Parowan, Utah

October the 1st

It is stormy in Parowan, Utah. I haven’t seen any rain in a while. At home it hasn’t rained in so long my parents are worried their well might be running dry.
Today I awoke and briefly considered the buffet at Whiskey Pete’s and then thought better of it, checked the pressure on my tires and headed north.
One of the tires on the trailer was flat so I stopped at the petro north of Las Vegas and called in to Werner, waiting on hold for 10 minutes before getting authorization to have the people there repair it. While the guy did this he found that the valve stem on another tire was leaking air and in order to get this fixed I had to call in again and wait on hold again only to be told to go ahead and do it. The people in the Petro however said they couldn’t fix it unless Werner called them or they called Werner and Werner hadn’t called them. So again we call in and wait and wait and wait.
Finally the valve stem is replaced and I am off, out of the Las Vegas Valley and across the wide Mojave again and then, in Arizona slipping into a crack in the mountain called the Virgin River Gorge, a spectacular canyon (and apparently some of the most expensive interstate per mile) interstate that takes you up though the canyon before depositing you into the quickly growing region of Southwest Utah. Home to Mormons, fundamentalist, Polygamous and otherwise. St. George and Hurricane and then up further onto the Colorado plateau, cooler temperature and some green finally (The red rocks and the green pines and the blue sky make Utah one of the most wonderfully colorful places, especially when coming from the endlessly taupe Mojave.)
On the plateau you’ll find Cedar City and then Parowan, where there is a truckstop.
Parowan is a pleasant enough place. As I walked from the TA on the far side of Interstate 15 I could hear the sounds of a football game behind the enormous high school that seems to be the centerpiece of the town. I also past the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Seminary. A simple solid greek-ish brick building where I suppose they must train the boys to go out and convert the heathens.
The town had a few nice buildings and a funny selection of businesses; two real estate offices, an “antique” store (I think that west of the Mississippi Antique store means junk shop.) a Dairy Freeze (that incorporated none of the bright colors or flashy logos of your typical soft serve store) and two Cafes. One that was an espresso type coffee shop and one that was a lunch counter type coffee shop. One old man sat at the counter in the latter. It was very picturesque.
On the walk back the wind, which earlier had been gusty and pleasant, had died down. In the far distance rose the mountains like a wall and the sky behind those to the south west glowed orange red with the setting sun. The sky to the west northwest was streaked with dark sheets of rain and billowy grey clouds rose from them. I stopped in and got some taco bell and the rain picked up just as I reached the truck.

When last I left you I think I was in Del Rio, Texas. The rest of that drive, to Calexico, was fine. In west texas I found a road through the Davis Mountains connecting US-90 at Alpine to I-10 at Kent. This drive was magnificent although at one point, just past the McDonald Observatory, the road narrowed to a two lane no shoulder road through the pale green grass of West Texas. This made me a bit nervous but the load was a light one and the day was fine.
I spent the night in Willcox, Arizona. Throughout a long walk from the truck stop into the town and back I found nothing of any interest. Low small houses with pale roofs seemed well suited to the heat. A woman called to her son for dinner. He was riding bikes with a boy in the driveway across the street. A retarded seeming man lurched down the sidewalk ignoring me as we passed each other. A girl leaned out the drive through window of the Dairy Queen, glowing in the black night, talking to boys in a blue Honda. It was a pleasant night. It does cool off nicely in the desert once the sun goes down.

I awoke early and drove to Calexico. I think that Imperial County California may well be the most bizarre county in the country. Much of it is below sea level. It is hotter than hell in the height of summer, there are many hyper-saline lakes the largest of which is the Salton Sea. Much of the land, despite the extreme aridity of the region, is under intensive agriculture made possible by canals that cross everywhere. Great concrete ditches flowing with blue water. On the eastern end the Colorado, the source of all this redirected water, cuts through all this desert lush grasses lining its banks. It brings to mind the cradle of civilization and baby Moses in a basket.
I dropped the load in the dusty drop lot at the north end of Calexico and was given a short load. They needed someone to go to Calexico east (the truck border crossing that is the home to (like Laredo) a lot of freight forwarding warehouses) to pick up a load and drop it at the Calexico lot. The problem, however, was that I needed an empty trailer and the closest one was in Blythe. Blythe is only about 105 miles from Calexico. The route, up California route 78 was a windy two lane road that crosses perhaps what makes Imperial County really super weird, the Algodones Dunes (sometimes also called The Imperial Sand Dunes.) These are these incredible dunes that are my childhood idea of a desert. Deep undulating hills of perfect soft sand, no trees, no shrubs, no grass no nothing, just sand.

The dunes are called an erg, an Arabic term that implies a completely vegetation free, active (migrating) field of sand. These are the only such dunes in North America. And what do you think human beings do when they encounter something so unique, so other worldly, so undeniably beautiful? They make it the premier place in North America to ride around on ATVs and Dune Buggies. They set up rvs and camp out when they aren’t tearing over the hills.
Its really so fucking awesome.

I picked up the trailer from Blythe ad then headed back to Calexico having run out of hours completely so that after I was loaded I could only drive around the corner to a small truck stop that was full of trucks that were clearly just parked they owners elsewhere, at home in Calexico perhaps. I hate these kind of truck stops. I feel like I am breaking some kind of rule by staying here. And what the fuck. There are supposed to be people around.
For my walk this evening I thought I had the perfect thing. I was about a mile from Mexico and how fun would it be to take a little international evening stroll. But of all the places in America for walking, the Mexican border must be the least pleasant.
I took my passport and headed down the side of the highway toward mexico. A big road with fences all over the place eventually there is a clear path for pedestrians that want to cross into Mexico and so I took it.
The walk is parallel to and separated from the highway by a jersey divider and curves up and over an irrigation canal and into Mexico. On the bridge I came across two guys sitting down against the divider looking suspicious in that smoking pot sort of way.
In Mexico everything was pretty much the same except perhaps a little shabbier and in Spanish. I walked right on in. There was no apparent place for me to go as a pedestrian entering the country and the two customs and immigration guys who were checking with people in cars definitely saw me and definitely didn’t care. Once I was past that I could see that there wasn’t a whole lot going on here. Earlier I had talked to the guy at the warehouse about Mexicali and he said it was a great place, a city of 600,000, the capital of Baja Norte. Lots of bars and women. But that was the part of the city further west. Here, at the east border crossing there was nothing so I walked cross the south bound lanes and then across the very crowded north bound lanes.
I can’t figure out why there were so many people coming into the USA. Most of the cars had Baja Norte plates but the line was backed up a good ½ mile. There was no line on the southbound lanes. I think it is just that the US people are so over cautious and or inefficient. Amidst the traffic headed north were poor people, many of whom looked to have a good deal of Aztec blood, hawking things like hats or candy or these cakes that were reddish, I think they were food but I couldn’t really tell. or just panhandling. One woman siting down against the barrier was breast feeding her baby, two young girls milled around trying to help their parents with something. Some people just waited for something. I don’t know what.

I walked up to the large and soaring US Customs and Immigraton Building. The front was all glass and inside it looked like an airport with desks and baggage x-rays but no one was there. I tried the door, locked. I tried the other 4 doors, all locked. I looked at the traffic. I wasn’t going to wade through the car booths to get back into the US. What was I supposed to do? There was nothing, no sign, in Spanish or English, with any sort of directions whatsoever. I stifled within myself the slight urge to panic. I did not want to stay in Mexico. I figured I would just go back the way I came. I walked south, through the traffic across the traffic and then back up the ramp over the irrigation canal and along the road and into the US.
I figured that was all there was to it and I ambled along making calls on my phone (which would not work in Mexico) and sending a text or two. All of a sudden, apparently out of nowhere was a man with a dog.
“Where are you coming from sir?”
“back that way” I said nonchalantly pointing towards Mexico.
“You can’t come this way, you have to go through immigration on the other side”
“Yeah, I figured. That’s the way I came before and all the doors were locked and no one was there.”
“Yes, that’s right you have to go through that building.”
“Yeah but the door was locked and no one was there.”
“Its open.”
“No I was just there, look I have my passport and everything can I just keep walking?”
“No Sir, you have to go through immigration just like everyone else [whitey]”
“Look I’m not trying to cause a problem I just want to make sure I know what I am doing so I don’t walk all the way back there and no one is there again.” By this point I was about 5 miles into a what i intended to be a three mile walk. I had not brought any water and the relative humidity was hanging in the low teens at best. The sun was almost gone.
“Sir, either you go over there yourself or we arrest you and take you over there.”
I thought about this, I wouldn’t have minded being driven.
“No, no I don’t want to get arrested.” I walked back. Over the bridge across the traffic through the poor people and to the building which this time, miraculously, was filled with people. A group of middle school football players from Yuma who had apparently been playing a game in Mexicali or getting some kind of group brothel discount.
I passed through customs with no problem and walked, finally, back to the truck.

This morning I took that load to the drop lot in Mexicali and then headed through the pale blue morning light to San Diego to pick up a load of one or a combination of the following: Audio or VHS Cassettes, CDs, DVDs, or batteries made by Maxell in, I would guess, Mexico. I drove up through San Diego, a pretty city, and through the hinterlands that separate the San Diego metro from the eastern LA metro. And then up and over Cajon Pass and into the Mojave, that great sprawling empty drive between LA and Las Vegas. The hills are so deceptive here because the road is perfectly strait and strait up these gradual hills it goes up and up and up for miles. Joshua trees are so strange. Much too tall and substantial for a desert plant.
After the last hill you come down and into Nevada at Primm, a “town” that consists of three casino/hotels owned by the same company “Terrible’s” and an outlet mall. This is where I stopped for the night. I perused all the casinos, all of them pretty much being the same and that being the same as and casino in Vegas or the Mesquakie Casino in Tama, Iowa or Dover Downs Slots in Delaware. The main difference between here and Vegas is that a beer is only $2.50. I think people go to a casino not because it is fun (because it isn’t, very few people in a casino are having fun) but because it symbolizes the idea of fun, the idea of being “off-duty” being in a place where there are no rules (because a few of the normal rules have been relaxed) and no obligations. It is the same reason I think a lot of people, especially post college, drink. They are trying to capture the idea of fun with a symbol. “When I am drinking I am not doing anything else, I can not be responsible for things. I have no obligations. I am having fun” Perhaps it is even the same reason people have sex with people they don’t love. They want the idea of love. We are a nation of semiotic zombies.


That being said, I think I had fun in Primm.