiator.
This is amazing. I wish I could share this with someone!
Ha-ha-ha-haha! I saw a sign off the motorway saying “Meteor Site”. I consulted my map and sure enough, just six miles from my current position is one of the largest meteor craters on God’s green – a full twenty thousand years old.
There’s a dust storm picking up around me as I pull off the highway and onto another small gravely dirt road. Red rock Mesas gradually give way to a flatter and lighter landscape. Then I reach it, after 30mins down this lonely sandstorm road, not the Meteor crater but the fucking Meteor crater Visitor Centre. A large concreted parking area full of RV’s and Chevy Chase dads leading despondent kids up to the enormous grey centre.
Only America could take an incredible natural phenomenon that almost wiped out mankind, concrete it over so massive RV’s that will almost wipe out mankind can park, stick a loud speaker on top, blaring out inanities and charge 20$ entrance. I tried.
I started to walk up the outside staircase but felt like I was part of a school trip to the Science Museum. Retraced my steps back, knocking kids out the way like they were bowling pins and I was the meanest ball in town. Got back in the car, turned up the air con till I felt like an Eskimo was farting ice in my face and wheelspun out the parking lot. It’s not all bad. I needed to pull over anyhow. I could feel I was starting to get hypnotized by the road.
[I’ve been finding that the driving mixed with empty endless desert road replicate exactly the effects of a flotation tank, Sensory deprivation. In the absence of enough stimulation, the brain resorts inwards, playing with itself and dredging up things from the subconscious’s ocean floor. Memories and moments relived with incredible power.
For instance, just now during the drive back, hypnotised by the road with nothing but the rhythmic sound of the engine and the visual zip, zip, zip of the yellow stripes demarking the central reservation, I was suddenly transported back to a coffee shop in Amsterdam I visited in ’94 with my mate Steve. It sold a weed I’d never had before called “Citral” with a distinctive smell.
Mixed with the atmosphere of the coffee shop it had the affect on me like I was living inside a Van Gogh painting. I recalled how dust particles were suspended in beams of sunlight which cracked through ancient lace curtains as a cat languidly arched it’s back across the keys of an old piano.
The dehydrated brown leaves of once lush Yucca plants, creaking wooden floorboards and an old wrought-iron bicycle resting against an unhung picture. Despite being on another continent in another century, in that moment I was there. Not reminiscing. I was there. I was engulfed in the five senses. I could smell and feel it in a way that a normal day dream couldn’t hope to match. The clarity of virtual reality versus a B&W TV. Weird!
Flagstaff, Arizona
Hotel Weatherford. It feels like I’m having a lot of strange coincidences at the moment, or maybe I’m just aware of them, but the song I’ve been most into today was playing in the bar of the hotel I’ve just sat down at. It’s not even a common song (“In the Sun”). Weird scenes inside the goldmine!
Flagstaff is cool. Flagstaff is hip. Flagstaff has the most beautiful looking men on the street I’ve ever seen. A quick scout around like a predator with a calculator reveals 4,5,6,7 gorgeous men. I mean the type that you’d like to eat, bones and all. The type you’d like to melt into and never have to worry about anything again. The type that if the devil looked like that, you’d sell your soul there and then just to taste his d**k. The type... alright, hold on, relax yourself here!
But, I’m prepared to go out on a limb here and say that the guy currently taking care of business at the reception desk of the Weatherford hotel is the most naturally beautiful package I’ve ever seen in real life. What must it be like to have someone like that hopelessly in love with you? What must it be like to BE that dude and have gals like me continuously seeing you only as a prize? Ho-hum!
What a fresh place this is! The whole town feels air-conditioned. After the sweaty dirt of Gallup I have been elevated to the mountains, where everyone seems Brighton-hip and then some! My first impressions are of a bright, colourful, clean, fresh and happy town. Flagstaff knows it’s great and so doesn’t need to shout about it or rub your face in it.
“A man could live here!” (Peter Fonda, Easy Rider).
It makes me think of Canada in the summer. After the desert-day drive, this town is like iced-mountain water trickling down the back of my neck whilst I’m getting blown by the dude on the reception desk downstairs! Wow, man, that is a f**king thought!
Flagstaff is a university town and it shows. People on the clean and wide streets are young, funky dress, and ooze the self-confidence and assurance that can only come from no job and a student loan! I haven’t felt this sort of “intelligence” vibe since Manhattan. That’s what I’m going to call Flagstaff... The Manhattan of the Mountains. It seems appropriate.
It’s monsoon season here at the moment and the pine forests surrounding the town are lush and green after the fresh rain. The National forest I’d been trying to reach earlier with the closed road was on account of devastating fires. Here, they’re only having rain! I found out later that even travelling 10 miles west can make a huge difference to the weather.
Lonely Planet has come up trumps once again! The Weatherford hotel only had two rooms available for tonight and none for tomorrow. (It occurs to me that as July 4th approaches on Tuesday I may find it increasingly hard to get rooms.)
Like El Rancho last night, the Weatherford is a throwback to a bygone age. Both have “Historical Site” status, which is the US equivalent of the UK’s National Trust protection. The hotel resembles a New England style townhouse, all wood and white paint, beautiful against the greenness of the pine trees.
I’m installed in the bar of the hotel on the first floor, sitting out “on the veranda” with a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. The Balcony is wooden and decorated with white fairy lights, looking out onto the action below. At $2.75 a pint, I can see an addiction forming here! I’m reflecting on the different landscapes and styles I’ve seen in these last ten days. My brain is almost chocked with new experiences and needs a long time to digest them all, like a stomach after a fantastic ten course meal.
From the skyscrapers of Manhattan to the Tornado flatness of Oklahoma, to the cattle-stink of Texas, to the red fiery mesas and Indians of New Mexico, to the desert bowl expanse of Arizona and her Petrified Forest, to now the Alpine sophistication of Flagstaff. My mind is still trying to process this backlog, but I keep throwing new, unique, amazing experiences at her on the hour, every hour. With the Grand Canyon tomorrow, she ain’t gonna get no rest. Come on brain, you my bitch. Work harder!
