Vegas at last

In all these years and all these trips to the USA, I have never been to Las Vegas.

Everyone I know who has done as much as a week’s quickie trip has included Vegas. But not me. Bruce has not considered it a cultural priority. He was there when he was eight, in 1956. It was enough.

So I have been grouching about it for years.

Now, at last, at last.

And best of all, my dear friend Rachel, my sister friend really since she also is a Harris, also is a Vegas virgin and has chosen to fly on down from Portland so we will have the experience together.

We arrive later than I’d hoped. It is a long drive from Sedona.

On arrival at the elegant Vdara, which is one of the few hotels in Vegas which has neither gambling nor smoking, I am crestfallen to learn that our assigned suite is not the fountain view I had requested but simply a city view. Serendipity leaps onto my shoulder. The receptionist is one of those golden souls who seeks to make people happy and to solve problems. After searching around the computer bookings she announces that there

are no fountain-views available but that she will pop me up in a 39th floor corner suite which offers a partial view. Oh, my! Oh, my! Oh magical receptionist. Oh, fabulous Vdara.

So it comes to pass that we have a lovely long living room with dining table, desk, kitchenette, full laundry and separate toilet with windows showing a glorious view of city and hills and streets and night lights and action on the famous Strip of glitter, glitter, neon wonderland Las Vegas casinos. Not only but also, we have another stretch of windows from our spacious bedroom and a large, gorgeous bathroom which features not only a massive free-standing bathtub but also the cited partial view. Hah. It might not be all of the Bellagio fountain but it is

three quarters of it. It is most of it. If I sit on the ledge in the bathroom I can just swoon over the fountain’s glorious choreography by night and day. Oh, and a whole lot of the rest of Vegas.

Actually, lying my bed, I can see Rachel’s Stratosphere hotel. And, er, the name Trump on top of the Trump casino. Less said the better.

The view is sensational.

For one who is not feeling 100 per cent, it brings Las Vegas right to me. It makes me so very, very happy. That is, if one refuses to think about the election.

Rachel is deeply traumatised by the election results. She wept most of the night and, as we rejoice in being reunited, she is also struggling to be the old good cheer girl which is so much a big part of who she is. She is one of the kindest and most loving

people in the world. Her mantra is spreading random (and deliberate) acts of kindness. Today she is a wounded soul, stubbornly wearing her Vote Hillary button and, indeed, she has come fresh from the Trump Casino where, amid all the security and glitter, she wandered in announcing she had come to pay her disrespects.

As we move around the town, I note how she makes connections with people on the Hillary front. Just from wearing her little Vote Hillary button. Suddenly, complete strangers come up and hug her. Tears are shared. People are afraid to speak out now that Trump is victor because Trump people are very aggressive and abusive, even in victory. So the Democrats have become nervous and secretive.

We encounter one sad but brave fellow sitting in a Las Vegas mall surrounded in cardboard signs, just lamenting the end of the world as he loved it, of the values he respected, of hope.

It is a dark time and a new spirit of fear and wariness is palpable.

I love Las Vegas. I am not a bit disappointed. I don’t find it tawdry. I find it a celebration of exuberant American excess, blase greed and effervescent vulgarity. I find it honest. It is what it

is. It makes no pretence at class or erudition. It is a playground for people who want a taste of glamour and hope. It is a great equaliser for a diversity of decent people who don't want to think about things too much. And that speaks for a lot of America.

To qualify that, I quote Noam Chomsky’s observations that ordinary Americans know a lot about things they want to know about. They are deeply schooled in football and baseball. Deeply. This is the great national knowledge. Popular music and television are knowledge subjects, too. And, the Bible. The Bible is the only book read by the majority of Americans and many know huge tracts of it by heart. But politics, economics, geography?

People flood to Las Vegas for fun. They come for a honeymoon, a wedding, a reunion, an anniversary. They come to play. It is the ritual place they come to spend money. There are happy people all around.

It is the most absurdly lavish place in the world. It is so far over the top it would be silly if it was not so beautiful. I look at the extravagant decorations within the hotels.

The mad beauty. In the Bellagio there is an entire courtyard of seasonal celebrations. It is like a Disneyland with real, fresh flowers and vegetables. It is not phoney. It is not plastic. As for the Bellagio fountain: the work that goes into keeping that technological and beautiful

celebration thrilling people night and day is awe-inspiring. There are thirty full-time employees devoted to its care, including scuba-diving engineers.

We three explore all over the place. We marvel at the lifts that go diagonally in the Luxor. The whole giant place with its Sphinx out the front. Like so many casino hotels, it goes on and on. It has thousands of rooms. People snake-queue to

check in. People are snake-queuing at glitzy hotels all over town.

We explore Caesar’s Palace, Planet Hollywood, and Paris. We also go to The D, in the old part of town, where we throw ourselves into the silly business of a corny interactive dinner theatre murder comedy. It is my choice for us as a Vegas night out because the concerts all seem a bit tired and Cirque du Soleil, which I long have considered to be a one-trick pony swamped in special effects, has no less than five of its tedious acrobatic shows on the go. The one thing of real interest, Penn

and Teller, is scheduled too late for my shingly stamina.

The D is a revelation. There is another whole Vegas over there in old town, another strip with people zip-lining aloft and partying beneath. Lots of brassy little ticky-tack shops. It seems to be the Native American side of the casino world and it is a celebration of carnival kitsch as opposed to MGM ritzy kitsch. The casino is populated by older people and it feels very friendly and laid-back. We have our little Vegas flutter there. I do in $20 on the one-armed bandits. Rachel wins money on the

slots and blackjack. There is an Indian gathering converging and the place is swarming with the most exotic Native American people, tattoos, long inky hair, flowing garments and leather gear.

We have a lovely laughing time at the show, Marriage Can Be Murder. Rachel is straight into the action which sets her in a position to wonder throughout the show if she may become a victim. Bruce also gets a role which involves him being pallbearer to countless victims. The cast has been doing this schtick for aeons and have the silly, zany, cheeky nonsense down pat. Humour is much elevated by the hapless policeman

wearing wildly undersized uniform shorts. A simple gag but it works well on a big, gruff actor. And, heavens above, the murderer is the girl sitting next to me and, yes, I tell her privately that I think she’s the killer. Darling girl. She acts as if she is so hurt I could dare suspect her. She is nearly in tears. How did I come to suspect her, she begs. I list the clues. I like your thinking, she says.

We take Rachel to the airport, a little sad our time was short with me ailing and us all grieving. We are glad, however, that we had each other and have shared Vegas in all its colour and movement.

We have eaten in the Bellagio and at the Vdara. The two hotels are connected which is a boon for me.

After Rachel has gone we have a couple more days and spend them going for walks, sunning on the deck beside the Vdara's fabulous outdoor pool, gorging ourselves on the Bellagio’s incomparable buffet and then making up for it from the Vdara's super healthy foyer cafe menu

and, generally, enjoying our fabulous suite.

Oh, what pleasure that vista gives me, day and night. I love it. I love it! And it is true, Vegas never sleeps. It is the only city I have found where the traffic is still humming full pelt at 3 and 4 am and where, pre-dawn, the city lights are still alive and the people out and about. I have loved seeing so many people so happy. This is the thing that Las Vegas

does so well. It gives good people a good time. It is Disneyland for oldies.

In itself, the people are a grand spectacle - gob-smacked, gasping, laughing, tottering about in wild overkills of selfies...

Not us, of course. Well, OK, don't tell anyone, but I do take a wee selfie with my luxury Vdara in-room laundry.

And I do insist on a photo in front of the most astonishing bedazzlement of them all - a flower-bedecked Hindu shrine in the middle of the casino bling opulence.

Other small observations include kindness and good gestures from staff members everywhere we go in this blingiest, swingiest, glitter-glitter city.

Gazing out over it in the depths of the analgesic night, I can only imagine the power bills.

I am so glad at last to have been.

Doubt I need to do it again.

One of the world's great drives

No one could ever say that Sedona is not spectacular with its glory of red cliffs and mountains.

It is America’s answer to the Australian Olgas. But it has a township and hotels and a tourism industry. I can’t say it has fantastic cuisine. This is our second time here and, as at the first, the best meals have been breakfast at the Adobe Grand Villas which brags a French chef called Jacqueline.

She has something special on the go every day, embellished by Jacqueline’s colourful commentaries on this and that.

At this stage of our 6-month epic road trip around the USA, we are on a tight time schedule. We have not hurried on the trip, tending to drive only moderate distances on driving days and making driving days one out of every three. This has enabled us to pace ourselves with sightseeing and domestica, rest and play.

But we have a date in Las Vegas. My friend Rachel is flying down from Portland to share the experience of discovering Vegas. She is booked into the Stratosphere and we into the Vdara. All we have to do is to get there. It’s a long drive. I'm drugged up on antivirals and analgesia and don't feel too bad.

And, if anything is going to keep one's mind on the higher planes, it is grand landscape. We are embarking on one of the world’s beautiful drives.

Out of Sedona, one winds through those red mountains with towering rock faces and mighty canyons. Dramatic and breathtaking.

All the superlatives come out to meet the might of those natural formations. Striated with rich colours. Deep and dramatic. It is like a mini grand canyon.

Betwixt and between the grand rock displays are trees, taller trees than we have seen for a while. The first roadside walls of trees. They grow up on the hillside and it is clear they are a vital resource. Neat piles of long logs await collection here and there.

Up and up we go to an undulating plateau. More pine harvests. White fences and neat properties.

We swing into Interstate 17 north.

Past Mormon Lake, Flagstaff, Kokomo National Forest - miles and miles of forest.

Eventually the vegetation opens out to reveal brown granite and a plain with homes and small holdings.

I note the lack of sheep. I think sheep would love this pasture. But America is not sheep country.

Instead a sign says Bearizona Wildlife. Another sign points to the Grand Canyon exit. Not for us today. We’ve done that.

We pass Williams, founded 1881, Gateway of the Grand Canyon.

There’s a volcanic vista out there with desert junipers. It reminds us of Santa Fe.

More prairie. More juniper. A lot of juniper.

Wide open spaces. Cinder cones and mountains on the horizon.

Passing Ash Creek and Ash Fork, a modest but dignified little community out here.

The open plateau reveals layers and layers of distant mountains.

Back on Route 40 now. The old Route 66.

Farms here and there, lots featuring caravans. We ponder the ubiquity of the caravan on the American landscape. Not just for the grey nomads but as instant homes in remote places. Some beside houses maybe as extra rooms. Some just out there as houses. Some are just left there. I wonder how many there are, what are their stories.

Trucks are dominating the road again. We’re close to Seligman which looks very inviting nestled in among trees. Then I see the sign for the Roadkill 66 Cafe.

We drive on by noting some fairly miserable cattle out there on bare field.

There’s a cemetery at the roadside. Lots of flowers and people fussing over graves.

But the road is really nasty, rough and rumbly.

We rumble onwards uncomfortably. The ranges ahead have a serrated profile. Bruce thinks it is like a bandsaw.

We enter Mohave Country.

Tumbleweed rolls under the car.

Wonderful outcrops of boulders.

An old truck is parked on a hilltop with sign advertising 40 acre lots of land for sale - as mango ranches,

Well, I never. No signs of mangoes out here.

It’s The Purple Heart Trail according to a road sign.

And another vast, vast open plain stretches ahead of us and around us, lightly flecked with distant settlements.

There goes Kingman with its airport and prison.

Signs for Arizona 66 and Loop 66. Sign for Terrible’s Service Station.

And Route 66.

Only 68 miles to Las Vegas.

Signs offer exits to Los Angeles and Loughlin.

We forge onwards, past Bullhead City which is scattered across the plain.

Little yuccas are appearing on the rocky hill slopes, stunted mesquites, little tufty grasses.

A town called Chloride is a wide sprinkle of caravans and fibro homes across the tufty blue grasses in the shadow of the mountain.

Incongruously, here comes a mighty sign advertising Alpaca Imports - the world’s largest alpaca store.

Mangoes, alpaca - you just never know what you’ll find in these deserts.

Now it is small, stumpy cactus, saguaros, little chollas, and another range of volcanic hills around us.

Cactus seem to like this elevation, between 2000 and 3000 ft, says Bruce.. This is an old rift zone. It is busier than it looks. There are about 20 or 30 letter boxes clustered at the roadside, one track and no sign of habitation. They must be out there somewhere.

Further along there are some ramshackle houses. Native American settlement, says Bruce, Mighty mountains ahead, brown with white striations. They make Bruce think of coco-swirl ice cream.

Dry washes roadside. And joshua trees start to appear. Bruce loves them.

Look how the little joshua trees look like little people standing out there in the landscape, he says.

Three cop cars are at the roadside around a car and some people. That’s a lot of police.

There’s not much here. Just an odd little pit stop, a bit like Baghdad Cafe.

We wonder at what drama must be unfolding as we zip by, checking our speed..

There are one-acre lots for sale. I can’t imagine what one would do with those.

Caravans, trailer homes, a couple of homes built semi-underground.

This is the Colorado Plateau desert, says Bruce.

It is vast.

On the horizon is a hill with a pimple on the top.

Bruce says it’s a nipple. I chide him.

Little purple cactus are out there.

One can’t take in the scale of the plateau. This is a lot of land.

It doesn't agree with the camera. The photos look drab, yet the landscape inspires. I give up trying to snap and just drink it in.

Top of faraway mountains seems to be lying smooth and low - until we start to make our descent.

The road takes us down to the Colorado River, down, down, down…

Rugged red mountains now and power pylons.

Here comes the mighty Hoover Dam.

We drive right over it, almost without realising.

We look for the exit to take us to see the dam. Where is it? Did we miss it?

Now we are passing Lake Mead, a shimmer of deep blue, a mighty mirror of water.

What about the dam?

Finally a sign. We pull off and find ourselves backtracking, backtracking, miles we have already covered.

How weird is this?

Finally, we give up, turn back and head for Boulder City, a sleek resort community of lovely houses all looking back to the lake. Palm trees. Pencil Pines. Topiary. Very salubrious.

Then we swing past a big mall and a huge strip of Indian ticky tack businesses.

And there’s the world biggest alpaca

imports store. Not very big at all.

There’s a Pro Gun Club, a casino, bail bonds, wedding chapels, more bail bonds, pawn shop, traffic traffic, smoggy air, billboards, burbs, burbs.

This is it.

Hello Vegas.

November 8, 2016 - a bad, bad day

It is the day of the 2016 US election.

It has been a long and ugly time coming. We are counting the hours now.

And my back is really sore.

We pop down to the local Urgent Care GP for a diagnosis. The doc does not win a personality contest. He needs only a curt glance at my back and confirms Bruce’s diagnosis. He prescribes anti-virals and oxycodone. Says if the pain gets too bad, go straight to ER. Could last anything from 10 days to a month. Probably 2 weeks since you had the Zostavax. You can keep travelling. Goodbye.

Bummer.

We drive into Sedona town and wander around. Funny little town full of crystal shops, vortexes, astrologers, psychics, aura readers, etc.

Those mighty red rocks rise all around. They are stupendous. Vivid. Of course they have attracted all those alternative types who think they are magical. One can go on vortex tours. Bruce laughs. He says these people don’t realise that the plural of vortex is not vortexes but vortices. This is how much they know.

Then we discover

Snoopy Rock and everything changes. It looks just like Snoopy up there.

Snoopy vortex.

Bruce drops me at the Chic salon where I have an appointment with one Harmony.

She is a bit on the ditsy side. I am scrolling my phone to show her a photo on my phone of the way I wear my hair. but I never quite finish. She has me in the shampoo chair and is bubbling away about how she does not believes in vortexes but loves all the serious stuff like astrology. I should have left then. But no alarms had gone off. I told her how I had changed to a bob after years of long hair.

I say, It’s grown a bit long now. If you cut it on the natural wave, I don’t have to work at maintaining it… Perfunctory shampoo. More perfunctory condition. Over to the chair and straight into the cut. Snip! Just like that, she has chopped my hair right up at ear level. She sees the shock on my face. Oh, didn’t you want it that short, she says. Er, no. And it has been cut now. I thought you wanted it cut to the ear lobes, she says. Er, no.

She is ever so sorry. I am not that sort of hairdresser, she says. I won’t charge you.

I just want to get out of there.

She hacks away at the rest of my hair and produces an amateur hour haircut of spectacular ugliness.

I can’t even brush it. It is just not me.

Dear old Bruce says he loves it.

Fuck. What a day. First shingles. Now this.

What else could go wrong?

Er, the election?

Well, actually, its the pain meds. The doc has given me oxycodone. It is making me feel ill.

I hole up on the big sofa at the beautiful Adobe Grand Villas. The television is rather small for the huge room.

I have already said my bit about the Trump factor. A lot.

Travelling across this great land, I have watched and counted and talked and found the Trump factor to be riding very high. In glum

ill humour, I have predicted him to win. Bruce thinks I am negative and all the polls say Hillary is ahead. Polls lie, I say. Bruce puts money where his mouth is. We have a huge $1 bet riding on the election.

I would love to have lost.

We sink into deep grief as the counts put Hillary out of play.

We keep watching the awful train wreck of American politics deep into the nightmare night.

I feel sicker than sick. I can barely move.

Next day I do not take the pain meds and rally, by lunchtime going so far as to eat a kiddie cheeseburger at Maccers. Never had anything more delicious.

Here we come, Las Vegas, to drown our sorrows.

Arizona the beautiful

Dear old Phoenix. We love you again. We love our Tempe at the Buttes Marriott which is nestled right in and on a splendid old butte. Was there ever a more magical place for a resort hotel? Our room opens onto the beautiful gardens and steps up to the pool. The pool winds around the butte; two large pools joined by a channel, looking up to a waterfall and cactus

-covered rocky butte slopes. The mood is easy.

My back is annoying me. A sort of rash is appearing. Hmm, says Dr Bruce. That looks suspiciously like shingles. But I had the Zoster vaccination, say I. Hmm, says Bruce. It doesn’t work on everyone.

Onwards, we must go. We are scheduled to be in Sedona and the election is tomorrow. Arizona has not been too fiercely covered in

Trump posters. It is John McCain’s comfortable electorate. But the media has been a foment of political bile of the most unprecedented ferocity. The campaigns have hit a gutter low. Trump is at home, chanting and bellowing with fire and brimstone and evangelistic fury. His speeches are tantrums. It boggles the mind that so many Americans are sucked in. But they have been on the Fox political hate diet for years now. They have been conditioned to the hatred of Clintons and heavily marketed with the concept of an evil political elite which wants to take their guns away. They are not politically savvy. They are gullible and jealous. Trump feeds these emotions. He struts the political stage like a superstar, giving speeches in front of his parked Trump plane. Hillary erudite and experienced, ripe for the role of president, has a huge burden of mistakes behind her, sexism and misogyny all around her, and now, at the 11th hour, the FBI of all things, throwing a new email scandal in her path. Everything is very stressful and dangerous. We hope there will be a good TV in Sedona for us to watch the election unfold.

It’s a big smoggy out there in Phoenix today. 91 deg F. We whoosh along the speeding 10-lane highway out of town, past schools and industry, past oil tankers queued on rail lines. Palms and eucalypts dominate the urban vegetation. We run the gauntlet of relentless commerce on the highways; big, colourful, prosperous, cheerful.

It’s a good highway. Past the University of Phoenix and towards rows of perfectly pointy volcanic mountains and basalt boulder fields.

Burbs with mesquite. Hillsides with saguaros.

We wind upwards into mountains and as we gain elevation, we gain density of cacti until they reach wow factor.

Chollas with the saguaros. Bruce is in heaven. The chollas are blooming.

Desert plants. Adobe-style housing settlements. Those lovely adobe colours.

We are at 2000ft elevation.

The road narrows. The trucks take over.

A sign identifies a mesa as Table Mesa. Bruce thinks this is hilarious. Mesa means table. It is Table Table, he laughs.

The earth has been changing colour. Now we are in sandy limestone. It’s not volcanic here. It is part of the Rocky Mountain uplift, explains Bruce.

We cross Moore’s Gulch and gasp at the spectacle of the sea of saguaros and chollas in the dry creek bed.

Now at about 3000ft, it seems to be a sweet spot for saguaros.

And we are right inside the rolls of the mountains.

More mesas and a large, widely-spread community appears. Black Canyon City. It has a real wild west look to it. One expects to see tumbleweed.

Oh, and a little town called Bumble Bee. Cute.

We keep climbing, amid trucks groaning in low gear and wanting to pass each other.

There’s Horsethief Basin Recreational Area. There’s a name that tells a story.

The saguaro cacti are suddenly gone. The slopes are covered with pretty little prickly pear cacti.

And now we are on a desert plateau. No cactus at all.

Scenic View, says a sign.

Vending Machines, says the sign beside it.

Not my sort of view, say I.

We thunder on amid our friends, the long-distance truckies, past roadside boulders Bruce identifies as a’a lava flow. See, he says, there are two kinds of basaltic lava flows: a’a and pahoehoe. The names come from Hawaiian.

Low scrub lies sparsely on the slopes as a mountain range unfolds itself softly.

We pass Bloody Basin Road. Pale boulders.

A sign to Agua Fria National Monument.

An overpass. A settlement. And back to wide open plains. Low mesquite. No cactus. Lots of a white flowering desert plant we can’t identify.

No services. No nothing.

We are on our own out here, apart from the trucks, of course.

Just vast desert landscape.

Elevation 4000ft.

Yellow dry expanse. Small hills.

A little higher and miniature prickly pears appear again and then, suddenly, a riot of desert juniper.

Green bushes all over. Even a couple of cottonwoods out there.

Signs invite trucks and caravans to pull off here and check their brakes.

And down we wind into a steep, steep valley.

Cars are hooning down like idiots.

Skunk smell. Poor little critter, probable clobbered by a car.

This seems to be Fort Verde State Park.

Red mesas stretch out far ahead across a vista of limestone hills.

This land was once under a shallow sea, says Bruce.

Dead Horse State Park, says a sign.

We take a turnoff. West 260. Oh, look at that Wendy’s Restaurant, disguised as a handsome adobe dwelling. Trees. A treescape with hints of autumn hue. Trump signs.

Sign: Guns. Buy, Sell, Trade. Rental Archery.

Mini storage.

The road goes ahead towards those limestone cliffs Bruce loves.

We can see the rich red striations of the Sedona mountains far ahead.

And here comes a town called Cottonwood. 3320ft elevation. Established 1879.

Sedona is not far away. Over the Verde River with its cottonwoods. Past the Coconino National Forest.

Black cattle. Yellow grass. Prickly pears. Junipers. Sign: Beware of deer. And suddenly a brilliant vista as the red-rock country appears, that glorious rich red rock streaking across the landscape. Yellow cottonwoods, lush vegetation, cactus… Sedona City Limits.

Old Butte Phoenix

Tucson to Phoenix. It’s a short hop. An easy day in the world of road trips.

We’re going back to Phoenix as a sentimental journey. We stayed at the Marriott at the Buttes in Tempe some years ago in the midst of a vicious heat wave and we just loved it.

Of course, we also have loved the glorious saguaro city of Tucson.

It’s the only city I’ve visited where even the trailer parks are ritzy - avenues of tall palms and high walls.

It has roads with names like Sweetwater and Silverbell.

It has a deficit of architectural vulgarity.

It has the Santa Catalina Mountains.

And, whenever it rains, it rainbows.

We don’t hurry our departure. We linger around the pool first.

Oddly, I seem to have a touch of sunburn on my back. I have an olive skin and never have had sunburn and I can’t understand how I have it now, since I have not overexposed myself. Yet my back burns. I put on aloe vera and we drag ourselves away from this world of saguaros. Tucson is one of those low-rise cities which does not seem to have a CBD as a structural core. It sprawls in a big, wide easy way. It is big. It takes a while to get across it.

We decide we’ll have lunch at a Panera Bread. I love this chain. I have wonton soup.

Eventually we are on the road past mesquite scrub and lush, ripe corn crops on big, big flat land. It has been a while since I saw corn which was so much a part of the daily drives across the north of the country. We saw the crops young and watched their development right across the land. I have missed them.

The desert stretches out with craggy mountains ahead.

There’s a huge air base out there with lots of planes. It is clearly not commercial.

Oh, bee hives in the desert. Desert honey. Wish I had tried it.

A sign announces Red Rock. There are quite a few candidates out there. I Google and find Picacho Peak.

Another sign confirms Picacho Peak and yet another one invites us to visit its roadside Bird Farm and Feed The Lorikeets.

Good grief. You never know what you’ll find in the American desert. Caged Australian birds, no less.

Ironically, I spot raptors in the sky. Now, they belong here.

And so do goods trains. There they are out there, pushing their miles of loads overland. This one is Union Pacific. It has three engines at the front, two at the back. Even the graffiti artists can’t handle the volume of rail cargo. Only a couple of carriages show their multicoloured art.

The road is beautiful and wide. Six lanes. Flat and straight.

Sign: Blowing Dust Area.

Crops and shrubs adorn the land. A few cacti.

Hah. Here comes the town of Picacho. A long, long livestock train waits empty on the outskirts.

Police have sidelined an open-top sports car at the roadside.

A sign indicates Casa Grande Ruins National Monument.

The landscape has changed since those Pueblo days. What we’re seeing now is pecan orchards. Huge orchards with lovely lush trees. Fallow fields, Orchards.

And heavy traffic.

We are in another great cluster of trans-continental trucks and big rigs. I catch the eye of a driver as we pass. He is so high up. My father had a romantic notion about the loneliness of the long-distance truck driver. He saw an existential beauty in the somewhere nowhere nature of that life. I wonder what the trucker is thinking.

Billboards dot the roadside. They're mainly for food, delicious chicken wings. One asks: Do You Have Lyme Disease?

Now I spot four planes flying in formation quite low and slow over the desert. Planes and trains and automobiles. Yay!

And, suddenly, eek. There are always a few morons out there who can’t read the road. One such has just swerved past us to speed ahead and veer in front of the next car and tailgate the one ahead. Is he on drugs? Is he in a bad mood? Is he just plain stupid?

One often wonders about who are the other people on the road, where they are going and why.

Cactus seem to have vanished from the landscape. It is dry and dusty. Huge powerlines.

Cotton crops and fallow fields. Horses.

The town of Casa Grande turns up, big and dusty, malls and commerce.

And back to crops. Sorghum and cotton. Some acreage bright green with new growth. Some ploughed and brown.

Sign: Blowing Dust Area.

Mesquite and tufty saltbush plants. Dusty farms.

Another cop car has picked someone up.

We’re on the Gila River Indian Reservation - and cactus is suddenly back on the landscape.

It’s a wide old world out there, broad, flat with mountains on the horizons.

But the land is divided into patchwork irrigated crops. The deserts bloom these days and act as food bowls.

The police whizz by in pursuit of someone up ahead. We hope it is that hoon. We catch up as two cars pull over to the verge ahead of the police car. Hah. They have got that hoon. Oh, no. The hoon is not their target, though his pulling over indicates his guilt. He swings back into the stream of traffic ahead of us. Pfft.

We cross the Gilo River. It is bone dry. Pale, dusty mountains with slopes covered in cactus are around us now and feeder roads bring more traffic into our steady stream. We are nearing Phoenix.

Yep, industrial outlyings, reduced speed limit, mega storage, a racetrack, overpasses, A new line of mountains manifests, its ridges prickled with communication towers.

And hillsides covered in cactus. Here they are again in all their exotic beauty.

A big outlet mall. Very neat and handsome. Through the township of Chandler. Very sleek, tidy, busy, affluent with a big city efficiency to it, complete with traffic jams…

It is an upmarket Phoenix satellite - and here comes the big smoke itself, complete with its spectacular mesas and buttes.

That butte over there complete with ancient saguaros is our destination.

Hello Tempe at the Buttes Marriott.