Exit 286

[mnaz]

The broken-line fever has kicked in. But I'm running low again, just when I was making such good time.... just when the pallette of mountains had finally melted into a stream of saffron and sepia. Too bad.... another hundred miles or so and I could have been rid of this interstate for good. But I'm still too far from where I should be. I'm an overdue bill. I'm in horrible shape, still enamored with possibility.

A fog is seizing this plateau with an irreversible chill. The painted desert is going gray. It's not at all like the last exit, where a slumbering red cliff barely stirred from its epochal geologic nap, predictably indifferent to a plague of asphalt and concrete, spreading below.

It was such an orderly place. I sat in a Zion parking lot, sipping a forbidden Zion beverage, blasting a defiant Rasta reggae rant, except those lyrics also happened to obsess over Zion, a place where all trouble evaporates if one could only get there. Zion must have been somewhere near. It was advertised on banks and steeples everywhere. It may have been the reason I left home to begin with-- to try and reach Zion-- though I probably missed the exit by now.

It's a deadly farce, all of it, seen so clearly from an earlier curve. I need only take my cue from this place, a merciful and patient desert.... here, in what's left of this cracked, broken motel by the tracks, along what's left of Route 66.... a king-size bed and singing water pipes for $18 cash. Here, it was once possible to contemplate fame, or perhaps Cadillac tail fins. Now, this place is more suited to contemplating God, or equally useless pastimes. For the record, God must be the force holding together this collection of tired atoms, if not my resolve.

December says a lot. It's hard to imagine this road running much further. What if I lost something which I always assumed was mine? How hard would it hit? I might dodge the question with some effort and enough fuel. For now, I always have the next exit. But I'm running low again.

[Zlatko Waterman]

A first-rate vignette, mnaz. I particularly like the "painting" allusions at the beginning, when the painterly prose is running the most pictorial.

Alliteration on my part is not intended to mock you.

I admire this swatch of word-painting.

--Z

[Lightning Rod]

By the rivers of babylon
Where he sat down
And there he went
When he remebered zion.

For the wicked, carry us away
Captivity require from us a song
How can we sing king alpha’s song in a strange land?

So let the words of our mouth
And the meditations of our hearts
Be acceptable in thy sight
Oh, Jah.

By the rivers of babylyon
Where he sat down
And there he went
When he remebered zion.

For the wicked, carry us away
Captivity require from us a song
How can we sing king alpha’s song in a strange land?



---

this is a great piece, mnaz
vivid and real and impressionistic

[judih]

zion is a peace of mynd
hang on, mnaz, man
those sweet chariots come soon enough
roll your heart on
there's time till zion rolls round the bend

[mnaz]

Thanks, Z, L-Rod, & judih....

Just hit a low note or two, I guess.... chilling gray day and night in eastern Arizona, and some bad news from back home.... road weariness at that point, for sure.... But things are looking much better this morning....

[stilltrucking]

...]

[abcrystcats]

My guess is that he took 15 to 9, down through Kanab.

Lots of barren country, wide open semi-desert bumping right up against low mountain ranges. Log cabins. There are lots of dilapidated and abandoned log cabins going through there. And cows on the open range, wandering and chewing. I followed the rear ends of huge semi trucks most of the way through the dusk, stopping occasionally to let them pass so I could get a better look at the country. The road eventually drops down into a canyon with trees. I stopped about six miles north of Kanab and stayed at a B & B. It was 8:30 at night and I could no longer focus on the road. It was a huge turn-of-the century three story house.

Another time I stayed in Kanab, at a 1940s era roadside motel that was once used by the movie stars and film crews doing cowboy-and-indian shoots in the area. The walls of the lobby were plastered with autographed stills, but the rooms of the sprawling building were all empty. In my wing, there was one other occupied room. The TV didn't work, and the decor hadn't been changed since the hotel was new. The old furniture, bedspreads and curtains were still in good condition. I felt I was sleeping with ghosts. The price for the room was under $20.

[perezoso]

That's Paiute country (and before Pauite, the anasazi), above St. George, east of the 15 about 10 miles, cañons of vermillion and scarlet, cottonwood shadows and rills, mule deer, nearby the jack mormons, polygamists, Californian suburbanites in their petrol-swilling beasts, armed with nikons, looking for a post-snapshot shack to copulate in: I been there, watched the purple microdot majesty, the palisades of sandstone, sedimentary cake decorations, the old pines and junipers like claws on scree, melting Brahma that can never be Anseled Adamed ...

Nice piece mnaz but flesh 'er out.

[mtmynd]

Nice read, mnaz... happy trails. Hope to see you in Jan.

[perezoso]

The place being referred to is an exquisite section of terrain and geomorphology, but the writing is strangely oblique. It's more about highways, cars, and motels, and not about the region known as "Zion". Th Old Testament name does not do it justice; nor does the use of the germanic "God" from Gott. Perhaps the Great Basin Paiute would have used "Inyo," as they did for eastern California ranges, meaning something like "Great Spirit"; but Zion just seems a bit too preacherly.

[stilltrucking]

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[stilltrucking]

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[perezoso]

Nein, StillDyslexic, Interstate 15 runs north from AZ, through St. George, up to Salt Lake. For a beat yr directions are quite the phucked. I suggest you (and most of the local faux hipsters) get yr kix off of Route 666, like at Winchells quaffing some old fashioned's and java, holy angels of the American highways.

[abcrystcats]

LMAO, perez ... I guess when I am not the butt of the joke, it's pretty good.

9 heads down into the corner of Arizona where the Navajo Rez is, or it links up with another road that does -- 89, I think.

Zion National Park is exclusively in Utah. It does not reach anywhere near as far south as Arizona.

There are 286 mile markers on numerous roads, not just 40. I seem to remember associating one with the drive(s) I took to Kanab, I just cannot quite remember where or how, so I didn't mention it.

Did he tell you what roads he was taking? Maybe he thought he'd take 40 ... that is the most direct route ... but then how could he have come through Zion Natl? Totally different place. He went up NE thru St. George. He must have. I wonder if it was snowing at the Big Rock Candy Mountain? It was snowing heavily when I went through the first time ...

[stilltrucking]

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