April 2008 Archives

Thanks to my mother's alertness, I can pass this along to you non-North-Carolina-based readers:  the story on this weekend's Pressure Boys reunion from today's Raleigh News and Observer.

Here's a link to the story, written by David Menconi, and featuring both several hilarious stories (including a classic Greg Stafford tale) and a couple of quotations from his interview with me: http://www.newsobserver.com/2766/story/1051483.html

And here's a link to the N&O's audio slide show, featuring the P-Boys' "Waiting in Queensland," photos from recent rehearsals at Bryon & Mike's Yellow Recording studio, and photos from the archives as well--and yes, you'll see former members Stacy, Steev, Neil and David in the latter: http://www.newsobserver.com/lifestyles/extras/story/1047457.html

Reports indicate that the shows will be attended by scads of my pals from the Chapel Hill Eighties scene, including two former girlfriends and two members of my wedding, plus an untold number of CHHS and UNC alumni.  I'm not sure if I'll leave the Cat's Cradle covered more in sweat or nostalgia.

Y'know, when you get right down to it, there's really no way that you can have a bad day when it starts with the sight of a Rose-breasted Grosbeak on your feeder.

(Photo by J. Heidceker)

If you read the previous entry below, you may already have visited the Pressure Boys website and looked at the brief biography I wrote for it.

But you haven't read ALL the biographical material I wrote for the P-Boys.

When John Plymale asked me to write up a bio for the press kit, I actually put together TWO bios and told him to take his pick.  One was a fairly straightforward chronological piece; the other was, um, a bit more whimsical, which to my mind was fitting for a band that once not only threw an improvised song onto an album, but even named it "Lava Booger."  Still, I wasn't surprised or disappointed when Plymale chose to use the more straightforward piece.

I kind of like the other one, and I figure you nice folks might enjoy the result, but keep in mind that Plymale contacted me in March, when I'd been spending the previous weeks reading nothing but NCAA tournament picks:

After a twenty-year absence, the Pressure Boys are going back to the Big Dance.

Not since 1988 have the P-Boys taken the floor to defend their reputation as North Carolina's greatest dance band, but now a new generation of fans (as well as quite a few who loved them in their heyday) will get the chance to see their dynamic combination of ska, pop, punk, reggae, and hard-nosed defense on display in a first-round matchup at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro on Friday, May 2nd and Saturday, May 3rd. 

            Their opponent: cystic fibrosis. 

            All the proceeds from the P-Boys' performance will go to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Defeating CF, an inherited, chronic disease which affects thousands of Americans, is a personal goal for the whole band, but in particular for founding member John Plymale, whose daughter Allie was diagnosed with CF in 2004.  Having called together musicians from all over North Carolina for the benefit CD Songs for Sixty Five Roses back in 2006, Plymale decided that the next strike against the disease should involve the band with which he began his music career in 1981: the Pressure Boys.

            Though the P-Boys came together when most of the band was still in high school, they quickly showed they could play at the next level, earning acclaim from fans, competitors, and sportswriters alike.  Regularly exceeding 120 beats per minute, their high-octane attack filled dance floors as far away as New York, Texas, and Idaho.  Even big-name programs such as R.E.M., Duran Duran, and Billy Idol were pushed to their limits by the relentless energy of Chapel Hill's own Cinderellas.

            Seasoned bracketologists consider the 1982, 1984, and 1987 tournaments the three best Pressure Boys runs, based primarily on the recordings they released during those years.  In '82, it was the seven-song EP Jump! Jump! Jump! that electrified listeners with its youthful enthusiasm, propelled by the drumming of Rob Ladd and the rapid-fire guitar of Bryon Settle.   In '84, the four-song EP Rangledoon demonstrated a far more sophisticated grasp of the game's nuances, with "Where the Cowboys Went" becoming a concert showcase for saxophonist Greg Stafford.  It was in '87 that the P-Boys made their deepest incursion into the tourney, scoring with a full-length album Krandlebanum Monumentus, plus a video for the single "Around the World," but it would be their last appearance until this May.

            What do you need to know before filling out your bracket?  Consult this handy guide:

Center: Greg Stafford (Senior, Saxophone) The visual centerpiece of any P-Boys appearance, Stafford has both the size to steal the spotlight and the strength to bend any note. Rarely seen without his signature trench coat and houndstooth hat, the band's big man could be dominant in this tournament, or at least at the nearest Cracker Barrel after the final buzzer. A Chapel Hill High graduate, Stafford enjoys hobbies such as making t-shirts and giving legal advice. Favorite Food: lard.

Power Forward: Jack Campbell (Sophomore, Bass) Affectionately nicknamed "Burvis," Jack is an immovable object in the paint, as well as behind the retail counter. No one delivers the funk with more consistency, and when the beat is in his hands, it's not going anywhere. A CHHS grad, longtime member of Johnny Quest, and former owner of Poindexter Records, Jack has left his mark on the Triangle music scene, as well as on some opponents. Athlete He Most Admires: Kurt Rambis.

Small Forward: Bryon Settle (Senior, Guitar) No one hits from outside quite like "Elmo," a Chapel Hill product whose unconventional release has flummoxed defenders for years. His powerful forearms are intimidating in the extreme, but it's his experience, creativity, and savvy that make him such a valuable part of the team. His work with Trailer Bride and LUD shows that he's comfortable in any kind of contest, and his work at Yellow Recording shows he's the kind of teammate anyone would want. Career Highlight: final show at the Cat's Cradle's first Franklin Street location. 

Shooting Guard: Rob Ladd (Senior, Drums) Though skilled enough to play in the bigs, Rob's dedication to his teammates has seen him return from California for one more shot at glory. He's fully capable of playing with great delicacy or putting his head down and banging inside. A multitalented performer with a silky-smooth release and tireless muscles, Rob has been coveted by big names for years; Don Henley, the Red Clay Ramblers, Alanis Morissette, and others have urged him to declare for the draft, but he remains a Chapel Hillian and a Pressure Boy at heart. Favorite Food: glazed ham.

Point Guard: John Plymale (Senior, Vocals/Trombone) The glue that holds the squad together, CHHS grad "Zippy" is like a coach on the floor, directing his teammates and contributing both in front of the crowd and behind the scenes. With his positive attitude and boundless energy, the P-Boys are never out of a game. When not composing or practicing KISS songs on his guitar, Plymale has played with or produced recordings for the Sex Police, Superchunk, and Athaeneum, among others. Favorite Food: Pop-Tarts.

Sixth Man: Je Widenhouse (Freshman, Trumpet) This highly-recruited Boone product has a laid-back attitude off the court, but is all business once the ball goes up. Opponents may be fooled by his slight stature, but Je can play with anybody, and he usually will. Stints with the Sex Police and the Squirrel Nut Zippers have given fans a great appreciation for "J.W.," and his veteran teammates recognize him as the final piece they needed to advance. Career highlight: playing Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve.

Manager: Mike Beard (Junior, Sound Engineering) Someone has to do the dirty work, and for the P-Boys, it's Mike. Known as "Waffle O'Cheeseman" by players and opponents alike, he is totally dedicated to providing the team with the mix they need to play their best and sound their best, plus towels and plenty of Gatorade. A member of the Transactors Improv Co., he has worked with everyone from the N.C. Symphony to the Embers. Favorite Foods: waffles, cheese.

OUTLOOK:   If they can overcome their creaky knees and remember what got them to this point, the Pressure Boys have every opportunity to make a deep run this year.  Come out to the Cat's Cradle on May 2nd and 3rd and cheer them on!

"...what will they find under the tree?"

Hey, we don't have to wait for Christmas.  In a matter of weeks--mere weeks, I tell you!--the heavens will shift, the clocks will spin backward, and we'll be transported back to the Eighties just in time for the first of two reunion shows by the inimitable Pressure Boys.

And if you haven't already bought your tickets for May 2nd and/or May 3rd, have this link to the band's official website, www.pressureboys.com

Once you're there, feel free to check out the brief biography (written by yrs. truly) and the photos of the band in the 1988 and 2008 vintages.  Yep, there they are:  Jay Dub, Stafford, Zippy, Elmo, Ro7b, and Burvis.  (I love the inclusion of Ally Plymale in the latter shot, btw, and since she's the one who kicked the whole thing into gear, I'm glad to see her getting into the publicity.)  In a while, you'll be able to order copies of The Incomplete Recordings (featuring liner notes by the Cat's Cradle's own Frank "Skeeter" Heath, with assistance from yrs. truly) as well, and whether you're going to the show(s), buying the CD, or both, you can rest secure in the knowledge that ALL proceeds go to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for research into CF.

For archival purposes, btw, here's a shot circa 1983 featuring the late great Stacy Guess on trumpet (left) and Steev "Coma Boy" Adams on bass (second from right).

We'll be there Friday night at least--you couldn't keep us away--and I'm reasonably certain that at least two of my old girlfriends will be in attendance as well.  If I survive the weekend, I'll be sure to provide a full report on all our favorite tunes from Jump! Jump! Jump!, Rangledoon, and Krandlebanum Monumentus.

"This year, surprise them--with ROLLERCOASTERS!"

I am a bit sad today, and it's not just because it's tax day.

No, I'm sad because my online home is shutting down.  The current incarnation of the Readerville Forum will be closing its doors sometime in the next several weeks, and I'm growing as maudlin as the final episode of Cheers in the process.

Readerville.com got its start back in 2000 when Karen Templer decided that moderating the book discussions at Salon.com was less fun than setting up a website of her own for such discussions.  A group of Salon veterans joined her at the new site, and they immediately started inviting everyone they knew.  Since I'd made friends with one such veteran, the estimable Kristjan Wager (now blogging away at Pro-Science), at my previous online home(the long-lost and -lamented Hot Buttons chat room at Doonesbury.com), he invited me to join in the literary discussion.

It was transformative.  Here was a community of people who cared about topics that I cared about--everything from fantasy paperback covers to the serial comma to the poetry of W.D. Snodgrass--and were interested in both sharing their ideas and considering mine.  I got into arguments (mostly about Billy Collins' work, if I recall correctly), I made groanworthy puns (and groaned at those of others), I created parodies of Disney songs and Hunter S. Thompson novels, and I got to know about books and writers I'd never encountered before.

A partial list of those books and writers I explored because of Readerville would look like this:  * David Quammen * Pale Fire * The Lecturer's Tale * William Manchester * Word Freak * the Penguin Lives series * Salvation on Sand Mountain * John Crowley  * Gabriel Said * American Born Chinese * Mike Carey * Scott Wiedensaul * Promethea * Kirsten Bakis * Dan Simmons * Kingsblood Royal  * What They Did to Princess Paragon * Spix's Macaw * Jonathan Carroll * Hope Is the Thing with Feathers * Jeffrey Eugenides * Fast Food Nation *

Karen was constantly bringing writers in for week-long discussion events, allowing us the chance to pick the brains of people like Sherwin Nuland, Charles Johnson, Stefan Fatsis, Tony Horwitz, and the irrepressible Jim Crace, whose online exchanges are brilliant and hilarious enough to read like a Stoppard play.

And that's not counting the writers who were actually hanging out in the 'Ville with me: Katharine Weber was there, a literary Kevin Bacon, with ties to everyone from George Gershwin to Martha Stewart; Russell Rowland, mad Montanan and fantasy baseball stud; Marta Randall, grande dame of the science fiction field; Anne Ursu and Gretchen Laskas, twin daughters who'd never actually met; Gayle Brandeis, whose prose just astonishes; M.J. Rose, whose drive and initiative inspired everyone; David Abrams and Lauren Baratz-Logsted and Bard Cole and Amanda Eyre Ward and Brian Malloy and Roxana Robinson and Andi Buchanan and Laura Ruby and Dan Chaon and Danielle Smith and Carl Rollyson and Rosemary Graham and Caroline Leavitt and Bill Norris and Janis Jaquith and of course Amanda Davis, who'd been in Readerville for only a short time before she died.  It was a rich community, full of veterans and newbies, ready to answer questions and offer support and let you feel that yes, this verdammt manuscript could in fact be wrestled into shape.

And of course, it was through Readerville that I first learned Paul Dry's name and he learned mine.

And the readers, of course, whose passion for the book is what allowed the writers to have a voice in the first place:  if I name Kat Warren, Charis M, Katherine B, Boromir, Tabby, Cindy, Emily Christensen, Joseph Finn, Niki Winters, joseph scott, Christina Pellini, Fishboy, ana purna, RML, Janet L, Bob B, karla, Tana, cd coleman, Miriam, Sethra, Joel, thelmac, Mark Perez, derik badman, Marion Howard, sheba, Randall Stickrod, michelle furphy, Tom D, CKDexterHaven, mikedoodler, Kaethe, and the inimitable dg strong, I'm certain to be forgetting dozens of friends and acquaintances, but I suppose that's inevitable.

If I had to boil it down to a few memories, though, I suppose I'd have to pick these:

*Writing "Loose Canons" with Paul Clark, a/k/a tpc.  Paul's sense of humor is closer to mine than anyone I've ever met, except that we've never actually met.  All our collaboration was done online.  There are those who theorize that the universe will end in a violent matter-antimatter explosion if we ever shake hands.  It'll happen someday, folks (though you may want to watch through a piece of smoked glass when it does), but if it does, you'll never get to see our unpublished column, "The Legion of Diversity vs. Deadwhiteman!"

*Arguing with Edward Cole.  Edward is passionate, sensitive, and sometimes an exhausting person to argue with.  He's had a life radically unlike mine, and our divergent opinions on many subjects (cf. Billy Collins) have sent us to opposite corners of the ring a number of times, but I've never encountered anyone online who has made me think about what I'm saying more than he has.  And for all our disagreements over the years, the main thing I remember about him was our shared fanboyish glee when our online discussion of a poet we both love--W.D. Snodgrass--prompted Snodgrass himself to email us.

*April Fool's Day, 2001, when Katharine Weber and Katherine B swapped vowels and pretended to be each other (Katharine B and Katherine Weber) all day.

*The California Tour, when I got to dine with an Rville group that included Russell and Katharine and CK (whose story of trying to buy a kosher Coke in Alabama was the highlight of the meal), got to ride up I-5 in Randall's black convertible Targa, and got to spend a morning in the San Juan mountains watching life birds settling on the feeder from karla's front porch.

*Seeing Kelly's writing in print.  The Readerville Journal (in its original print edition) published one of her short stories, "The Whispering Dictionary, " and the knowledge that thousands of copies of this story were now floating around the country only a few months after I'd first seen it handwritten on notebook paper was somehow more bizarre and thrilling than the knowledge that Paul and I had a column appearing in the same issue.  My favorite thing that ever published in TRJ, though, was a single sentence in Kelly's review of Philip Petit's To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers:  "The wire is gone, the towers are gone, but you can't destroy what was never there to begin with; and somewhere above Ground Zero the line Philippe Petit walked is still there, pointless and stupid and beautiful."  I still get chills.

*Preparing nervously for my first-ever reading at the Va. Festival of the Book in 2003.  The books were out, the room was ready, and I was approaching total flummoxation when the hotel manager approached me and said there was a package for me.  It turned out to be a bottle of champagne from Sarah R.  Never have I been quite so surprised by a gift, and never have I appreciated one more.

These and other memories are going to be whirling around for some time as I try to come to terms with the final days of the Forum.  Oh, there will still be a Readerville online; The Readerville Journal will continue, and I'll even be contributing to it (look for an interview with Tony Horwitz about his new book, A Voyage Long and Strange.)  There will be places to comment on the articles, and many familiar faces will no doubt be logging onto the server to post their ideas in the new format.

But the Forum as it exists will close its doors soon, and once it does, I'll be at Readerville less often.  The new format means less likelihood of stirring up a free-form discussion.  That will be good in some ways--certainly less expensive for Karen, and less likely to distract me from such important tasks as writing, teaching, raising my kids and spending time with my wife--but for all the possibilities lying in the future, this is the end of a much-beloved part of my past.

So: cue Sam Malone standing in the empty bar, as he prepares to turn out the lights:  "I'm the luckiest son of a bitch in the world."  And I have been for nearly eight years now.

Thanks, Karen.  Love, PC

Red Rock Canyon * Zion * Bryce Canyon * Capitol Reef * Arches * Mesa Verde * Monument Valley * Grand Canyon

The headache I'd started the evening before had abated by sunrise on the 11th, which was good, as we had decided to spend our one full day at Grand Canyon National Park driving several hours eastward toward the town of Winslow, which sits at an unfamiliar point on an entirely familiar road:  Interstate 40, the same road that passes by Chapel Hill.

That's not Winslow's claim to fame, however; it has three.  First, it's the home of La Posada Hotel, designed by architect Mary Colter.  Second, it sits not only on I-40, but on another more celebrated road, thanks to the lyrics of "Route 66":

You go through St. Louis, Joplin, Missouri, and Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty/ You'll see Amarillo... Gallup, New Mexico/ Flagstaff, Arizona, don't forget Winona/ Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino...

Sadly, despite a perfectly rhymable name, Winslow didn't make the cut for songwriter Bobby Troup, possibly because it would be hard to say in the same line with Winona.  A few years later, however, Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey would right this wrong in the lyrics of "Take It Easy" and give Winslow its third and greatest claim to fame:

Well I'm standin on the corner in Winslow, Arizona/ Such a fine sight to see/ It's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford/ Slowin down to take a look at me

Now boasting a pop song it could call its own, the city of Winslow spent several decades basking in the Eagles' mellow, smoke-obscured glow before realizing that the band had broken up and that continuing to take its advice would result in a loss of tourist dollars.  In 1994, however, the city began work on what would eventually become the nation's first civic monument to Seventies country-rock:  Standin' on the Corner Park.

Yes, you too can stand next to a life-sized bronze statue of a dude with an acoustic guitar (Dad and I each did) and note the flatbed Ford parked nearby.  It probably wasn't the stupidest thing I did for a photo on this trip, but it had to rank in the top two.

Luckily for my self-image, we had another much better reason for being in Winslow: to track down a kachina.  Dad has been collecting Hopi-made kachina dolls for some years now, and he remembered a shop in Winslow that offered a good selection.  Unfortunately, in the decades since his last shopping trip, the shop had apparently shut down, so we did a little hunting around town.  A local pawn shop had no likely kachinas, but I was delighted to find two CDs that I knew Dad and I could both enjoy:  the two discs of Chet Atkins' The RCA Years: 1947-1981.  Cranking up Chet's duet with Les Paul on "Avalon," we headed across town to another likely spot, where Dad found both a lapis bracelet for Mom and a Navajo chief's blanket for the house.  I was well out of my price range--the CDs had run two bucks apiece--but I fell in love with the samples of Zuni pottery in the shop, marveling at the three-dimensional lizards that decorated the rims.

On the way back from Winslow, we decided we couldn't pass up a chance to visit Meteor Crater, a place I'd known about all my life without ever considering visiting.  With it less than ten miles off I-40, however, there was nothing to do but to head in, pay the fee, and walk out onto the crater's rim, staring down into its hollow and feeling vaguely frustrated.  The problem, much as it is at the Grand Canyon, is one of scale.  The crater is simply so big that the viewer can't see how big it is.  Park officials have tried to help solve this problem, placing a life-sized astronaut figure at the bottom--Apollo astronauts came to the site to train in geology back in the 70s--but for something so visually startling, the crater's impact is surprisingly unsurprising.  Then again, perhaps it simply didn't compare well with the enormous hole the Colorado River had been eroding a few hours away.

We returned to that enormous hole in the early afternoon, gathered our cameras and binoculars, and made our way out to the South Rim, passing by several elk on the way.  (They're not terribly afraid of cars, and they'll stroll arrogantly across the park's roads in search of forage, secure in the knowledge that traffic will screech to a halt and tourists will leap from their cars to take photos.)  Our plan was simple: get to Hopi Point, generally regarded as the best place on the rim to see the sunset, and watch said sunset at 6:30.  We arrived just after six, feeling smug as we watched scores of other tourists spill out of the shuttle buses over the next twenty minutes.  Dad and I are normally somewhat snobbish in such places, considering ourselves above the common herd of tourists in terms of our ability to plan our travels and to appreciate our surroundings, but here we both just threw ourselves into the role of Guy With Camera, snapping pictures relentlessly.  I took shots facing the sun, hoping the clouds in the west would hold some color attractively, then turned east and realized that the best thing about sunset in the Canyon was what it did to the rocks in that direction: set against a leaden-gray sky, the rocks out toward Desert View fairly burned, and the shadows of the outthrust rocks painted stripes along the walls for miles.

Darkness finally fell, the shuttle bus returned for us, and we trundled our gear back to the hotel.  I spent the night finishing David Quammen's superb collection Wild Thoughts from Wild Places, going over my notes, and feeling vaguely dissatisfied that I hadn't seen a life bird since a Mountain Chickadee turned up under a bench near Mather Point.  Perhaps our trip back to Vegas would provide something new.

Unfortunately, the bird life on the way west from GCNP was decidedly similar to the bird life I'd already observed.  We did spot some new plant life, however: many small orange and yellow-orange blossoms were springing up along US 93 as we made our way to Hoover Dam--some kind of columbine, perhaps?--and the big barrel cacti were sporting rosy red needles, possibly as a result of the season.  The season was actually a little hard to figure out, what with the temperature varying from 28 degrees when we left Grand Canyon to over 70 by the time we hit Nevada, but I suspect the change in elevation--from over 7000 feet to under 3000 along the way.  (Yes, my ears were a-poppin'.)

The trip's last notable feature was man-made:  Hoover Dam.  Standing as it does athwart one of the continent's great rivers, its power as a barrier somewhat obscures its second crucial function:  as a bridge.  It's the only way across the Colorado for miles.  There's a bridge forty miles south in Laughlin, NV, and another about 200 miles uperiver at Marble Canyon, AZ.  If you don't want to swim Lake Mead or ford the river, your options for getting across in this part of the world come down to exactly one.  It's an incredibly narrow choke point for transportation in the southwest, and it's therefore a serious concern for the Department of Homeland Security, which had checkpoints in several places on the way up US 93.  The realization that having all the region's transportation AND water supply issues in the same concrete basket (along with a serious tourist attraction to boot) has also inspired the powers that be to begin construction of a new bridge, just downstream from the dam but at a higher elevation.

We pulled off to scope out the dam and marvel at the remarkable waters of Lake Mead, which now lie a good fifty feet below their usual level thanks to a relentless drought.  The water is a brilliant green, clean and crystalline near the shoreline, and the rocks that have lain under that water for decades have been bleached to a dull white, which makes the water's color even brighter.  Our parking place was far above the surface (and the dam, for that matter), but with my binoculars, I could easily pick out birds below:  a Great Blue Heron standing patiently on a spur of rock... a Western Grebe far out in the lake, almost impossible to identify... a Double-Crested Cormorant coming in for a clumsy landing on the surface... and a Pied-billed Grebe in the shallows, its brownish plumage still visible through the clear water as it swam down in search of prey.

It is perhaps a sign of how ready Dad and I were to get home that we simply forgot to look at the spillway.  We drove over the dam, up the west side of the canyon, and down into the Las Vegas basin without even realizing that we'd missed a whole half of the dam--and possibly the more impressive part.  Nonetheless, we were dialed in and preparing for our final night out west.

We had yet another Close Encounter of the Incompetent Kind at the otherwise excellent Mexican restaurant Macoya's; clearly Dad and I were not meant to be eating together.  We left another in a series of very small tips before making our way past the lights of Vegas's Finest and back to the hotel.  All in all, the place looked very much as it had on our first night:  too many people meeting in the wilderness in order to throw money in the air and hope they can grab more than they threw up before they have to give up the whole Golden Calf thing and head back to their Hebrew camp.

But as an entry point into the Four Corners region, I can say only good things about the place.  The United States is a far bigger place than most of us can imagine, and a visit to an unfamiliar part of it embiggens us as well.  (Hey, it's a perfectly cromulent word.)  I'm hugely grateful to my father for making our trip possible, and I look forward to making a return visit to the desert.

But no, I'm not flushing another dollar down the slots.  C'mon, people; I'm no math major, but even I know not to bet against the house.

Red Rock Canyon * Zion * Bryce Canyon * Capitol Reef * Arches * Mesa Verde * Monument Valley * Grand Canyon

There was only one park that we were able to see at both sunset and sunrise, and I do feel as though we chose well:  Monument Valley.  We arrived in the late afternoon of Sunday, March 9th, pulling into our lodgings at Goulding's hotel/restaurant/shop after trekking once more across the southern edge of Utah from Four Corners.  As we drove out of the 4C park, we could see the other side of the Sleeping Ute, though this angle presented nothing like the wintery colors we'd seen from his north side.  Here it was the high desert colors we'd become familiar with: sandstone reds and yellows and browns, with enough greys and browns to make the other colors jump out alarmingly. 

We took the opportunity to stop at the aptly-named town of Mexican Hat (which I feel sure is the Hispanic cousin of Medicine Hat, Alberta), but the rock formation which gives it its name was just the first of the stony marvels we saw as we approached the Arizona border.  Soon enough the haze before us opened into an expanse of desert peppered with the shapes we'd now learned to correctly categorize:  mesas (those wider than they are high, like the tables that give them their name), buttes (those higher than they are wide), and monuments (a/k/a spires, which are eroded to the point where they have practically no flat area on top).  This was territory Dad had seen before, and not just in his countless viewings of John Wayne movies.  (If DirecTV offered a Sons of Katie Elder channel, Dad would be the first subscriber.)  He'd never stayed there, though, and I could tell he was looking forward to getting out among the monuments in the morning.

That evening, however, we stayed at Goulding' Lodge, which is perched up a slope underneath a pair of sandstone walls.  The flat expanse of Monument Valley itself lies to the northeast of Gouldings, and our ground-floor room opened onto a patio with a beautiful view.  In fact, it was a view that at least temporarily left me tongue-tied.  My notes from that evening read, in full:

Watched sunset at Monument Valley from Goulding's Lodge:  COLORS! 

I did go on to note a couple of slightly less primitive things once night fell:

Night in Monument Valley: headlights are about all the lights you see--and you see them from miles away.

Sound continues to amaze out west--atop Mesa Verde, or even at the hotel, it carries forever.

Sunrise, when it came, was almost instantaneous:  the sky was pale blue, with the valley floor and the hulking silhouettes of the monuments looming in grey-brown.  Then pow! the floor is lit and the stone catches fire.

We hustled out to the Silverado and into our second Navajo Nation park in two days.  This one's entrance is a bit more built up than that of Four Corners, but visitors to Monument Valley Park should be aware that its roads have been tended with what could most generously be described as benign neglect.  The seventeen-mile loop of dirt road through the valley itself is--and I say this with the sort of precise, understated language that I've been known for since I published my first article in The Comics Journal, where it appeared in a column called "A Waste of Trees"--the worst stretch of navigable road ever created by human beings.

In fact, the Monument Valley loop is a lot like a river:  there are rocks, flats, gravel beds, falls, riffles, eddies, and as far as I know undertows.  I can certainly attest that driving on it is more like steering a kayak than a truck.  One must gauge the surface ahead, looking for a clear path between the rocks, and swiftly guide the vessel into the flow so as not to smash up the bottom.  You can't get away from it with a portage, either; the land around the road is privately owned, and trespassing is strictly verboten.  You've got to stay in the flow and make your way as best you can.  If you're lucky, all you'll do is jar your coccyx; if you're unlucky, well, good luck getting that thing to roll back up.

We bumped and ground our way along, circling Rain God Mesa and taking periodic stops to look at interesting formations such as the Mittens, the Thumb, and the Totem Pole.  It was while we were parked to look at the latter that I heard a peculiar downslurred call from behind me.  Back toward Rain God Mesa were a few small junipers, and atop one was a flycatcher.  The morning light was very helpful, making it possible for me to see the bird's dark tail and the fawn-colored underside.  Those, combined with the call, gave me a clear ID of my first Arizona lifer: Say's Phoebe, wild and free and unencumbered by a need to roll its backside over the loop.

We returned to the main road with plenty of daylight remaining, which was good, since we had a lot of Arizona to get through before we reached our destination:  Grand Canyon village.  Monument Valley lies in the state's northeast corner, while GCV is in the western half; as the raven flies, the distance is probably only about 150 miles, but as the Silverado drives, it was a longer affair.  First we had to gas up in the town of Keyanta, which had four service stations at the main intersection, but seemed unwilling to part with the actual fuel.  Some of the individual pumps were out of order, but you couldn't see which ones until you pulled up to them, and the natives seemed to regard it as a point of pride to beat the tourists to the working pumps.  I had been boxed out at the first station like an undersized shooting guard straining for a rebound, but at the second station I had circled the pumps twice in order to position the truck for a fill-up.  At that moment, a fiftyish woman pulled up on the opposite side and had the nozzle in her hand before I could get out of the cab.  The station's other pump, naturally, was out of order.  We filled up at the third station and got out of dodge before anyone siphoned our tank.

For the most part, the stretch of highway 160 between Keyanta and Tuba City is straight and uneventful, but we were impressed by the massive formation known as El Capitan, which looks not unlike a smaller version of Ship Rock, but which got practically no mention in any of the literature we had with us.  Perhaps it's due to the large number of nearby monuments.  We did note a lengthy and mysterious stretch of electric railroad running alongside the road for many miles southwest of Black Mesa, but we were never able to figure out what it was for--hauling away bits of mesa would be my guess.  In the end, the most interesting thing we saw between Keyanta and the park entrance at Desert View was a brief glimpse of slate-blue feathers whipping across the road and settling into a small pine:  a Pinyon Jay.

There was quite a lot of interesting stuff to see once we reached the western end of Grand Canyon National Park, however.  For one thing, there's a watchtower.  It's built of native stone (around a hidden steel support structure), stands 70 feet above the canyon rim, and is the work of an unsung figure in American architecture: Mary Colter. 

Back in the 1930s, Colter was all over the Canyon's south rim, designing (and supervising the building) of no fewer than five different lodges and observation points.  She carefully tried to match the tower with the surrounding landscape, choosing weathered stones that she felt would go well with the environment and adding exposed timbers and mortar to match.  I'll grant that I'm not a great student of architecture, but I'm the son of one longtime feminist and the husband of another, so I was frankly a little surprised that neither of them had ever mentioned this woman, who was a true pioneer in her field.  Born in 1869, she began studying architecture in the 1880s and was hired to design buildings as early as 1901--two decades before she would be trusted with offering her opinion on a Congressional representative or a president.

And atop Colter's tower, I was suddenly presented with the difference between the Grand Canyon and the other parks we'd visited:  scale.  From the balcony, I could begin to appreciate that scale.  The Canyon's bottom was a mile below me, the North Rim ten miles away, but I could only stare along the curls of the Colorado in futile hopes of seeing the Canyon's length; it's a good 200 miles from end to end.  I'd known that from maps, of course, but it's a bit different seeing it laid out in front of you.

Having digested that bit of understanding, we drove down the rim to the Visitor's Center, where I heard two things I'd never heard before:  one was a pair of Juniper Titmice, their nondescript grey bodies perched appropriately atop a juniper, who were producing a call that resembled nothing so much as the beeping of a video game.  (I once again had to thank the Splitters at the American Ornithological Union; back in Palo Alto in 2003, I saw what was then called a Plain Titmouse, but because of distinctions in call, behavior, and habitat, the AOU had decided the California variant would now be the Oak Titmouse, while the GCNP's birds would be Junipers.  Bureaucracy can sometimes produce positive results, it seems.)  The second thing I heard was a park ranger saying, in all seriousness, that in April and May, the park's California Condors may as well be "yard birds... they're Starlings."  Alas, were were too early to see their imitation of Sturnus vulgaris, but the comparison obviously stayed with me.

The Grand Canyon differs from the other parks in other ways besides scale, I soon realized.  It's not just bigger, but far more carefully controlled.  The government clearly takes a much more engaged and active role in managing the area, and it consequently leaves a much bigger footprint.  You can imagine, in Zion or Bryce or Mesa Verde, that you are in the wilderness, but on the South Rim, at least, you are constantly confronted by roads, parking spaces, lodges, railroads, and other tourist bric-a-brac.  Here the National Park Service is a host, not just a landlord.

And it has to be.  We noted vehicles from over half the United States: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, plus Alberta and Ontario--and that's not counting those from other places who were renting cars locally.  We heard German and Italian, and Japanese and other unidentifiable languages, and we saw at least one guy wearing a UNC toque at Hopi Point.  We'd somehow left the southwest and entered Disneyland.

The tourist I'll never forget, though, was the woman on the shuttle.  Her two most prominent features were her hair and her voice.  The hair was almost hypnotic: a blonde shade that was unquestionably artificial and a style that nearly defies description.  The back was cut into vertical columns, resembling nothing so much as the basalt pillars of Devil's Tower, while the top was disarranged artfully into a roundish mass with stray tendrils, all of it tilted slightly forward over her eyes.  The overall effect, somehow, was that of a cotton-candy muffin tipped dangerously over the edge of its cup. (Dad thought the whole thing was a wig, and he may have been right.)  The hair almost, but not quite, managed to distract the observer from her ensemble, which combined a French manicure, two enormous gold and turquoise rings on each hand, an array of musically jangling gold-and-turquoise bracelets on each wrist, a black bolero jacket with silvery studs at the wrists and waist, and wraparound Coco Chanel sunglasses.  Basically, I would have expected to see this outfit only on Carol Channing, and only if she were in Las Vegas performing a tribute to the Cure.  "We could have each other for dinner... we could have each other with cream..."

The voice was also somewhat Channing-like.  It first came to my notice when, climbing on board the bus at the pickup point, she bumped butts with Dad.  Laughing loudly--I won't say "braying," to be polite--she asked "Was it good for you?"

Dad is rarely at a loss for words in such situations, and sure enough he cheerfully replied, "It's always good for me."  She laughed again and was gone from my notice until we eventually reached the western end of the shuttle run at Hermit's Rest and discovered that she was returning on the same shuttle.  She was reading a book (most likely Over the Edge: Death in the Canyon by Thomas M. Myers) and felt compelled to point out important facts to her escort, a mustachioed gent sitting several rows in front of her due to overcrowding. "They have suicides here, too!" she proclaimed loudly, prompting more than one rider to contemplate it.  Or perhaps homicide.  Anything to end the braying.

Maybe that was why my head began pounding.  Maybe it was the Blue Moon ale I had at lunch.  Maybe it was the altitude, as we were well above 7000 feet.  Or maybe it was the fact that when we'd left the Navajo Nation, where Daylight Savings Time is observed, we'd had to set our watches back an hour--the state of Arizona does NOT observe it.  I no longer knew what time it was, and as my skull throbbed like a rock-beaten kayak, I realized that I didn't really care, either.

IN OUR NEXT INSTALLMENT: Chet Atkins!  Deep Impact!  Such a fine sight to see!  And sunset at the Canyon!

Red Rock Canyon * Zion * Bryce Canyon * Capitol Reef * Arches * Mesa Verde * Monument Valley * Grand Canyon

"Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" is Kelly's least favorite Chicago song.  (Personally, I'd vote for something from the later Peter Cetera period--"You're the Inspiration," perhaps.)  I never found the lyrics especially problematic or meaningful, personally, but I did begin to appreciate them in Cortez, Colorado on March 9th, because I had no freakin' idea what time it was.

The trip had begun in Eastern Standard Time, but the Powers That Be saw to it that we'd have to reset our watches four times in four days.

1) Reset to Central Standard Time at Houston's airport on 3/5.  Noon becomes eleven.

2) Reset to Pacific Standard Time in Las Vegas on 3/5.  Eleven becomes nine.

3) Reset to Mountain Standard Time once we crossed into Utah on 3/6.  Nine becomes ten.

4) Reset to Mountain Daylight Time when we woke up on Sunday morning, 3/8.  Ten becomes eleven again.

At this point, we were too confused to feel any real jet lag, but we were at least (we felt sure) done with the adjustments.  We were also up very early on a Sunday morning and heading east from Cortez toward a national park about which I knew next to nothing:  Mesa Verde.  We reached it at 8:30, and we were all but alone.  There was snow atop every peak of the mountain wall to the south of highway 160, but we'd seen on the news that morning that it could have been worse: we could have been in Ohio, where 20 inches had fallen the day before.  All we got was clear roads and gorgeous scenery on the way to the park.

Mesa Verde is unlike most national parks in several ways: first, it's known primarily not for its natural beauty, but for its man-made attractions.  It's the home of some of the most spectacular and extensive pre-Columbian structures in North America.  For several hundred years, a group of Pueblos built their homes and temples and gathering places within its boundaries, but in about 1250 or 1300 CE, perhaps as the result of drought and famine, the builders abandoned them.  The buildings are still there, sometimes in the lee of the cliffs, sometimes perched on the Mesa itself, their adobe protected from the elements by the climate, the area's designation as a park, and often by the same cliffs that protected the builders.

The other protection they enjoy is sheer distance.  The cliff dwellings lie far to the south of the arresting mesa wall that stands at the entrance to the park.  In fact, the park's Visitor Center lies in roughly the same place--which is twenty miles into the park.  There's a small kiosk at the entranceway, but that's the only official presence until you've wended your way along twenty miles of cliff-hugging switchback road.  In short, you don't go into Mesa Verde without making a serious commitment.

Luckily, the trade-off for your commitment is a gorgeous drive.  Immediately beyond the kiosk was a thick forest of Utah juniper which demanded my attention almost at once.  I pulled the truck over, jumped out of the driver's seat, and followed a variety of birds in and out of the trees: a Western Bluebird or two, a Spotted Towhee, even a Golden-crowned Kinglet, but nothing new.  I may have heard a Mountain Chickadee, but I never laid eyes on it.  I gave it a few more minutes, then decided to pull up stakes and head further into the park.  When I opened the door of the truck, Dad was still sitting in the passenger seat, but now he had his cell phone to his ear, conversing with Mom, who was either one, two, or three hours ahead of us.  Since cell reception in this area had already proved to be tenuous at best, I opted to spend a few more minutes outside, rather than move the truck and cut off the call.

At roughly the same moment I made this decision, I glanced into the rear-view mirror outside my window and saw the silhouette of a bird atop a juniper on the far side of the road.  Carefully sliding down from the high-mounted driver's seat and closing the door with special delicacy, I returned to the road with binoculars trained on the top of the juniper.  A juniper top isn't that far from the ground; the tree is a little bigger than the typical Christmas tree, but I doubt there was one in my field of view that topped twenty feet.  This one was probably a bit under that, and its pointed crown was surmounted by a slim grey bird that seemed unusually nervous.  Its wings fluttered every few seconds, as though it were somehow working itself up to take off, then thinking better of it at the last moment.  The white eye-ring gave it a wide-eyed, slightly goggly look, and its call was entirely in line with that impression:  a short, not-quite-panicky "Eek!"  All in all, the combination of its twitchyness, wide-eyed appearance, and voice indicated quite clearly that if Don Knotts had been born a bird, he would have been a Townsend's Solitaire.

The Solitaire's ID was further confirmed by a glimpse of its buff-colored wing patches as it (finally) lit from the top of the juniper and flew into the woods, allowing us to depart for the high country at last.  I soon decided that Arches might have a rival for the title of National Park with the Best Natural Defenses; there was no single wall between the entrance and the park's contents, but there were mountains, narrow roadways, and twists and turns aplenty.  An enemy seeking out the Pueblos from this angle would have a devil of a time just finding them.

That enemy's job might have been slightly easier at the moment, however, because as we rose toward the mesa top itself, we could see increasing signs of fire damage.  Many blackened trees stood bare in the snow, and in places the only vegetation was yuccas, which I presume respond better to fire than the juniper, pinyons, ponderosa pines or aspens do.  Still, the view down into the Mancos River valley was stunning, and the snowy peaks all around us and the great blue sky over us were a constant distraction as I carefully maneuvered the Silverado around the curves.

The visitor's center, when it finally hove into view a long while later, offered both a garrulous (and somewhat bored) ranger and a great deal of information on the Pueblos' lifestyle, and since much of the park was still closed due to the snow, Dad and I opted to spend some time there.  We were the only visitors at the time, so we were able to wander about at our own pace.  I learned from the exhibits that:

*Yucca roots are poisonous.  Yucca leaves were the Pueblos' main source of fiber, but the only use for the roots is making tea.

*We had not seen a Clark's Nutcracker at Bryce.  A stuffed specimen revealed that the bird's long black bill and black-and-white wings would have easily been visible to us.  (I suspect it had been either a Solitaire or perhaps a Gray Jay.)

*The kiva house, where Pueblos worshipped, was in fact underground (though holes to let in air and let out smoke were placed in the roof).

*The fire damage we'd seen had come from several summertime lightning strikes.  The combination of dry conditions and high altitude occasionally produces such fires, but the park had been especially unlucky in recent years.

We finally left the museum in hopes of getting to see the archaeology live, so to speak, and chose as our first site the Sun Temple, a large, low D-shaped adobe building nestled in the evergreens atop the mesa.   It had been built circa 1250, possibly by the last generation of Pueblos to live at Mesa Verde.  When the community there became untenable, the theory is that the inhabitants migrated south and west to rejoin their cousins.  They certainly didn't leave because of inferior construction.  The masonry was comparable to anything I'd seen in medieval European sites, though the lack of an obvious entrance was a bit puzzling.  Perhaps it was supposed to be entered through the top, like a more traditional kiva.

Across the canyon from the Sun Temple, however, was the most impressive piece of Native American building I've ever seen:  the magnificent Cliff Palace.  Built into the cliff face beneath an enormous overhanging sandstone arch, it would have been all but impregnable to any enemies who did eventually make into the area.  It's about as long as a football field, and fairly shallow, what with the cliff face on either side, but it was home to between 100 and 150 people, making it larger than several of the communities we'd driven through earlier in the week (and larger than a few in my part of rural Virginia, now that I think of it.)  At somewhere between 850 and 750 years old, it's also the oldest piece of Native American building I've ever seen (other than a mound or two), and it's one I would dearly love to see up close someday when the entire park is open.

The sun was getting high when we headed back out of the park and set our course southward toward the anthropomorphic silhouette of Sleeping Ute Mountain and into the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation (a name that sounds almost as redundant as The La Brea Tar Pits does to Spanish speakers).  As farmland, it looked like a good place for a casino, which is exactly what the pragmatic Utes had built at the side of the road in Tawaoc.  I was seized by an idea that I never quite fleshed out, but it rattled around my mind until after we'd left Colorado: in medieval Europe, Christians got the Jews to handle the money-lending that their religion forbade but their economy demanded; in the U.S., gambling is viewed in a similar light by puritanical whites, but they've gotten the Indians to take on a role similar to that of the Jews before them.  We've even set up the ghettos for them.  Hmm.

In twenty miles or so, we reached the New Mexico border, and I knew that my hopes of spotting a new bird in New Mexico would depend entirely on the next few hours--we would be leaving the state after only about fifty miles.  The entire time we were there, however, the view would be dominated by one thing:  the enormous, ragged volcanic wedge of Ship Rock, a huge dark chunk of igneous rock that stands out in every way from its surroundings.  The top spires reach over 7000 feet above sea level, which is nearly 2000 feet above the surrounding flatlands, and they're visible from about fifty miles away.  It's a dark brown-grey-black, too, making it visible against the sky or against the pale desert colors around it, not to mention radically unlike the rosy sedimentary colors of most of the other rock formations in the area.  And last, it's in the middle of NOWHERE.

I thought I'd seen nowhere back in Nevada and Utah, but until I reached northwest New Mexico, I'd seen only its suburbs.  The land in this corner of the state is federal, and I suspect it's so because the state simply didn't want it; the Feds apparently didn't want it, either, since they allow it to be part of the Navajo Nation.  The town of Shiprock, by far the largest town in the NN, is a dusty, raven-haunted sprawl of buildings and trailers (possibly in the reverse order) next to the San Juan River, but there seems to be no center to it, no visible purpose except the seemingly universal human instict to slap a border up when a certain critical mass of population is reached.

Birding was looking decidedly unpromising, unless of course the ravens or Shiprock's House Sparrow population could be counted.  There simply weren't any places set aside for wildlife.  I couldn't blame the locals for this, of course--there wasn't anyplace around that had been set aside for real human life, either.  The trailers (many topped by satellite dishes) were suspiciously uniform, suggesting government contracts had been signed, while the rural areas were great squares of nothing marked off by barbed wire; if there was anything grazing within them, I couldn't detect it, but at least it couldn't escape. 

We turned off the main road so that we could at least get closer to the mass of Ship Rock, but birds remained absent.  I got excited by something appearing on the fence; it turned out to be a Horned Lark, the first I'd ever seen without companions.  A brief side-of-the-road scan allowed me to spot a few juncos in a bit of scrub within the barbed wire, but that was it.  No hawks, no sparrows, nothing. 

The one noteworthy feature was geological: until I got close to it, I had assumed Ship Rock was like the Lonely Mountain in The Hobbit, a strangely isolated hunk of rock completely unconnected to the rest of the landscape.  And yes, it did look like that from a distance.  When we came closer, however, we could see that it stands along a miles-long wall (technically a "dike") of the same rock.  The wall isn't high--maybe thirty feet above the desert, tops, and about ten feet thick--but it extends for miles to the north and south of the mass of Ship Rock.  It's clearly natural, but it looks almost exactly like a gigantic dry-stone wall, the sort Robert Frost and his neighbor might pile up in the springtime if they were about ninety feet tall.

After an hour or so of futilely scouring the dust of the area for birds, we decided there was only one way for a pair of geography geeks to regain their sunny outlooks: to visit the one spot in America where four states meet.  We abandoned New Mexico and crossed into Arizona, then turned right, edging back into an area of New Mexico that was even more depressed-looking than Shiprock had been.  Here, however, the Navajo Nation had figured out how to get a living out of the barren ground:  with the Four Corners Monument.  Many assume it's a national park, but it's not; instead, the meeting of four states takes place under the jurisdiction of the Navajo--somewhat ironic, given that their land was carved up by the same borders responsible for the park's existence, but hey, if anyone's entitled to make a buck off them..

And those bucks are made in some quantity, not only by the collectors of the $3.00 fee for entering the park, but by the dozens of Navajo vendors selling handicrafts, tchotchkes, and fry bread to the tourists.  (Indeed, except for sandstone and ravens, the most common feature of this area ended up being the plywood souvenir stall; there seemed to be at least one next to every wide place in every road in Arizona.)  I found a necklace of lapis and hematite for Kelly and sampled a piece of fry bread--essentially a flat funnel cake--dashed liberally with cinnamon sugar.  Nobody was getting rich here, I suspect, but I sure couldn't see any better way to make a living in this part of the world.  Unless a casino was involved, of course.

I wandered out to the flat bronze circle between the flags of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, noting as I approached that Utah has by far the least interesting flag of the bunch, and did something about which I'd fantasized for years:  I put aside my dignity, sat on the point where the borders met, and sprawled backward, leaving a limb in each of the four states:  my right arm in Utah, my left in Colorado, my left leg in New Mexico, and my right in Arizona.

I may have seen no new birds in New Mexico, but they can't take that away from me.

IN OUR NEXT INSTALLMENT: Colors!  Kayaking in Monument Valley!  Unknown heroines of architecture!  And Condors as yard birds!

Red Rock Canyon * Zion * Bryce Canyon * Capitol Reef * Arches * Mesa Verde * Monument Valley * Grand Canyon

Being the visually oriented birder I am, most of my birding is done with the use of light.  Without it, much of my knowledge of field marks is useless, so I try to make it a point never to bird when the birds are roughly the same color as the sky, trees, and ground.

I made an exception on the morning of March 8th, however, because I was pretty sure the bird-shaped shadow on the trunk of the tree just beyond our hotel room's balcony was a lifer.  I did not determine this through some keen technological advancement like infra-red goggles, or even through something more basic like ears.  (The bird wasn't making any noise anyway, nor was much of anything else; Green River, Utah, is not an especially boisterous place before dawn.) 

No, I made this determination through an old logical exercise called the "process of elimination," which is not a gastrointestinal process (though the results can sometimes be similar).  The bird's presence on the trunk indicated that it was a woodpecker, and the tree's presence on the bank of the Green River in southern Utah indicated that the woodpecker was almost certainly a species new to me.  Only two members of the Picidae family in the region were on my life list: the Downy Woodpecker and the Hairy Woodpecker, both of which are smallish and possessed of large white patches on their backs.  This bird, whatever else it was, was far too big--nearly twice the size of a Downy and at least half again as big as a Hairy.  Moreover, as I could see in the gradually increasing light, it had no white patch on its back.

For that matter, it had no field marks of any kind, at least as far as I could see, so I sat patiently, staring out over the river, waiting for the light.  I was hoping for a Lewis's Woodpecker, a strange forest-green and rosy-pink bird with a certain crowlike quality, but after a seeming eternity I was able to make out a hint of red near the bill and the faint trace of scalloping on the back.  The overall bird seemed determined to remain the same dark greyish-brown it had been for some time now, but those two marks were enough:  it was a Northern Flicker, in this case the western race, the "Red-shafted" Flicker, as opposed to the eastern "Yellow-shafted."  Oddly, the male birds' heads are almost negative images of each other: the RSF has a grey head, a brown crown, and a red mustache; the YSF has a brown head, a grey crown, and a black mustache, with a red patch on its nape.  The "shafts" in the names refer to those in the feathers under the wings and tails, a brilliant yellow in the YSF and a salmon pink in the RSF.  The bird soon lifted off from the riverside and vanished into the distance, but I could see nothing else about it.  I'm not sure I've ever seen less detail on a bird that I could actually identify.

We soon departed ourselves, once again opting to stay close to the hotel.  In fact, we were staying IN the hotel, and for once, our laziness proved fruitful.  Yes, the Best Western in Green River has one rockin' breakfast.  Chef Ben served me up a delicious ham & cheese omelet, a sausage patty the size of a juke-box 45, hash browns, OJ, and coffee.  I was ready to retire sated when our waiter informed us that Ben's homemade biscotti were available next to the coffee... and they were perhaps the best I've ever had.  The homemade cinnamon roll that I was forced--forced!--to complete the meal with left me with by far the best feeling I'd had yet about Utah's food service offerings, though admittedly I could have probably gotten a microwave biscuit at the 7-11 and cleared that particular bar.

In only a half-hour or so, we were at the gates of Arches National Park, which boasts perhaps the most impressive natural defenses of any park I've visited.  Even if you get past the rangers' withering crossbow fire from the visitor's center, you'll have to make it up a narrow switchback road leading up a cliff, opening yourself up for all sorts of abuse from the defenders atop the wall--a sandstone wall that stands several hundred feet above the parking lot, and one down which boiling oil, molten lead, and not a few chunks of loose sandstone could easily be poured down on the attackers.  If you're absolutely compelled to conquer a piece of federal property, I'm inclined to suggest something more manageable--maybe a Civil War battlefield park or something.  They're even pre-conquered!

Once you make it into the park proper, though, you're treated to scenery that seems better suited to the imagination of Chuck Jones or Dr. Seuss than to real life: mesas, buttes, walls, cliffs, upthrusts, holes, and of course arches.  Our only regret--a mild one--was that the gorgeous clear weather we'd enjoyed at Red Rock Canyon, Zion, and Bryce had finally given way to a milky cloud cover, dulling the colors of the rocky shapes around us, but happily doing nothing to affect their astonishing shapes.

Thus, as we approached the site of Balanced Rock, we were staring up at it against a pearly sky, but it was still like seeing an onion balanced on a stalk of celery, a sight so bizarre that the background color was utterly unimportant.  The rock stands 128 feet high, a testament to the creative powers of erosion.  In fact, the site testifies quite clearly that even rock is mutable; a smaller balanced rock, known as "The Chip Off the Old Block" stood in the big one's shadow for generations, but collapsed in the mid-Seventies.

The Jonesian architecture was matched by movement in the scrub, and I turned my binoculars onto it and began advancing around the rock.  For a moment I dared to hope for a Road Runner, though they apparently don't venture into Utah's eastern half, but the bird soon hopped up from the ground and revealed itself in a flash of blue: a Scrub Jay.  I kept moving, however, trying to get a better look, and then I saw something else moving at a trot behind the bushes I was scanning.  It was low and pale, and when its enormous ears appeared over a bit of low growth, I thought for a moment it was a gigantic rabbit--also appropriate in a Jones-based environment--but I soon realized it was the one Jones creature I hadn't expected:  I was enjoying a glimpse of my first coyote.

From there we circled down to Double Arch, where my long-suppressed desire to climb on rocks finally burst forth.  You can't be a rock climber and NOT want to climb up inside the arches of Double Arch, where two rock bridges meet at a single pillar of stone.  The front arch is much bigger than the back one, so it's possiible to scramble up the slope from the bottom of the former to the rim of the latter, and I was determined to do it.  Dad's knee was giving him a bit of trouble, especially on stairs, but he agreed to hike the short distance to the arch (though not to climb into it.)  At the bottom we discovered a block of white stone so soft that it could be scored with a finger--not just a nail, but the actual pad of a finger.  I took a moment to slide my official NPS brochure into my back pocket, tuck my camera and binoculars inside the zipper of my jacket, and tighten my bootlaces.  Then, with my hands free, I scrambled up.

I'd classify the climb as more bouldering than actual climbing--certainly I wasn't tied into anything, and the angle wasn't steep enough to let me fall; if I slipped, I'd just scrape myself thoroughly for forty or fifty feet.  Nonetheless, the invigoration of climbing has a lot more to do with the motion than the hardware, and the view when I reached a comfy spot below the back arch was stunning.  Dad was a minute figure far below me--I hadn't reckoned on the slope from the end of the path to the base of the front arch--and I could do little more than grin.  The sky was beginning to clear, I had grit on my hands, and my Arches pamphlet was now pocked and scored from dragging my butt across sandstone.  Who couldn't grin at such a moment?

We took to the road again, driving deeper into the park, past the Fiery Furnace area, which offered a beautiful view of the areas many-colored dirt.  Dirt in Utah comes in quite a few shades; in that valley alone I saw it in red, white, grey, pink, orange, yellow, brown, and even green.  We didn't spy any blue dirt, but I'm no longer prepared to consider it an impossibility.

The end of the Arches road puts you at the start of a hiking trail into the so-called Devil's Garden, a series of rock formations that includes the two most famous structures in the park:  Delicate Arch, which stood a bit too far for Dad's tastes, and the beautiful Landscape Arch, roughly a half-mile up the trail.  En route we passed dozens of enormous planes of rock carved by the prevailing winds into "fins."  At times, it was as if we were walking down the back of a gigantic stegosaurus, marveling at the huge back plates on either side of us.  We caught a glimpse of a small rodent-like animal--ground squirrel or something--and were happy to see larger and larger swaths of blue sky to the north and west, though the increasing heat led me to strip off my jacket.  We finally came in sight of Landscape Arch, but from our angle the rocks behind it were obscuring the arch itself--you couldn't see the sky through it.  I pushed ahead, hoping for a better view, but Dad opted to stay where he was and rest his leg.  It wasn't long before I came to a spot where I could see sky underneath the rock--lots of sky.

Landscape Arch is 306 feet long, according to the NPS; other measurements have put it closer to 290 feet.  Regardless of who you believe, this is an arch roughly as long as a football field (if you don't count the end zones).  It leans impossibly out from the rocks on the left, stretching, almost yearning to connect with something, and sure enough, there's an equally improbable rock leaning just as hard over on the right.  Their meeting is a thing of beauty, as evidenced by Landscape Arch's presence on the cover of the NPS guide for Arches, and its a beauty that is increasingly seen as transitory.  Since 1991, several slabs of rock have fallen from the underside of the arch, and the trail beneath it has been closed for safety's sake.  All things considered, I'm glad I took the trip to see it, and not just because Dad and I spotted a second coyote dashing across the trail and along one of the fins on our way back to the truck.

We left Arches and decided it was time to put some miles behind us.  We had to reach Cortez, Colorado, and we had to do it by 7:00 p.m. Mountain Time; that was when ESPN's telecast of the UNC-Duke game would begin.  Dad took his turn behind the wheel, leading us back to the highway and down through Moab (where a half-marathon had been held that morning, the event which had forced us to stay in Green River) and into the increasingly snowy Abajo Mountains.  Soon the long, lonely peak of Ute Mountain appeared, its silhouette resembling a sleeping giant, and we crawled into Cortez in time to grab a bite to eat at the Shiloh Steakhouse, where Dad was finally able to get Utah's puritanism out of his system with a glass of chardonnay and I indulged in a slice of cheesecake.

It was a good night:  UNC 76, Duke 68.  In the process, Carolina ruined Duke's senior night, became the undisputed ACC regular-season champions, and earned the top seed in the ACC Tournament.  We turned out the lights and went to bed reveling in the fact that Tyler Hansbrough and his classmates remain undefeated at Cameron Indoor Stadium.  We didn't even mind that the Tar Heels had not acknowledged our trip by using the Four Corners offense.

IN OUR NEXT INSTALLMENT: "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?"  Don Knotts in feathers!  The Temple of the Sun!  Big Nothing!  And the REAL Four Corners offense!