A Campsite Near The Grand Canyon, Arizona — Day 6

Odometer: 896–1109 (213) miles

Listen to: “Windfall” — Son Volt

I am huddled underneath a blanket, inside of a tent, below an entire galaxy of stars, all of which are shining bright. Tonight, I saw three satellites and two shooting stars. I met a handful of incredibly kind folks around a campfire. I helped an 18 year old learn to take long exposure photos of the night sky. Camping was a good choice.

The day started with a trip from Needles to Oatman, finally leaving California. My first stop in Arizona was Oatman, which seems mostly to exist as an entirely benevolent tourist trap. There are donkeys wandering the street. The whole town is set up with wooden storefronts like you’re wandering through the movie Shane. I half expected to see a gunfight break out (one store was selling revolvers, in case such an event occurred and I felt compelled to participate).

Most of the time, this would seem gimmicky, but I’ve found in myself a deep and abiding love for Oatman. Maybe it’s how earnestly they’re trying to reconstruct this western ideal. One store had a wall full of hard bound Louis L’Amore novels, which started to make me think about what this place represented. Oatman is a place that surely would have existed in the early frontier days of the west, but in the years since has been recreated in the image of the mythologized west of Louis L’Amore novels and spaghetti westerns. It’s a real place that’s evolved into a myth, which speaks to the power of our myths: they manifest themselves in physical reality on top of the actual places they represent.

Oh also, a donkey came into the restaurant twice while I was eating, which was hilarious.

I haven’t been on a trip through places with huge skies and miles of open space in so long; there are little things you forget about the landscape which come back to you as you wind through it. One of my favorites: on sunny days with a few clouds in the sky, when you crest a hill and look out on the landscape below, the shadows of the clouds look like dark lakes on the landscape. I thought I had stumbled onto a reservoir at one point, only to see the shape lazily migrate across the landscape.

The rest of the day was spent trying to get to the place where the Airbnb hosts would pick me up in a truck and take me to their campground. At one point, while pulled over at a gas station, a man on a Harley asked me where I had come from and where I was going on the scooter. I explained, with a bit of the tone of “I know this sounds ridiculous but hear me out”. He told me my trip was far less ridiculous than others he had heard of, then pulled out his phone and showed me a picture. In it was a guy on a small little two-stroke scooter, with a fully loaded trailer behind him. He also had some sort of animal pelt on the front of the scoot. I know some of you think this trip is ridiculous and a little bit pointless, but just be glad I’m not the animal-pelt-scooter-trailer guy.

The place where Jeff, the Airbnb host was supposed to pick me up was this brown building made to look like an old saloon about 30 minutes south of the Grand Canyon entrance. I parked my scooter, and he told me they had bought the place recently and were overhauling it to serve as a spot where people could come to learn about how to homebrew beer, distill whiskey, and other crafts he and his family and friends had picked up over the years. He also let me try a homebrew he had made. It was sort of on the border between a dark amber ale and a porter, which was an odd combination of styles. I was skeptical before my first sip, but it was brilliant. If you’re ever around the Grand Canyon, you should check out whatever Jeff is up to; I guarantee you it’ll be worth stopping for.

There were a few other guests besides me: a mother and daughter traveling to the Grand Canyon with a friend for the daughter’s 18th birthday, a family from Orange County on a road trip, and a woman on a college internship in Flagstaff up to see the canyon for the weekend. We had dinner and smores around a fire and talked. The hosts had a guitar at the campsite and one of the guests played a few tunes. As the air got colder, we all retreated to our tents (and the piles of blankets inside them). I huddled under the blankets, wrote this newsletter, and then passed out.

Tomorrow’s the Grand Canyon, and hopefully, I can make it all the way to New Mexico.

I also took some time to plan out the next week of the trip; if you’re around any of these places, would love to meet up!

Fri — Grand Canyon, AZ
Sat — Gallup, NM
Sun — Albuquerque, NM
Mon — Clovis, NM
Tues — Sayre, OK
Weds — Oklahoma City
Thurs — Tulsa

Till tomorrow,
-Esten