Standing On a Corner

I flew back to Phoenix on the following Sunday morning to start part 2 of this journey. This time, the Old Man dropped his husband at Sky Harbor, then picked me up. I had warned him before I left, make sure the Badger game is on the satellite radio in the car, and get me to a sports bar to watch the game. I executed this much better than Bucky, the Badgers never got on track, and easily sent Cornell to the Sweet Sixteen.

We perused the maps while Bucky went up in flames, Curt suggested Mainland Mexico, I considered Yuma, we thought about Tucson, but in the end settled on a plan that would take us north, so we could eventually check out Canyon de Chelly. So we headed out on the 17 under 80 degree temps, the warmth stuck with us in Sedona as we headed out into Red Rock country in search of a worthy camp spot. Which is easier said than done, "no camping/no campfires" signs were every where. You could camp on the left side of the road, but not the right, and guess which way every single spur road went ? And to make matters worse, neither of us bothered to look at the clock, or in the ice chest. We had some food, little beer, no water, and diminishing daylight. Onto to plan B.

I had always wanted to check out Jerome, an old "ghost city" located about 30 miles south of Sedona. Once upon a time in 1929, 15,000 people lived in Jerome and worked the local copper mine, but by 1950, only 50 residents remained. The funny thing was, you could see Jerome from miles away, it sits on a literal mountain side about 2000 feet above the valley floor. There is basically a single paved road that switch backs up the side of the mountain, when you look across the street, you also look down a 100 feet to find the next building. We stayed in the Jerome Grand Hotel, enjoyed a good meal and gleaned local knowledge at the "Haunted Hamburger", before finishing the evening at the only saloon in town that would take plastic. No typical rural Nevada casino security guy to entertain us this time, but we did manage the enjoy the banter of a common thing in Arizona . . . biker chicks.

After breakfast in Jerome, now a thriving art community, we headed north, searched and failed to find a place we wanted to camp at near Sedona, so we just kept going towards Canyon de Chelly. The fuel gauge allowed us to blast through Flagstaff, and set our sights on Winslow, Arizona for a pit stop, and a must see . . . The Corner.

We took the first exit, so we could drive through Winslow, we would pass the "The Corner" because that's the way we were going. The excitement started to build as we entered historic downtown Winslow, which side of the road would it be on, could we simply slow down, and casually look, or would we have to pull over, park, get the camera and join the gawkers ?

Wait a second, why the orange cones, workmen, heavy construction gear, and my god, a sign that stated "road closed", we were routed around main street for two blocks. We glimpsed the park, but the girl in the flat bed ford was no where to be found.

With disappointment hanging heavily, we gassed up, grabbed some snacks, and failed to note that we were now headed into the Navajo Nation. The aforementioned "little beer" supply had not been restocked, and for the next several hundred miles, the nearest beer store would eternally be in our rear view mirror. Of course, we would not know this little nugget of info until we pulled into Chinle, Arizona and noted the "no alcohol allowed" sign at the National Park campground. What kind of camp ground was this ? No beer around the fire, no wine with dinner (car campers can afford a few luxuries), what is going on here ? Ohhhhh, no alcohol in the Navajo Nation, we did not know that. You would thought one of the 4000 billboards along Interstate 40 would have warned us, and directed us to their handy little store.