42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

My car was covered in dust, though I never drove it. It spent the approximate 2,200 miles of my trip safely anchored to the car trailer. We drove through desert, mountains and boring plain lands. We saw terrain that defies description. Only the camera of my mind’s eye can see it, and only that vaguely, as memories fade, and one place blends into another.

You’d think that driving 2,200 miles would be boring. You’d think you’d need to find ways to fill 10-12 hours of empty, dead time, with nothing but scenery passing by.
My father and I only spoke occasionally, perhaps with the comfort of people who don’t need to talk all the time, to fill the silences instead with chatter.
Yes, we did speak. And no, to my surprise, we didn’t fight. Or maybe I wasn’t surprised. My father and I did butt heads during packing, and did a bit unloading. Don’t ask about hooking up the Internet. … But there was little reason for conflict on the road.
We never needed music; we were only occasionally accompanied by the cries of the cats (except for the hour or so we tried to pull in a station from Vegas that played stuff from the 60s and 70s). But even they settled down after a couple of hours of driving. Maybe they were just bored, after the fear and irritation of being cooped up had worn off.

Conversation was hard to engage in anyway. My dad is hard-of-hearing, so any time I wanted to say something, I had to turn to face him so my voice would be directed in his ear.
But if I was loud enough, I could play our unspoken game of pointing out signs of interest, especially inane musuems. My dad thought there were a lot of museums in Iowa. I figured it was because there wasn’t much in Iowa except corn and museums. When pulling off somewhere in Colorado, following a point of interest sign so we could take a picture of my dad’s first mountains, my dad guessed, almost correctly, that the point of interest would be a mining museum. Well, we never found the point of interest, but we did see a sign for the Colorado School of Mining. Good call, Dad!
Dad also thought Iowa was a lot hillier than it had been billed; Nebraska more fitted his image of flat stretches of nothing. That first day, there was nothing to see. And driving through the rest of Nebraska, more nothing.
But when we hit the mountainous part of Colorado, that changed. It was beautiful, awe-inspiring, and left me without adequate words.
It did the same for my dad, though since he was doing all the driving, he had less opportunity to see some of the majestic beauty.
Later, on the phone, he became animated in describing the drive, but also said he’d never do it again. At least not in a moving truck.

Glenwood Canyon was something we both appreciated, driving through a pass, next to a river, winding around through towering piles of rock. Pictures and words do not do it justice.
We still would only speak to point out something to the other, like a ranch exit, or no services, or a rock formation or colored layers in rocks, but there were still no words.
My dad called the truck the little truck that couldn’t because at one point, he was losing speed at 40 mph with his foot to the floor up a steep incline. He also learned the hard way how to brake without using your brakes during downgrades. Sometimes the truck sounded like a jet engine warming up, doing its best to go faster, but never really getting there.
We also drove through Eagle Canyon, Utah, and before I knew what it was called, I told my dad it looked like the Grand Canyon, after he said, look at that! I can’t even see the bottom. I probably don’t want to. I agreed.
Parts of Utah my dad describes as breathtaking. I’d agree, and also compare them to the Badlands of South Dakota. There are odd layers carved into the rocks and beautiful reds in some of the striations.

This is my dad at a point of interest just inside Utah.

Look at the pretty colors.