I woke up to some messages on my phone that I could only look at briefly before the cold killed my battery. So, I was left for ten minutes while making breakfast wondering what Kevin had said. Kevin is a very good mate of mine who was coming to visit me for two weeks and we planned to meet in Phoenix tomorrow. When my phone came to life, it was bad news. Kevin had hurt his knee and copped an infection, which meant he wouldn’t be flying anywhere. I read on calmly about his plans to get on a plane as soon as he could and cancelling the hotel for tomorrow night, but I was thrown. I told him to just get on and get better before worrying about anything else.
I felt a bit lost as a result. I’d had a plan to get to Phoenix by tomorrow and now that was up in smoke. So, as I ate, I consulted Lonely Planet and my Atlas to make a new plan. I would head south and check out Tucson before Phoenix, something I’d planned on doing after Kevin’s visit. Nothing felt quite right the rest of the morning, this wasn’t supposed to happen. I got petrol near the major highway and cancelled the hotel booking, no hassle there thankfully, though I had been looking forward to multiple hot showers! Bloody Kevin.
I drove west to the Petrified Forest National Park, which is based along 27 miles of highway heading south. I stopped in at the visitor’s centre as always and it soon became apparent that this was one of those “drive and look at stuff” parks. It also gets the crown of being the lamest national park I have visited. Now, this judgement may be biased by my sad mood, but I think I’m just not a desert person. And when the Grand Canyon is just a hop, skip and jump away, this doesn’t really appeal. The concept is amazing though, which I learnt from the 18-minute video at the info centre. Trees fell down and were carried by water to this place and were buried under numerous layers of sand, grit and volcanic ash. After millions of years, the action of the elements working their way into the wood turned the wood to stone. It was strange seeing logs strewn about the place that just look like normal timber, but up close are a mixture of quartz and other crystals. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t translate into a good national park.
Still, I stopped at all of the lookouts, but didn’t do any of the small hiking loops intended for tourists with fluoro sneakers and Canon cameras. The different coloured layers of the soil in the hardened mountains that managed to defy erosion was cool, it would look great under the light of a setting sun.
All through the park, my mood continued to be low, nothing seeming to impress me. Not the murals on the walls of the old inn, nor the old section of Route 66 with an old car and not even the colorful crystals within the petrified logs. When I went to see petroglyphs scribed into rock only to find that you had to look at them through telescopes, I was pissed.
Out of the park, I didn’t feel like travelling just now, so I was looking for a library to hang out in the rest of the day. I found one in the town of St. John’s, which was a small town with many abandoned business buildings available for sale and lease. The library was quaint and although it would only be open until 2pm (it was now about 12:30pm), I went in anyway. I found a quiet room and managed to have lunch while I finished my taxes. I was determined to be done with this! I double checked everything and submitted both my federal and state returns with ten minutes on the clock. When I got an email saying my federal return had been rejected because I got something wrong, I worked under the time pressure to fix the mistake and resubmit. I got all green lights right on 2pm. Sweet!
In all of that time, I hadn’t been able to think about anything else but what I’d been focused on, which was refreshing. My mood had lifted, I was back on track. I obviously just need that much processing time and a good distraction to deal with a disappointment. I continued driving south and immediately after leaving St. Johns, the scenery became more to my liking. On the Coronado trail, I wound my way through the Apache Wilderness and the White Mountains, probably named because they are white with snow for most of the year. They were certainly white now! I climbed, then descended, then climbed, then descended, all the way turning this way and that. It was like a hike for the Astro through the beautiful wilderness. There weren’t even any guardrails, nothing separating the winding path from the mountain. I stopped at the top around 9,000 feet to look out at the surrounding mountains, some of them surpassing 10,000 feet. This was a beautiful place.
It took me a good two and a half hours to cover around 100 miles, but I enjoyed every minute. Before I’d left St. John’s, I’d sussed out and marked a potential camp since I had no service and I hit it right at 5:30, when I was getting sick of driving. Not only that, I had the place to myself and there was plenty of firewood stacked up at the site I chose. My site choice was based on the fact that the chained-down picnic tables were situated close to the fire ring. I feel I may have to invest in a chair to prevent this limitation. With a bit of manoeuvring, I managed to get the Astro into the centre of the camp which is probably not allowed, but there was no one around to catch me!
After one failed attempt at building a fire, I started again, and had success. Much of the wood was dry on the outside, but still wet on the inside. Once that was going, I got dinner started, my first time cooking in a while and I think I made the best meal of my whole trip. Pumpkin risotto with zucchini and bacon. I managed to speed up the cooking time by using the fire as my second stove.
It didn’t get cold until past 8pm, when I thoroughly enjoyed the fire warming me to my bones. The good thing about Kevin’s travel delay is that I get to be excited all over again for when he comes (if all goes well). Get better soon Kev!