As an aside, one of the nice things I like about traveling is that it takes my mind off of the news. Especially political news. Most people we meet on the road aren’t as polarized as the media would have us believe and I think that the media is doing the country a disservice in constantly harping on our differences. When Trump hired John Bolton as his National Security Advisor, the media – at least the media I usually read, like the New York Times – went into a frenzy of dismay. “Bolton was going to push Trump into going to war with Iran.” seemed to be the main theme. Forget that all the evidence says that nobody pushes Trump into doing anything or that Trump campaigned on getting out of our constant wars. Then when Bolton quit – or Trump fired him, another thing they disagree on – the same people who were worried about Trump hiring Bolton were upset that he was being fired.

The example that set me off this time is Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos by Peter Bergen, a commentator at CNN. Time magazine has printed parts of the book as a long article in its December 16th issue and, in the article, Bergen complains: And then there was the manner in which Trump conducted himself personally. In an astonishing display of insensitivity, during a 2017 meeting about how to best prosecute the Afghan War, Trump said in Kelly’s presence that the young American soldiers who had died in Afghanistan had died for a worthless cause. Trump said “We got our boys who are being blown up every day for what? For nothing”.

By coincidence, the same day I saw the Time article, the New York Times, in an article dated December 9th, said: Thousands of pages of documents detailing the war in Afghanistan released by The Washington Post on Monday paint a stark picture of missteps and failures — and were delivered in the words of prominent American officials, many of whom publicly had said the mission was succeeding.

We have been fighting in Afghanistan for over eighteen years; during those 18 years, 2,372 United States Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines have been killed plus an additional 1,720 U.S. civilian contractors (what we used to call mercenaries). More importantly, over 111,000 Afghans have been killed. Trump is right, all these deaths have been for nothing. Nothing! Afghanistan is no closer to a Jeffersonian Democracy – or any democracy, really – than they were on December 10, 2001 (we are probably further away because the importance and power of the semi-democratic Loya jirga – a gathering of elders – have been reduced. A general’s job is to tell the Commander in Chief how to win the war they are put in command to win. If they don’t have the men and material to win, it is their job to tell their superiors. None of these generals did that. Either they thought we could win with what they had or could get which shows an astounding lack of judgment or they didn’t care in their rush to get promoted. Either way, they have failed the country and shouldn’t be heralded as successes.

Poor President Trump didn’t get on the cover of TIME for Person of the Year and he was upset. Like third-grader upset, so he took it out on the person who did make it, Greta Thunberg. On Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump Tweeted: “So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”…Greta Thunberg@GretaThunberg scooped up Trump’s Tweet and owned it – and Trump – by making it her Twitter handle: A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend.

I, personally, like AOC’s reaction. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez@AOCUS Representative,NY-14 (BX & Queens): “Because nothing says “mature temperament” like getting rankled by a 16 year old activist.”

Art is a big deal in New Mexico, not just in Santa Fe which, BTW, is the third-largest art market in the US, behind New York and Los Angeles, but everywhere. Art, good art, great art, craft as art, permeates the New Mexican landscape and people’s lives. The last two times we’ve been to Albuquerque, there was an Art/Craft Show, an annual one in Santa Fe for international artisans two years ago, and a show for locals in Albuquerque this year; both were excellent. In this art-infused atmosphere, Silver City has been named the best Art City in New Mexico for two years running and it is between Albuquerque and Tucson so it was a natural stop. Our plan – Michele’s plan, really – was to get to Silver City about two hours earlier than we did, have dinner at Revel, a local farm to table restaurant, and catch a jazz group from New Orleans at the Little Toad Creek Brewery.

But the pass on the most direct route was closed forcing us to arrive at our destination, the restored Murry Hotel in Downtown Silver City, after dark. Like Tonopah, Silver City is an old silver mining town – it was founded in 1870 and Tonopah in 1900 – which still has active mines in the area but, otherwise, they are totally different. Tonopah has a highway running through the Business District while the highway runs next to Silver City – out of sight – and that makes a difference in the appeal of the shopping/hanging out district (just ask Jane Jacobs). About 36 hours later, we left. Even so, we did get to Revel and caught the end of the set at the Toad. From a very short stay – two nights and a morning – Silver City seems like a place that deserves a longer visit, although we did have time to have two excellent breakfasts, one a homemade quiche in a coffee shop and the other, a Vietnamese street food place in an old car dealership. For all that, Silver City seems like a town that is working hard to stop its slow demise and not quite making it. The town is about 9,500 people, having lost about 750 residents since the census and our hotel was close to empty. What it does have is the Gila Cliff Dwellings.

As an aside, we also had time to stop by the Silver City Book Store. I want to say that it is a typical small-town bookshop except that the econiche is more specialized than that, it is a typical, small, out of the way town’s, used, bookstore. The owner, Michael, who was very talkative and opinionated, just like he should be, moved here from New York and loves living in Silver City.

As an aside to the aside, everybody we interacted with on this trip had moved to where they were living and loved living exactly where they were; from the woman who checked us into the Mizpah Hotel in Tonapah who was from Oaklahoma, to my former Californian sister in Albuquerque, to the women who sold Michele her new coat, to Michele’s cousin in Tucson who is from New York. End aside to the aside.

After a few minutes of conversation, Michael pointed me to a row of shelves in the back of the store and said “you’ll find some old friends there” and he was right, John McPhees was there and Wendell Berry, Stephen Jay Gould, and Gary Snyder, and somebody I haven’t thought about for sixty years, Richard Halliburton. Halliburton’s Complete Book of Marvels changed my life. I have no idea who gave it to me or if I just took my parents’ book, but it exposed me to new worlds that were here to fore unimaginable. I think it was my first grownup book, certainly, one of the first and it was like turning a light on in a dark room filled with wonders that I didn’t even know existed. The book was written during the 1930s and, now, rereading parts of it at home, some of the marvels, like the Transbay Bridge – what we now call The Bay Bridge – seem prosaic but some, like Bagdad, Fabled Arabian City, during the 1930s seem even more exotic. The book is so dated, much more than a technical book of the same era. Hoover Dam is a wonder but The Grand Canyon is ignored, Washington is a wonder but not New York or Paris. It is like running into a very old friend who still smokes and thinks smartPhones are a fad, still, it’s nice to see him again. End aside.

We only had had two nights and a morning in Silver City because the first day was spent visiting the remnants of another city, 45 miles to the north. Well, city may be a little grandiose, ruin of a small apartment complex is closer to reality. We drove through the Gila Wilderness – counterintuitively, the Gila Wilderness is the first wilderness area in the United States that was protected as designated wilderness – which is mountainous but still dry enough to be considered drylands. The road started wide but got narrower the further we went, then it opened again as we got to the Federal Monument. We traveled through the remains of the Mogollon-Datil volcanic field that was active from about 35 to 20 million years ago to an old caldera about thirty miles across (a caldera is a very large volcanic crater). 35 to 20 million years ago, the volcanic activity made this area unlivable. For me, it is pretty much still unlivable; I doubt that I could survive being here a month even with the right clothes and a sleeping bag. Still, people whom our European ancestors considered primitive have lived here, off and on, for more than 10,000 years (Clovis Points, which are found across the American continent, including this area, and were replaced by Folsom Points about 10,000 years ago, are used as a dating device).

During that 10,000 years, members of one culture, the Mogollon, lived in this area and, during a drought, a subgroup built these structures, lived here, and thirty years later, abandoned them, moving…somewhere. There is way more to it than that but most of their story is lost, we know what they ate, what their pots look like and how they fired them, we know what spearpoints they used but we don’t know what they thought. What they valued, we can only guess. My guess is that their sense of natural beauty was closer to ours than their contemporary Europeans who thought the Grand Canyon was a scar on the landscape. I say this because of an experience Michele and I had maybe twenty years ago. We were hiking down the Escalante River from Silver Falls to Choprock, and, at one point, we decided to take a break ( we took lots of breaks but this was more memorable than most). We climbed out of the water and climbed onto a bench with a great view of the river. There was even a nice rock to sit on. Sitting there, eating a handful of gorp, we realized that there were chips of flints or obsidian – I have no remembrance of which – all around us. Five hundred years ago, give or take a couple of hundred years, other people had used this same sitting rock to take a break, to look at this same view. While taking a break, they used the time to chop at rocks to make spear points, leaving the tailings. It was both sort of eerie and exhilarating.

…we will be home in about 48 hours. We are having a great time but we have been busy and, here in Yuma, the internet connection is slow.

After a great Thanksgiving holiday with my sister, Paula, and her husband, Jim – not one picture taken, but, if you are interested, here are some shots from 2017 – we are back on the road. Albuquerque was cold, just like Cedar City and Tonopah; we Coastal Californians are such wusses. Besides having a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner with Jim’s daughter and husband’s, and eating lots of excellent New Mexican food, we saw Pieces of April as our stay-at-home Thanksgiving movie and Knives Out as our go-out movie. Pieces of April really is a Thanksgiving movie and Knives Out is a throwback to Agatha Christie movies and very enjoyable. I would recommend either one or both.

I am driving and Michele is taking pictures. We started this stint by driving south on the Freeway, US 24 – the 24? – listening to the last Formula 1 race of the season. We are not actually listening live, we are listening – I am listening and Michele is sometimes watching on her iPhone – to the recording on our TV at home while we are driving through a wide depression that is the Rio Grande Rift. The North American Plate is being pulled apart here and, as it does, the blocks of crust that are floating on the hot magma below tilt with one side sinking down and the other side lifting up. As the high side is lifted, it is exposed to more weather and it is eroded with the eroded material washing down into the valleys. The valleys, in turn, sink – because of the additional weight – tipping the high side higher. On US 24, we are driving on alluvial deposits that are about four and a half miles deep. We drive south for about 150 miles, then we turn right, into the Gila National Forest which – surprisingly – is the oldest dedicated Wilderness Area in the world. We are now driving across the grain towards Silver City.

As we drive west, into the dormant Mogollon-Datil Volcanic Field, we gain elevation, seeing more snow as we climb, until we run into a road closed – we don’t plow on weekends or at night – sign. We are tired and it is getting late, but we have no choice but to turn around, backtrack, and drive two hours out of our way to get to Silver City in the dark. This is the second time Google has lead us to a pass that was closed, the first time was Tioga Pass which was closed for the season and now, this unnamed pass in the Mogollon-Datil volcanic field.

Well, that was unexpected. The Hyundai is not under warranty because the problem is a cross-threaded oil pan plug. But since all the work has been by our local Hyundai dealer, they have agreed to pay for it. Thirty-six hours later than we planned, we are on our way again (worried about the weather). Bob and Kay gave us a ride down to St. George – literaly “down” we drop amost exactly three thousand feet in about 45 miles – to get the car but, first, we went to a very late lunch with Kay, Robert, and a great view. 

Our first stint was St. George to Page – Arizona – and the second Page to Albuquerque (New Mexico). The first stint sort threaded the needle between Zion National Park, to the north, and Grand Canyon National Park in the south. The route took us past Hildale and Colorado City, on the border between Utah and Arizona, the home of several groups of polygamists, made famous by Jon Krakauer in his book, Under the Banner of Heaven.

As an aside, many, if not all, of the polygamists have developed an ingenious scam. The first couple gets married both in their church and by the State of Utah. Then the guy marries a second wife in the church, but it isn’t recognized by the state. That means, when they have a child, the State of Utah considers the woman a single mother and she is eligible for welfare. So a family of one man, five wives, and twelve children, has four single mothers supported by the state. End aside.

We drove east for a while, under blue skies but with storm clouds building to our west that blocked the sun, then, just as we got to the Hildale Colorado City area, the sun dropped below the cloud cover and lit up the plateau behind the cities. The color was supersaturated as if God were shining a special light on the polygamists (BTW, the pictures are not tweaked, this was the color).

We got to Page in the dark, had a very mediocre Chinese dinner, and woke up the next morning in a new world. Cedar City is a typical Utah – read Morman – town; clean, neat, and orderly with a subtle feeling of solidity. The town of Page is spread out, messy if not dirty, and chaotic with a transitory feeling. The town started as a company town for building the Lake Powell damn and is now supported by tourists and it feels like everybody is only here for the job and would move on if necessary. It is a shock after Utah. The fastest way to Albuquerque is through the Navajo Nation (or if you prefer the Navajo Reservation). The Navajo Nation is bigger than many states and while the land is beautiful, the living is hardscrabble. The first thing we pass is the now-defunct Navajo Generating Station which was the largest coal-fired power plant in the West and one of the worst polluters in the country. But its triple plumes of toxicity are now gone.

Every once in a while, I wonder why an oil company would go to all the trouble to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge when there is so much crude still left in the Permian Basin which is much more accessible. Then I see something like the infrastructure for the Navajo Power Plant which has an 800-mile electric railroad to bring it coal or a 30-mile road near Death Valley built to service a mine that never panned out.

All-day, we’ve had one eye on the road and one eye on the darkening sky, thinking of the massive storm coming our way. When we get to Paula’s in Albuquerque, a few flakes of snow are falling but nothing is sticking. When we turn the engine off and open the doors, it starts to snow. Perfect timing.