Day 6ish - Nice bright colors.
Babies are death - or at least are the beginning of
death.
Somewhere in A Movable Feast Hemingway reportedly makes
reference to "the senseless death of a young child". I say reportedly because I
don't know. It has been so long since I read it and I doubt I would have
remembered the reference at the time anyway - me busy dragging round Typewriter
Heights, Paris on knuckles that could barely climb the stairs. A valuable death?
After a brief miss of the Grand Canyon on the south side we listened to
religious radio on Navajo land, slid into Page Arizona across the hot asphalt of
mid-day, and poured selves out into the air-conditioned supermarket through a
wall of heat between vehicle and store door.
Remembering a previous
visit to Page, we'd gone slow on the beer - ecstasy, however, was available at
the church of the Navajo and so - while not drunk - we were in fine form to
enjoy a visit with local color. We started well by poking our heads into the
tourist info center once we'd loaded up with fresh beer and I think some food.
A young man, about 20 and happy to share his wealth of worldly
experience, was holding the fort and talking with his girl friend. Slack jawed
tourist info boy took time out to tell us that he really didn't know about any
roads going the way we were planning to go and thought we might want to "...turn
around and go back where you came from" - impudent kid.
Undaunted, we
rolled quickly on without incident. Crossed the bridge at Lake Powell and headed toward Utah -
past trailer sites and year round storage in an area where you wouldn't think
people had anything to store - probably lockers used by vacationing visitors who
found it easier to store their boats locally than take them home to their
crowded yards in some far off suburb. Suburb of what city I didn't know but I
guess it could be Phoenix - Lake Powell being a water refuge from the desert.
Once into the fresh beer on the other side of Lake Powell we quickly
found the road we'd been looking for - a direct line from Highway 89 to Highway
12 via Georgetown, Cannonville and before that, Kodachrome State Park,
Utah.
The road was well marked, had been graded since the last big
rain, appeared well used, and may have even had the mileage to Kodachrome
indicated on some home made Arrow sign. If anything, there was too little risk
involved in pursuing this path.
Nonetheless, Billy Bob decided to fuck
up. Less than two miles in, the wash board was starting to wear on him. As the
thumps and bumps piled up in rapid succession along his spine he began
dedicating his mind to calculating and, rather than observing the rule that
prohibits turning back on a road before reaching its end, Billy Bob figured that
2 hours of pavement would be easier and more rewarding than one hour and forty
five minutes of thrashing about and worrying about the bikes falling off the
back of the truck.
Perhaps because of the heat, perhaps because of the
beer, ecstasy and rotten sausage Billy Bob had a vision of Eve, choose to
exercise his will and bit the apple big time, despite my vehement protests.
Rather than following faith and going with the tried and true rules of the road,
Billy Bob "knew better" and choose to violate the fundamental cannon against
turning around. More than that, he refused the obligatory bourbon salute that
may have mitigated the impact of his rash decision.
The first of the
three-part consequence for his blasphemy was visited upon us immediately when
Billy Bob backed the truck into a dirt wall at the side of the road while
turning the truck round. The second part followed days later when we learned the
turth about Utah and Mickey's big mouth beer. The third part of the road god's
wrath would be experienced days after that.
There was no question that
the bikes got bent by Billy Bob's three-point turn around on the wash board. The
question would be how bad.
We drove in stony silence for the remaining
two-hour detour to Kodachrome. We did not stop for lunch near the White Cliffs;
we didn't poke around the side of the road going through a pass near the Pink
Cliffs; we didn't take any pictures of the Vermilion cliffs. I was pissed. I sat
and stewed and got pissededer.
The good thing was - with bent bikes, we
didn't have to justify not riding them anymore.