Having lost a good bit of time due to our detour through Joshua tree country, we reluctantly scrapped plans to travel an isolated loop of Route 66 and instead contented ourselves with a brief stop in Seligman, the town that partly served as inspiration for Radiator Springs in the Pixar film Cars. After some ice cream and corny jokes from Juan Delgadillo's Famous Snow Cap Drive-In, we were on our way again, hoping to check-in to our hotel in Flagstaff with enough daylight to spare to make a side trip down to Sedona. As we approached Flagstaff, though, an ominous sign appeared in the skies.
Coconino National Forest was burning. We could see the smoke billowing through the mountains from a hundred miles away. Spotter planes were flying around constantly. That image above? That's taken from the parking lot of our hotel in Flagstaff. The fire was roughly south of us, but we couldn't find out how big it was, how dangerous, or whether the road to Sedona was closed or not. We decided to chance it anyway, and headed out to Sedona.
I have to say, nothing prepared me for the following 45 minutes. The fire turned out to be some distance west, so our route was clear. And spectacular. I've never driven so many switchbacks in my life, and the forest, mixed with mountains, desert and spectacular stone formations was unbelievably gorgeous. We were racing the daylight to reach Sedona, so there was little opportunity for photography. I got the above infrared image when we pulled over so The Wife could take a few landscapes, but I have to admit that infrared doesn't do the area justice. We arrived in time for a magnificent sunset, then had dinner at Burger King and headed back to Flagstaff... in the dark. Not as much fun going up those switchbacks in blackout conditions, I assure you. One thing The Wife and I agreed on is that we really, really like the Flagstaff area, and need to head back to Sedona some day to spend a week or so exploring and shooting the unbelievable scenery. The hippy-dip, New Agey stuff they've got there, not so much.
The next day we were off again, with a jam-packed itinerary that included "Standing on a Corner in Winslow, Arizona" and a detour through Holbrook for our Route 66 fix. We drove through Holbrook gawking at all the fiberglass and plaster dinosaurs at the rock shops. Before we got that far, however, we stopped at a dinky little tourist trap known as Meteor Crater.
The kids quite enjoyed Meteor Crater. It's sheer size impressed them. They liked running through the junk shop, desperately begging us to buy them every piece of over-priced memorabilia they saw (some of which, I have to admit, was pretty cool for over-priced memorabilia). But the big hit with all of them was the computer "Impact simulator" they found in the museum. Essentially, you select the size of space rock you want to hit the Earth with, then select how fast it's traveling, and what angle it hits. They all worked hard to figure out what it took to destroy our planet. Then repeated this destruction many, many times. Ah, science!
Flaming destruction of the Earth paled in comparison to the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, however. There's supposed to be one of these restored in Wharton, as well, but as I haven't been to Wharton in more than 20 years, this one was quite cool. Parking all the vintage cars along the teepee rooms was a nice touch.
Little did we know that more Route 66 goodness awaited us inside Petrified Forest National Park. After our disastrous experience at the Grand Canyon, and the kids' restlessness during our foray to Sedona, The Wife and I seriously considered skipping the Petrified Forest all together. But we'd skipped it for time constraints on our honeymoon and always regretted that. Plus, the kids insisted they wanted to see it. If we skipped it again, the rest of the day would be one long, tedious push to Roswell, New Mexico, with nothing to break it up. So we said "What the heck?" and made for the Petrified Forest.
Now one thing you don't realize before you go in is that the Petrified Forest also encompasses a good portion of the Painted Desert, which butts right up to I-40 but because of a fluke of the landscape, isn't visible at all from the highway. And the Painted Desert is breathtaking at any time of the day. Sadly, early afternoon with a bright sun blazing down through a cloudless sky is the absolute worst time to try and photograph it. Had we the time to set up for a sunset or sunrise shoot, you would be singing our praises as landscape photographers to rival Ansel Adams. As it is, you just have to take our word for it. But then, right before we crossed over the Interstate, we came upon a relatively new addition to the park: a 1932 Studebaker sedan commemorating the section of Route 66 that once ran through the park. Serendipity is fun, you know?
It didn't take long for the trip through the National Part to revert to form. Being midday, lighting conditions were awful for any landscape photography, although a few closeup shots of petrified wood produced pretty results when clouds passed overhead, such as the shot above. But as soon as the kids realized that the Petrified Forest didn't consist of upright stone trees, they turned surly. They complained when we took a side road to drive through a section of multicolored badlands. The trip through the Jasper Forest and Crystal Forests generated louder and more aggressive rebellion. Things came to a head when we stopped at Newspaper Rock to view the petroglyphs. Monkey Girl and Fairy Girl began to squabble over a mounted set of industrial strength viewing binoculars along the observation railing. Squabbling loudly. Which escalated to screaming and pushing, even after they were warned. Oh, yes, they were warned. Do you have any idea how far shrill girl screams carry across the open desert? Every tourist within 50 miles turned to stare at us then, wondering who could be such awful parents to raise such wretched children. They were banished to the car, in a very arbitrary and unfair way (as they put it) by their parents. Where their argument escalated, if you can believe it, to the point where two Park Rangers stopped their vehicle in the parking lot, got out, and discussed amongst themselves whether they ought to intervene or not. We fled the park, trailing humiliation and shame, stopping only at the southern visitors center long enough to A) use the restrooms and 2) have our kids tell us how terrible we were as parents because we wouldn't buy them any souvenirs. At that point The Wife and I began planning our 2012 vacation without children.
As we drove south along U.S. 180, a particular thundercloud in the distance was showing uncommon persistence. I found this curious, as we'd seen only fleeting cumulus clouds throughout our trip. The weather remained bone-rattlingly dry, yet this cloud actually appeared to be growing. Remember the "That's no moon, it's a space station" moment from Star Wars? We had one of those once we realized it wasn't a rain cloud, but rather a smoke cloud. Remember the day before (scroll up to that first picture in this blog post if you have to) when we couldn't find out any information about the fire in the Coconino National Forest? That's because all the news broadcasts were focused on the Wallow Fire in the Apache National Forest, a monster blaze even back on June 3 which is still going strong even as I type this three weeks later, which has since grown to become the largest forest fire in Arizona history. And we were driving straight into it.
Panic doesn't set in. Rather, there's a growing unease as we check the map and our route. We should be fine. We turn east on U.S. 60 in Springerville. That's 20 miles north of the blaze and takes us into New Mexico. The fire hasn't spread into New Mexico yet. We're good. No problems. Hey, let's pull over and take some shots of this oddball antler tree just to show how relaxed and unworried we really are. Let's double-check that map and make sure that fire's 20 miles to the south. Did you hear they've evacuated the town of Alpine? The roads turning off to the south suddenly start sporting barricades. Rest areas are closed. As we drive through Springerville, there's an eerie calm. Only emergency vehicles are on the streets, with a few long-haul tractor-trailer rigs passing us in the opposite direction. We watch as the smoke cloud overhead blots out the sun. The fire's 20 miles to the south, we repeat. Yeah. We're good.
And then we descend into hell, or at least an apocalyptic wasteland. Ash falls like snow. Everything smells of smoke. And it gets darker. And darker. Outside, it's black as night, only worse. Instead of stars, an angry red glow appears over the ridge to the south. That can't be the fire, can it? Did it jump into New Mexico? Then the glow spreads, first behind us, then to the north. Eventually, we're completely encircles, a glowing ring of fire just behind the next ridge in every direction. It's the sun, we decide. Yeah, that's the ticket. The smoke is diffracting the sunlight to make it look like we're trapped in the middle of a ring of fire. Spooky.
We drive under that cloud for two hours. I now know how the citizens of Minas Tirith felt when Sauron's fell cloud billowed out from Mordor. But as we'd surmised, the evil red glow was a trick of the light, nothing more than nature's smoke and mirrors. We reached the other side of the smoke cloud to find blue sky waiting for us, civilization still intact, Dante's inferno left safely behind. Still, after that experience, Clark W. Griswold can kiss my ass.
A full gallery of road trip photos can be found here.
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 1
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 2
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 3
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 4
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 5
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 6
The 2011 Griswold Family Adventure pt. 8
Now Playing: Count Basie The Atomic Mr. Basie
Chicken Ranch Central
No comments:
Post a Comment