Day Five, in words

The latest memorable events from the road:

• More beautiful Arizona highways and lush desert. (“Lush desert” is an odd combination of words, but, believe me, it’s the only thing that remotely applies here.) With apologies to the Montana readership, Arizona and New Mexico are, well, at least “really rather large sky” country. ;-) Montana is even more amazing, but, with the top down, it’s hard not to notice just how huge the world feels out here…
• Tombstone, AZ — yes, that Tombstone, with the Wyatt Earp and the O.K. Corral and all of that — has turned into the most amusingly Disneyland-esque western town. It’s one of those that’s gone from “real” right through “disgustingly touristy” to “hilariously touristy” — I wouldn’t actually stay there or anything crazy like that, but it sure is fun to look around.
• Bisbee, AZ: site of an absolutely enormous copper pit mine, closed for the last thirty years but still very, um, obvious. The town is actually very cool, as it’s been taken over by artists and other creative types; it has a very laid-back feel, not completely unlike a small Santa Cruz, transported to the Arizona desert mountains. But looking at that pit mine (see photo, above — those are full-size houses and other buildings in the upper left) is just staggering. I can’t believe we used to do that regularly. (Maybe still do, sadly…)
• Douglas, AZ: another border town. More searchlights. More border patrol.
• The highways are as beautiful as ever…I had to ford half a dozen different sections of road that had small rivers flowing over them. Apparently it’s rained an enormous amount around here recently, and it’s a cause of definite concern among locals. I’m just lucky I wasn’t a few days earlier — my small car almost certainly couldn’t have made it through.
• Alas, another bit of a disappointment: Chiricahua National Monument (pronounce that one). My travel guide raved about it as being “just like Bryce and Zion, only without all the people”. Well, honestly, there’s a reason there aren’t so many people there. The staff was incredibly friendly and very happy to see me, but, still…well, the photo above is as spectacular as it gets. It was neat being on top of a mountain (6,700 feet of elevation or so), but…yeah. Not quite what I expected. I did see that neat lizard, though…
• Crossing into New Mexico was also beautiful…a detour off the interstate (I avoid interstates like the plague, generally speaking; they’re pretty much all alike) led me across southwestern New Mexico. A sudden turn and…a rainbow across my path, even though it hadn’t rained. Another wonderful surprise…
• …and then there was the most amazing point of the day: driving across New Mexico in the heat, and then suddenly it started pouring, completely out of the blue. I put the top up as fast as I could, then drove on, the rain hammering down all around me; I could smell it in my car…so wonderful. (I know, I know: “wonderful” again. Even a thesaurus couldn’t keep up with this, believe me.)
• I came out of it as fast as it had begun, and now there I was, top down again, a thunderstorm chasing me across the New Mexico desert as the sun set behind me, stopping to take pictures every few minutes. The Border Patrol even came to make sure I was OK because I was stopping so often. Watching the sun set like that, there, out in the middle of nowhere, with almost nobody else around (I saw one car about every ten minutes on average), was a better feeling than almost anything else I’ve ever experienced in my entire life…
• And, finally, a hotel, my first one in four days. An opportunity to post everything you’re reading now, and recuperate a little.

Day 5: (Wednesday, August 8, 2007) Patagonia Lake State Park to Deming, NM.
Miles: 1747.3 + 424.5 = 2171.8 total. Current distance from home: 1,072 miles.
Photos: 951 (13 GB) + 266 (3.58 GB) = 1,217 (16.6 GB) total.
Next up: An easy day…El Paso, TX (mostly to add one more state to my list of states visited on this trip ;-), and White Sands at sunset…)