Volume 5: Pete in the USA Part 4. A young balding mans journey through 20 something states and back
Day 7 – Grand Canyon to Cortez via Monument Valley
After Bob had cleaned the bus up after last night’s events we were off to Cortez. Along the way we stopped off at Monument Valley, home of the Navajo, home of many a western movie, probably Road Runner cartoons, and a place so picturesque it was impossible to take a bad photo. Our group was split up into 3 separate buses to take a tour of the Valley. As the speakers in our bus weren’t initially working it was left to me to provide commentary of the scenery. Something along the lines of “To your left you’ll see a big rock, to the right of that you’ll see an even bigger rock, and if you look even further right you’ll see an even bigger rock”. Eventually the speaker issues were sorted and many stories were told about the rock formations. One story involved the legend of some Native American tribe being surrounded by US forces while they were on top of one of the bigger rocks. Legend has it some spiritual Native American bloke, I dubbed “Whispering Jack”, used to go down at night and whisper in the troops ears. It wasn’t that he was gay and would whisper sweet nothings into their ears, he apparently was whispering songs into their ears and eventually sung all the troops to sleep. When the troops awoke the next morning, the entire tribe had escaped and the troops were left no doubt with that song still annoyingly playing in their heads, much like a Backstreet Boys song or any other annoying boy band song tends to do.
A couple of other stories involved “The Duke”, John Wayne. Apparently he had been shooting a movie with 200 Indian extras, and when he shot his gun some signal was given for some Indian to fall of his horse. On the first take, no Indians fell off their horse. It was explained to the extras that when the signal was given they were to fall off their horses. So naturally, on the next take, The Duke fired his gun, the signal was given, and 200 Indians fell off their horses simultaneously. As impressive as it would have been to keep the scene of 1 bullet killing 200 people, the scene was left on the editing room floor. The Duke wasn’t exactly the most sensitive person on events involving the indigenous population, as I remember seeing footage of The Duke in an interview saying something along the lines of the Indians should be thankful the Europeans came and saved them. It’s a rude collective of people that doesn’t say “Thanks” for receiving a few disease riddled blankets in exchange for a few million acres of land, so The Duke had a point. To show just how sensitive The Duke was, he once flew to the top of one of the great rocks, just so he could kick back and have a few beers and enjoy the view, completely ignoring the fact the locals had banned alcohol on their land.
Towards the end of the tour we passed a few small huts used by the Indigenous people. As I seem to recall, there was a disease hut (for sick people), a pre wedding hut (for people about to get married), and a hut hut (for people thinking about building a hut). Okay made the last hut up, but their seemed to be a hut for every occasion.
After the tour we were back on the other tour bus and on our way to Cortez. It was on that journey that we had a near death experience. Our bus had been trailing a ute that had a bail of grass on it. That bail of grass had then decided to make a bold bid for freedom and rolled off the back of the Ute. Bob didn’t slow down but choose instead to just move into the left lane to drive around the bail of grass. The problem was the bail of grass was making a big run for freedom and kept rolling into the left lane. Bob continued left, still not reducing speed, to avoid the bail of grass. The problem you get if you keep heading left is that you eventually run out of road. That problem happened to us. Bob had drifted so far left that he now had 2 wheels on the dirt, at which point I and 40 other people, thought the bus was about to roll. Bob must have had the same feeling, as he quickly pulled the wheel right, the tail of the bus ripped back and now we had 4 wheels back on the road. The problem now was the bus was travelling at close to right angles to the road, so he ripped the wheel left again to make a correction. Eventually after a few fish tales he got the bus back under control and we were back on our way. Myself, I would have slowed as soon as I saw the bail of grass come of the ute, and calmly drove around it, but who am I to argue with someone with 15 years of experience driving buses? The bus was quiet for the next 5 minutes as people checked to make sure they were still alive. When they figured they were still alive, much of the conversation went along the lines of “Holy sh*t! I thought we were gonna die…”.
We got to the small town of Cortez in the evening. Due to the high altitude they only sell mid strength beer, so Gav and I were happy we still had the full strength stuff left over from a previous stop.
I only wished that the high altitude and mixture of full strength beer getting you drunk faster had affected me. Cortez may well be the most boring place on earth. I got talking to the bar man at the “Friendly Pub” and he said he’d moved to Cortez because he liked the slower way of life. I tell you what; if I was in a coma I would have found the pace faster. The motto on the towns coat of arms should read “Cortez: What the fuck are you doing here?” because that’s how all the locals greet you. They were baffled that I came halfway around the world just to go the Cortez. Gav spent the night talking to the locals, but this time it didn’t involve him sharing his enlightened views on foreign policy. Fellow tourer Deb sucked face with some fireman who looked like a reject from ZZ top. I later learned she hooked up with fellow tourer, Collin (I call him “Spaz” due to the way he talked), where he apparently enjoyed the best 5 seconds of his life, without even getting his pants off. Perhaps I should’ve called him “Mr Excitable”.
I think I eventually dropped into sleep or a coma at a time I don’t recall.
Day 8 – Cortez to Albuquerque
The day begun with “White Water” rafting. The name white water rafting implies white water created by vast, fast quantities of water crossing over rocks. What we got was a river of slow, low quantities of water, which eliminated the white water. Essentially we were only “rafting”. When the water is so shallow you have to consistently get out of the boat and push it, it’s probably even more apt to call what we were doing as “walking”. I was going to buy a t-shirt that said I’d been white water rafting in Durango down the Animas River, but that would’ve been a lie. All in all, the whole experience was quite lame after the near death experience on the bus the day earlier. What was more spectacular was the driver of our boat, a fine looking blonde lass named Emily. As for the American Victoria on tour, she happened to be on a boat which was guided by a man, who apparently had a large “rudder” as Katie recalled a situation where American Victoria politely asked her “Did you see the cock on that guy?”. Which given her further descriptions of his considerable endowment, it would have been like asking a person walking the mall in Washington if they had seen the Washington monument.
After the white water walking, we headed to an area that had the shittest backdrop possible and had our group photo taken. Given we’d just come from the spectacular scenery of the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley I couldn’t believe we were now taking the group photo in some abandoned paddock. A friggin Walmart car park would have been more picturesque.
From there it was onto Albuquerque, the city made famous by Bugs Bunny saying he “should’ve taken a left at Albuquerque”. Well, Bugs would’ve been better served by taking a left BEFORE Albuquerque and avoiding the place all together. I thought there was going to at least be some sort of action in Albuquerque because I’d seen a few episodes of the TV show “Cops” had been shot there, but this place was not just in the state of New Mexico, it was in a state of boredom. When the place was first founded in the 18th Century it was called San Francisco de Alburquerque, but King Phil V of Spain didn’t like that name and changed it to the far more interesting San Felipe de Alburquerque. Eventually the San Felipe and the first “r” became so bored with the place they left, hence the current name of Albuquerque.
My only night in Albuquerque shall be forever remembered as the long quest for beer. Gav and I walked much of the city looking for a bottle shop, but I think it would have been an easier task to walk Middle Earth and drop a ring off into Mount Doom. We asked some drunken hobo, sort of like our Gandalf in this situation (if anyone’s going to guide you to a source of alcohol it’s got to be a drunk), and he said his plan of attack was to get a lift from a passing car. Which I thought was a great plan as I’m always eager to pick up a drunken hobo and then drop him off at his chosen destination, whether that be a liquor store or high bridge or other suitably high object that would aid in helping them end their life. Eventually we gave up, and scammed some beers off Cathy and Danielle and sat by the pool with some of the people from tour. Most of them were going hot air ballooning the next day, so it was an early night that finished around 12am
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