Eleven
After a lot of ‘come back some time’ and ‘have fun, you guys’ from John
and some morning traffic jams around Denver, we head west through the burned
desolation of Colorado and Utah in our little air conditioned dome. Outside the
dome the air is so hot that we bridge the distances to a Starbucks or diner
with groping gestures and surprised cries. “Wow!” The warm wind blows the sweat
right off our arms.
In the evening we stop over in Green River, about four hundred miles
west of Denver and one of the few places along Interstate 70 that’s mentioned
in our Lonely Planet. Rightly so, because this is the first place with food and
a bed after about a hundred miles of solitude. And because it is a classic example
of the contemporary version of a western town. Wide road from start to finish.
Shops with huge dusty parking lots alongside. Five motels, ranging from our
Sleepy Hollow (‘clean - refrigair - TV’) to the Budget Inn Motel (’God bless
you - free internet’) right across, Mexican Food To Eat In And Take Out,
Harry’s Bar (Butch Cassidy’s favorite hangout), the post office with the stars
and stripes on top and a number of gas stations. Our Chevy eagerly slurps it
in, because all that work requires food. And work he does. If you accidentally
forget to put your foot on the brake, Chevy simply refuses to be put in gear.
Doing it his way, he immediately locks the doors, dims the interior lights,
checks the light outside and adjusts the exterior lights accordingly, tells you
whether the trunk is closed and reports an unbuckled belt. Inexperienced with
thinking cars as we are, getting along requires some habituation. Like at first
Chevy refused to unlock his doors. The drivers door sure, but the rest stayed
locked. When in growing astonishment we pushed some buttons on the key ring,
the solution had to be hidden there, he angrily started honking and then
started his own engine while we were still standing on the 7-eleven doorstep
with our bottles of water and fresh buns. It was now completely clear who was
in charge here. Only after some help from a more experienced Chevy driver he
would accept us again and even open his doors with a cheerful bleep and a wink
of his warning lights. Even The Byrds and Dylan sound quadraphonic through our
little home, after a day of desperate pleading with the buttons and lights of
the audio station. We thank him in a friendly manner, being sensitive remains
the motto in a relation like this.
It takes at least another day and a half of consulting various
passers-by (‘maybe better ask a guy’ and ‘I’m from the old school, sorry’),
before he finally reveals the secret of the cruise control too. Sometimes we
were sure we had entered the right combination on the mysterious little panel
on the left of the steering wheel (‘is it a cruise control after all?’).
Sometimes resulting in a ‘yes, it is!’, but as soon as the road rose again, our
hopes and his speed dropped again. But after a night’s rest away from each
others site in Sleepy Hollow, seemingly without thinking we enter the perfect
combination of keys. From that moment on we understand each other and Chevy
takes care of it all and on his own. Without needing our legs we glide past
rock sculptures, boulders barely in balance and mountain ridges where any
moment you expect the chief of Apaches to appear. ‘We’re gonna let it all hang
out’ with J. J. Cale as a quadraphonic blanket around us.
I think over yesterday’s American television in Sleepy Hollow where
first the ‘war on terror’ made its appearance, then gruesome images of what
could happen to your kitchen when germs got their chance, followed by a man
with a dog urging us to immediately purchase a burglar alarm, that is if you
wanted to keep the creepy rapist you just saw away from your door, and finally
a blond lady that stuffed a large plastic crate with what each family should
always have available. Water, a plasticized map of the USA, food (don’t forget
the dog!) and of course a giant size bottle of Clorox against the germs (!).
‘Be ready for the weather. Now!’, turned out to be the message, brought to us
thanks to Clorox, worlds absolutely best detergent. “You’ll feel so much more
secure”, the blond lady summed up life with a survival kit and Clorox. Everyone
promises enlightenment.
In the meantime we cross Goblin Valley, passing red rocks, steeply
rising from the planes, the edges carrying nature’s sculpture. A row of
meditating monkeys, a conference table, a raised finger with a ball on top.
Amongst that all of a sudden: water, green and people. The Desert Motel,
Kitty’s breakfast - lunch - dinner, a school bus, a shop with groceries &
general supplies and a shop with nice stones.
Or the real loners. Like a piece of land down the road covered with some
crooked wooden structures, a worn down camper and a rusty iron fence around it
all. On the fence is a wooden sign with burnt out letters. ‘Old Gill’s Town’.
And underneath that: ‘stay out’. Behind the town of Gill, the mountains rise as
a protecting temple with perfectly rounded pillars.
In the midst of that beauty of nature I make my notes about back then.
‘Don’t cry sister cry’, sings J. J. Cale. ‘Everything will be just fine.’