Day 6 • Kayenta

Day 6: Thursday, July 30—

Sharon decided we should get up early and fix a big breakfast for everyone, so we did. Then soon after we loaded up the car with our stuff and our two boys and set out on the road to explore the southwest for the next 9 days. We took Interstate 17 north to Interstate 40 east. Our first stop was Meteor Crater, which was an interesting roadside attraction, although I thought the $16 admission fee was excessive. This should have been free to all, since it’s not like anyone did anything to create this big hole in the ground.

After our walk around the rim of the crater, we drove to the nearby town of Winslow, Arizona, where we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant called Casa Blanca Café. The grub was authentic and really good and the Carta Blanca cerveza, a favorite of mine at the time, a delight. After lunch, we did what one of a certain age has to do when one finds himself in Winslow, Arizona—we stood on a corner. In this case, I stood with Travis and Eric on the corner where Route 66 meets North Kinsley Ave., while Sharon took our picture. It was like we were in the lyrics of the 1972 Eagles’ song “Take It Easy.” Well sort of, we stood there all right, but no girl in a flatbed Ford slowed down to take a look at us.

About 50 miles on down the road is the Petrified Forest National Park and a tad farther the Painted Desert. Jeff and I had driven though both in 1979, and that was my intention this time, but I goofed on our route, and we only made it to the Painted Desert. Oh well, the scenery there was sublime. It transported me. Unfortunately, I didn’t capture any of it on my camcorder because either it malfunctioned or, as with my navigation, I goofed. We’d just have to settle for the few photos I shot, which don’t do much better at capturing the desert’s glory than do my words.

From the Painted Desert we continued east on Interstate 40 for another 20 miles. Near the town of Chambers, Arizona, we left the speedy but sterile US Interstate system behind and headed north on U.S. Route 191. This was the southwest that I had come to find—a two-lane blacktop through barren sagebrush country with seldom another vehicle in sight. Soon we had a decision to make—should we visit the Four Corners Monument, the only point in the United States where four states meet, or head toward Monument Valley, the location of many a western movie, notably those of director John Ford. We chose the latter.

The route to Monument Valley took us onto Arizona Route 59, heading northwest toward the town of Kayenta. As deserted as was US 191, Arizona 59 was flat out empty. The road was all ours. And with buttes rising in the distance and the austere beauty of it all, it felt like heaven to be there and to be on the road with our whole trip ahead. That great vibe, however, wasn’t to last for long. We had to eat for the boys were getting restless. We dined at a McDonalds in Kayenta, where the boys ran wild. Then as night fell, we looked for lodging. We tried the Holiday Inn. It didn’t have any vacancies but tacked on a bulletin board inside was a “Wanted” poster of the three escaped killers on the loose in these parts, about whom we’d earlier heard reports on the radio, The thought of running into three escaped killers in this god-forsaken country was not a pleasant thought. Surely, or so it seemed, we were bound to cross paths. We stopped at the few other inns in town, but they too were full. Finally we found a rundown place a little ways out of town with vacancies called the Anasazi Inn at Tsegi. Given our lack of options, we checked in.

The Anasazi Inn wasn’t the worst place we’d ever stayed, but it was in the top five. Our room was cruddy, tiny, and at $97.24 for the night, ridiculously expensive. Soon after settling in, Eric broke our cooler, spilling water all over. So I cut his hair. There was no causal relationship between the broken cooler and the haircut; there simply wasn’t much else to do. Not that the motel was completely lacking amenities—there was a crappy little TV in our crappy little room, so we watched that for a while before going to sleep.