"There and Back Again..."
Mike and Deanna's Trip to Arizona...
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
........
The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
Let others follow it who can!
Let them a journey new begin,
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.
........
Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.
J.R.R.Tolkien
_________________________________________________________________
"...the door where it began..."
The trip from Dallas to Phoenix entails 1100+ miles ... the trip back
is considerably longer. You can't see it all; somewhere along the way
the sun sets, the landscape dims out, and you're sucked down the
asphalt with the broken centerstripe blinking in the headlights,
keeping time to Tom Petty's "Last Dance":
"I don't know, but I been told,
you never slow down, you never grow old.
Oh, My, My, Oh Hell Yes!
Honey put on that party dress..."
Tuesday, Sept.10, Richardson, Tx - The city rental trash truck ("De
Litter Critter") sits in the driveway, full of black bags, treelimbs,
and the assorted debris of my late and lazy bachelorhood, all manually
stomped down to the apparent density of a neutron star. The garage is
clean...well, not "CLEAN" but at least passable. We lower the big
door, pull the pin on some Cold War salvage nerve gas (posing as a
Raid(TM) fogger), and evacuate. The vermin are done-for.
We pack Deanna's Lumina for the long haul to Phoenix, checking things
off lists, adding stuff we want to do or get from Az. At 3:00PM we
open the garage, turn on the big box-fan to clear the air, sweep out
the belly-up erstwhile residents, and pull in my bummed-out Aerostar
for a week's rest out of the Texas "climate." The cat's food vendor
is loaded with dry cat-chow, her two water bowls are brimming, the AC
is set to 88, and we're outta here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Pursuing it with eager feet..."
Once past Ft.Worth on I-20, the country changes from black-clay
farmland to the beginning hints of "the West", rolling hills of poorer
soil, peppered with mesquite and prickly pear cactus. Deanna's doing
the driving, I'm watching the "scenery." Supper at Taco Bell in
Ranger, Tx, then on into the sunset...
By 10:00PM or so, I'm yawning, and Deanna's zooming along at a speed
I'm afraid to lean over and check. I doze ... I wake, I offer to
drive; Deanna, in her good judgement, deems me too sleepy, and so we
hum on, across the tabletop of west Texas. I wake in Odessa to an
oilfield smell so strong that the atmosphere must be flammable...west
Texas crude...in the raw...in the air. I doze, I wake, I offer to
drive, I doze... We gas up a assorted Exxon stations across the
state, I buy coffee, I buy munchies, back in the car I'm out 'til El
Paso. The rain I saw in NM on the internet weather maps before we
left has moved into El Paso, and we exit Texas in the rain.
Wednesday, 9/11/96 - on the road - I wake into semi-consciousness
before Las Cruces, take two Advil as penance to my sinuses for having
passed thru a weather front, and...I'm out 'til Tucson. Reality is a
fog 'til Chandler, Az, with the sun brightening the horizon, about
6:00AM. We wind thru flat desert, populated by yucca, saguaro, sage
and sand... there are mountains on the horizons. We pull into Mike
and Lisa's in the morning sun...and we're "there." Mike and Lisa are
perfectly wonderful and gracious, plying us with coffee, showing me
around...Courtney, age 9, makes me and Deanna a plaited 'friendship'
bracelet. Deanna crashes, I explore their new computer, which has
been installed but not "set up." The kids go to school, Mike goes to
work, Deanna sleeps, I set up the computer. Later that PM we discover
that we left all the lists, address books, and other necessary
reminder-documents sitting on top of the microwave back in Texas!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"...ever on and on..."
Thursday, 9/12/96, Phoenix - Deanna sets out on errands; Lisa and I
trade in a funky printer for a good HP-inkjet, and I twiddle it into
life, convincing it that it's best bet would be for it to surrender
and actually acknowledge the existence of Windows-95. Threats work
best on hardware, curses are reserved for software.
That PM, Deanna and I plonk down scandalous amounts of cash at the
Ryder truck place and discover that the damned truck has a speed
governor set at 65MPH!! ... the trip back to Tx is gonna be "longer" than at
Deanna's usual "lightspeed." We load up Deanna's things, filling the
truck to about the 20% level, and consider advertising: "Need
sumthin' hauled to Texas? Call Mike & Deanna's Partial Truck Rental..."
We got more truck than we needed because it was cheaper than a smaller
one...go figure... The truck gets parked and locked in the driveway,
'til we set out for Tx, come Monday. Arizona stuff has to "age"
properly in a hot truck before shipping to Tx. This causes Texas to
look 'good' to the stuff; and it, thus, accepts its fate.
Friday, 9/13/96, Arizona - The Shlee family takes a day off from
school and work, and we all board the family Suburban for points north.
Deanna had planned to show me everything between the Great Salt Lake
and Baja California, but we figured that was "too much" for a
day-trip, so we settled for Sedona, Az, home of legendary western
movies, lots of upscale tourist attractions and wonderful, red
mountains that absolutely defy gravity and the imagination, in that
order.
On the road north...Montezuma's Castle, a preserve of Native American
cliff dwellings dating from about 1400AD. We stroll the Park Service
sidewalks along a lush river bottom. Garter snakes lounge in the
Cresote bushes like lazy, pointed, walking sticks with festive yellow
racing stripes. The castle is nestled about 100 feet up a sheer
limestone cliff facing the river; an adobe, six story, cliff-scraper
that was home to 200 Sinagua people who abandoned it for parts unknown
a hundred years before Columbus came ashore in the Caribbean. The air
is crisp and clean, and a cool breeze sighs thru the leaves in
counterpoint to the murmur of the stream flowing over rocks.
Down the road a ways we find Montezuma's Well. Montezuma himself never
came this far north, but his PR men must have or at least his legend.
Monte's well is actually a collapsed river-dome. An underground river,
flowing beneath the mountain, hollowed out a vast subterranean room
which collapsed, giving rise to the oddity of a 'well' on top of a
mountain.
Park Service steps, paths, and walks bring us up to the rim. Leaning
on the rail we can look down a hundred feet into a circular crater,
500 or so feet across, where ducks and turtles bask on the surface.
Looks like a rock quarry or a volcanic crater lake. The adventurous
Deanna finds the semi-hidden way down, and we snake spirally into the
depths as the air gets cooler and more humid. At the 'bottom,' on the
lake's edge, we find where the river still flows out of the crater,
heading back into the earth. There are ancient walls here, adobe mud
holding rocks in a pattern of rooms, against the base of the cliff;
remnants of the Hohokam civilization long past. We climb back to the
rim, down to the car and head north on I-17.
We wander the streets and shops of Sedona, sipping great coffee,
enjoying the cool weather and great scenery, window shopping amid
trinkets and art much too expensive to actually buy. Sedona has a
carnival-midway kind of feel, almost everyone on the street is a
visitor. The sidewalks are full of German-speaking couples, Italians
on cell-phones, pale Czechs, and clusters of Japanese tourists with
Nikons heated to incandescense by continual flashing. The shop owners
look bored or enthusiastic, depending on whether the clientele appears
'serious.' But everyone is friendly, and the hustle and bustle has a
relaxed pace...Sedona, for all its commercial hype, is somehow very
soothing. Must be the mystical 'vortex' energy of the impossible red
mountains...
The city is tucked along a valley amid mountains of red sandstone.
Sheer cliffs rise straight up, a thousand feet, big enough so that
mere clouds cast small shadows across the smooth faces. Solid
cylinders of rock; enough rock to build a few full scale pyramids, and
have enough left over to pave an expressway. The natives believed the
area was powerful...I believe it, too.
Later at the Shlee's near-by "timeshare," we doze by the pool while
Brittany (11) and Courtney (9) swim and play. That afternoon it's
"burger time." Mike consults the locals who confide that "The
Sundowner," off the beaten track, is the place the local folks go for
burgers. "The Sundowner" lives up to its "not much to look at"
reputation, being a bar, pool-hall, and hang-out for the local rough
crowd. But the burgers and service are excellent! We tank up on
burgers and fries and head back to town just as a big thunderstorm
crawls over the mountains, turning the sky blue-black and misty...
perfect, mysterious weather to visit the "Crystal"-something-or-other,
a shop selling New Age talismen, how-to books, proof of UFOs, aroma
therapy, mystic doodads, and "Vortex Info."
Being schooled in science and engineering, I'm not a believer in the
mystic power of dichroic-tourmaline pendants...but the place sure
smells nice...all those aroma therapy extracts, no doubt. I browse
among the bookshelves, pause at "Anti-Gravity Revealed," pass by
"Celestine Cosmology" or some such, and thump a small, brass gong,
obtaining a pleasing "Donggggg.g.g.g." A little more incense in
the air and I'd believe I was in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal. The
shop is populated mostly by women, young and old, in "earth mother,"
ex-hippie commune dress. You can have your future told here for a fee.
The whole place is relaxed and hushed, like a church; to speak loudly
here would feel like a trespass.
Headed south, I-17, we pace the rain storm which parallels us to the
east at a discreet 10 miles or so. The black clouds continue to
threaten but never follow thru, letting the setting sun flow beneath,
flooding the land with a tangerine light.
Back at the Shlee's in Phoenix, tired folks sleep or doze before the
big-screen TV, while I make another run at Windows-95, sure this time
that I have its number...mentally cursing the arrogance of Bill Gates
to put stuff on the Desktop which can't be erased, drug to 'Trash,'
nor hidden in a discreet, never-to-be-opened folder. I WILL win...
eventually. The night grows long and the minions of Microsoft howl
at my discomfort. Eudora is taken captive, and I break up the fight
between Netscape and MS-Internet Explorer by sneaking the Explorer to
the trash can when Windows isn't looking. Bedtime at 1 or 2 AM.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"...Where many paths and errands meet..."
Saturday, 9/14/96, Phoenix - The kids have about 14 different kinds of
practice to attend, Deanna begins foraging thru closets and attics,
ferreting out all the belongings she'd stored with Mike and Lisa over
the years, while I deliver an ambiguous coup d'gras to Windows-95;
suddenly, for no apparent reason, everything seems to work. I quit
while I'm ahead...prepared for the "tutorial" I'll give to Lisa and
Mike just in time to leave for Tx before they have any really hard
questions.
Shower'd, shave'd, Lisa's salad-kit packed into the car, Deanna and I
set out for Roger and Cindy's, to meet folks face-to-face whom I've
only insulted before by email. Friends and family thru high-tech
communications and a common experience with war. Ding-Dong the
doorbell; let the goodtimes roll...
Cindy, slim and pretty, greets us like family; and we drift to the
kitchen where I finally meet Roger, a cool and collected, civilized
biker, gear-head, Bro. Out to the patio, where names, handshakes,
and faces snap into place, matching up with the messages I had read
over the many months by these good men. Everything seems to "fit" in a
Robert Pursig, Zen kind of way. McBride was right in his phone call
earlier that day, saying that these kinds of meetings take but 5
minutes to feel the comfort of being lifelong friends...
Texas-Jim Kelley begins the construction of his "Texas-Tornado," whose
antidote must be swallowed immediately, lest permanent damage ensue.
He continually mumbles the whole night about me "stealing his girl."
Mike Dingwell, who I've waited to meet since his writings zinged me
thru memories long buried, and his buddy Gary, who survived Dau Tieng
and the ambush alley thru the Michelin Rubber plantaion, same as me.
Mike McCandless, immediately recognizable, with his long, flowing
moustache and easy smile. Doc Vlahovic, who's images of I-Corps we'll
bring back for placement on the VVHP. Steve Nirk, Deanna's long-time
friend and "protector," and his smiling wife, Mary Lou. Bob Bartel,
a very quiet but powerful presence, with his friend Lori. Bob Carpenter
and his friend Jackie Marx, working faithfully to bring knowledge of
the war to the youth and people of the world. Good friends all and
all in an instant.
Roger trucks out a wheelbarrow of beef and sets 2 or impossibly 3
charcoal grills to sizzling with thick steaks. I don't mention it to
Roger, but I make a mental note to check the Sunday paper for
cattle-rustling stories...somebody must be missing 2 or 3 steers.
Tossed salad, cold cuts, spinach dip, rolls, crutons, potato salad and
assorted dressings are flying around in the kitchen under Cindy's
direction, while vets, family and friends linger on the patio and
remember things not brought to mind for 25+ years.
Deanna volunteers (or is coerced ?) into a Texas-Tornado fest, takes a
swig, a says it goes down easily, TxJim hands her the antidote before
she staggers very far. I make a mental note to be the designated
driver on the way home. Cindy calls for dinner.
Conversation divides between good friends, and mouthfuls of good food,
clustered around several tables. Texas Jim makes a nice iced-tea
toast to Deanna and I...and of course, ends it by claiming I "stole"
his girl...or words to that effect. I grin stupidly and assume an "aw
shucks" attitude which properly confuses him for the moment. Stuffed,
we adjourn to the patio once more for smokes, war-stories, and TxJim's
admonitions about trying his Tx-Tornado, a concoction which ignites
spontaneously unless slugged down ASAP, quenched internally by chasing
it with V-8, black-cherry KoolAid, or other red liquid.
Mike and Lisa arrive after delivering the girls to various slumber
parties and other girl-diversions. Zapped from attending about 32
different kinds of girl sport practices, they are *ready* to
steak-out, drink-up, and most of all, sit-down. Lisa and Cindy
succumb to the alure of the Tx-Tornado fumes, issuing from the patio.
Completely "Tornadoed" and grinning mightly, they relate that one can
drink 2 or 3 of'em before they "hit."
I ask Cindy about "coffee" and she allows that Az, in the summer, is
too "hot" for coffee; but, since I'm willing to risk it, she'll gladly
make a pot. Relieved that I'll soon have my caffeine fix, I report to
the patio platoon that coffee will be available for the stout hearted.
There are several shouts of "Goody!" with some "ughs" and "mumble"
mumbles coming from stuffed patio folks. Several pies and
"Congratulation" cakes are attacked and semi-devoured in counterpoint
to beverages.
Several of the revelers have to leave for long drives home; and, by
about 10:45, Deanna and I are rounding up the remains of the salad-kit
that we arrived with. Just then the doorbell dings and Eric Edwards,
AWOL from the earlier festivities, arrives. He, Roger and Cindy, and
Deanna and I circle up the patio chairs, and Eric gets the historically
significant details of the prior-party which he almost missed. Good
conversation had by all.
By 1:00AM or so, the remaining guests say their "thanks" and
"good-bys" and set out for home. A perfect evening...what my son
Damon, at age 10 or 11, used to call "A Diamond Day."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"...Let them a journey new begin..."
Sunday, 9/15/96, Phoenix - Deanna engages in serious foraging for
stored and stashed belongings. Attics, closets, drawers, and cabinets
are savaged and the recalcitrant goods disinterred. These build up as
a pile in the den for later dispatch into the truck. I work on last
minute additions to my "How not to blow up your house with Windows-95"
notes for the Shlees to puzzle over after I've escaped to Tx.
Lisa and I sit down to the newly disciplined computer, and she gets the
quick tour of "what keys do what" and what keys don't do much of
anything. Windows-95 is revealed in all its ambiguous glory; and Lisa
soon joins the ranks of those able to send email, get faxes, dial up
providers, and cruise the WWW in search of arcane and long lost info of
dubious value. The evening and the morning were a Sunday...
Monday, 9/16/96, Phoenix - Our passport to heaven is misplaced...the
Exxon card has crawled into an "improper" pocket of Deanna's purse,
where it remains gleefully hidden while I restrain Deanna from
attacking the folks at the car-wash, its last known location. By
digging thru stuff, pushing aside thisandthat unintelligible female
paraphenalia, I discover it hiding in an inner-most, double-zippered,
velcro'd-together purse pocket. We will *not* have to live forever in
Arizona after all.
After unsuccessful attempts to find rope in the Shlee's storage
facilities, I remain hopeful that all the loose items "packed" in the
truck will stay semi-interlocked, if not tied down, and resist the
temptation to become a thin layer of scattered debris all over the
truck-bed floor. I resolve to jam on the brakes several times during
the trip in order to properly "re-pack" and punish any misbehaving
cargo.
Noon, time to head out for Tx; and I make a fond wish for a Star-Trek
Transporter...alas, at least for now, we non-Federation types have to
simply *drive* ...at 65 MPH max. Even in this age of hi-tech, one
cannot FAX a chest-of-drawers to Texas...more's the pity.
The plan calls for Deanna, in her easy-riding Lumina, to lead me outta
town; where, on the flat desert straightaways, I will take the point
position...mainly to inhibit her easing the speed up to .375 of
lightspeed...the Ryder only goes 65! They say...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"...A new road or a secret gate..."
When the road finally shows desert on 2 sides, sky above, and an
infinitely far horizon ahead, I pick a likely stretch and boost the
Ryder to 67MPH, passing Deanna's Lumina in a breathtaking show of
truckdriving skill. Hoping that all that "speed governor" talk was
just a myth to scare rental truck drivers, I continue to "accelerate"
to 68MPH! whereupon more "gas" has no effect; and the Yellow-Menace
proceeds to slow down to ...you guessed it...65MPH! Exactly!
I'm a real lo-speed, truckdrivin' man now!...not even an air-horn to
toot, nor am I sporting those nifty, scantily-clad-women-mudflaps!
Oh well... Not having a calculator on board and unable to summon the
mental dexterity to do the math in my head, I *assume* that if I can
hold the truck velocity at 67MPH...that will be "better" than 65MPH.
But I must beware of the 68MPH warp-velocity, which is identical to
65MPH...relativity at work. Several attempts to approach 67MPH, in an
asymptotic fashion, prove the futility of my logical, if misguided,
assumption. Since the truck has more wind resistance than a fully-rigged,
three-masted schooner, and the excess power of a Vespa
motorscooter, any breeze, headwind, tailwind or grade of more than
1/2 % causes speed variations beyond the control of gas pedal
manipulation. So be it...65MPH + or -...
At least I got Air Conditioning, and Digital Stereo...
Rolling south down I-10, Maximum Rock N'Roll and Maximum Air
Conditioning competing in my eardrums...flat desert, sage and sand,
and Deanna's Lumina tucked up close under my rear bumper, getting
about 100 miles per gallon, "drafting" like an Indy racer...I remind
myself not to perform any untoward braking maneuvers, lest the Lumina
become unexpected cargo in the back of the Ryder Rental. I soon learn
the value of the term "blind spot;" Deanna being so close behind that
I can't see her in the side mirrors...and that becomes the norm: 'If I
can't see her, she's there.' I check every few minutes...she's not
there...Good, that means she's there. I verify this theory by
drifting over until I *can* see her, then I trust her to keep up.
Exxon being fairly scarce in the southwest, we start serious Exxon
shopping at about a half a tank. Gas up in Eloy, Az, sail past/thru
Tucson, watch the scenery drift past at 65+- MPH. Just past Benson,
about 3 hours out, we pass thru Dragoon, Az, and Texas Canyon.
Texas Canyon sports round boulders the size of Wal-Mart on down to the
size of Volkswagons. Tx Canyon is picturesque. Deanna claims that God
played here as a child and never put his blocks away. What kidders!...
both Deanna and God...
At 4:30, we clear Az in favor of New Mexico, gas up at Lordsburg and
head into some seriously straight, seriously flat NM interstate. I
thought Arizona had straight roads!... By 5:30 we shop for Rest Areas
and haul into one near Summit, Az. Picnic time with gourmet
"Lunchables," left over Mexican food, and a strong, straight desert
wind. The Mexfood requires substantial knife n'forkage, and I curse
myself for not stowing some plastic sliverware 'til Deanna calls my
attention to the good tableware she brought from Phoenix...in the
truck. (I knew that...Yeah, Right!)
Back on the road we head toward Akela, NM, and what must be the
longest straight road in the world! I watch Robledo Mtn (Elev 5,876)
approach for 2 solid hours before I *finally* get up even with it at
Las Cruces, 7:20PM.
Seven hours and 50 minutes out, we exit NM and enter Texas, 20 miles
to El Paso. But first...we must successfully negotiate a vapor
gauntlet of cattle feed lots which, even with closed-window A/C, make
the eyes water and the throat choke up. The residents around here must
lose their hair at age 12. The offspring in Vado, Tx, must grow nictating
membranes over their eyes, like reptiles. I expect a lot of "mutation"
horror movies are made here, no make-up required...just from the gaseous
exhalations of the feed lots...I may never eat beef again...well...
Sierra Blanca, Tx, gas, restroom, a Dr. Pepper; and we're heading east.
And east, and east...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"...West of the Moon, East of the Sun...
Driving 1100 miles thru the southwest darkness gives one time to
think. The highway roar, the Pleiades in the sky, and Tom Petty on the
radio:
"I'm tired of screwin' up, tired of goin' down,
tired of myself, tired of this town.
Last dance with Mary Jane,
one more time to kill the pain..."
The stories at the party...Mikey nearly sliding out of the Huey coming
into the LZ... Doc, sitting with legs dangling, being caught at the
last minute, falling out of his Huey... All us vets as FNGs staring
stupidly while being shot at or rocketed for the first time. The
year-long diarrhea from the malaria pills and dapsone. The sound of
VC/NVA mortars leaving the tubes, coming down somewhere. The road
from Dau Tieng to Trang Bang...ambush alley, and turning up the radio
squelch in the earphones so as not to hear anything on the convoy...
'til they ambushed you. And the look in the eyes of the women,
sitting there listening to memories from a time long past, a war long
'over.' And how Eric paused in mid-sentence when the sound of a
chopper came across the night air, there on the patio "...UH-1D...,"
he said; and I couldn't fault him.
Midnight, Pecos, Tx, steering on the Pleiades, rising up the windshield,
and Pink Floyd on the rock station:
"So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?..."
Serious drowsys now, fumble thru the bag for the Vivarin caffeine
tabs, slug one down with the last of the Dr. Pepper...Van Horne, Tx,
halfway home. Switch to I-20 for the home stretch.
Odessa-Midland rises up ahead, the benzene, lighter-fluid smell of
400,000 oil wells, refineries, and money being pumped from the ground.
Limping past 18-wheelers on the upgrade and them zooming past again
on the downgrade. I quit marking the map when it got too dark to see...
seems like forever ago...time flows by with the blinking center stripe.
I've been thru this west Texas twice this week, never saw it, both times
in the dark.
Check for Exxons in Sweetwater, none open this late, however late this
is, 3:00AM...4:00AM...I've quit checking the time...plunging on... No
stations open thru Abilene, 1/4 tank...about 90 miles worth of gas
left...may have to spend some cash if an Exxon doesn't show up soon.
50 miles to Cisco, nothin' open, 15 more to Ranger...nope. Gas at 1/8
tank...20 miles left. OK, stop at Eastland, buy 10 gallons with
$12.00 cash... plunge on toward Ft. Worth.
The sky ahead grows gray, drive on, grows orange, drive...chew gum,
loud-fast rock on the radio. Loud music... Finally an Exxon at
Weatherford, wash the sleep off in the restroom. The sky brightens,
the road begins to fill with normal folks going to work in FT. Worth,
going to work in Dallas. Drive on...forever on...
Hit the LBJ freeway, the I-635 loop circling Dallas-Ft Worth, heading
into the morning sun. Ex-bugs, squashed on the windshield, flash bright
colors, filtering the sunlight. 65MPH, bumper to bumper, 4 lanes
wide, rush hour, 8:00AM. Swing north, up thru Mesquite, Garland,
squeek over to the right lane, looking for that "special" exit.
Creep thru city traffic, folks goin' to work, goin' to school, 8:00AM,
twenty solid hours from Phoenix. Finally...finally pull up...home. 8:30.
Stagger to the door, fumble keys...
The cat is glad to see us. And she needs her litter box changed.
______________________________________
"Home is behind the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadows to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back to home and bed..."
J.R.R.Tolkien
______________________________________
MikeH and Deanna
9/22/96