“Some turn to Jesus
and some turn to heroin
Some turn to rambling round
looking for a clean sky
and a drinking stream
Some watch the paint peel off
some watch their kids grow up
some watch their stocks and bonds
waiting for that big deal
American dream
In the cookie I read:
“Some get the gravy
and some get the gristle
some get the marrow bone
and some get nothing
though there’s plenty to spare””
~ Joni Mitchell
By Sunday morning, most of the weekenders had left Marshall Lake and the rest were leaving. I felt like I had the Lake all to myself, except for one trailer down the hill. That was short-lived as a family gathering took over the spot that Troy had occupied the previous week. Eight cars parked in a camp spot down by the road, and their occupants walked up the hill past me and joined the reunion. There were a lot of them, but they were relatively quiet and well behaved. Some left Monday, but a lot were still there when I packed up and left Tuesday morning.
I drove to downtown Flagstaff and went to Auto Zone where I got my wipers replaced. I guess the severe heat and dust had turned the blades into fragments of flaking rubber. I got new ones. I rarely drive in the rain, but with monsoon season, who knows when that would end. I then drove to the Greyhound bus station and waited for Jonah’s bus to arrive. It wasn’t long before he texted that he was pulling into the station, and I looked up to see his bus unloading. He got in the van and we drove to his motel just a few miles away. He checked in and got settled. I parked outside the room, and I made lunch for us and we got caught up. We both stayed until Friday morning. We ate several meals across the street at the strip mall where we had Pho one night, and a surprisingly good Mexican meal the following day for lunch.
I didn’t sleep at all the first night. I think the combination of having had Thai Iced Tea (lots of caffeine) and the parking lot being crazy busy until after 1:00 a.m. made sleep impossible. People were pulling in and out, for no apparent reason. Others on foot walked by my van, often brushing against it and setting Cosmo into fits of barking. A family with small children were in the lot well after midnight. Every time someone got in or out of their cars, they’d hit their “clicker” causing the lights to flash and the horn to honk, and Cosmo to bark. Yup. I was back in the empire and was having a rough time of it again.
Jonah came for breakfast on Wednesday morning, and we spent the day hanging out and swapping stories of life since out last visit. I had a long swim in the very warm swimming pool in the afternoon. We took many walks along a nearby trail. It was heaven.
In the evenings we’d sit around my table in the back of the van as there was no place in the motel room to sit except the beds. We’d talk until we both were too tired to continue and he’d go back to his room and I’d set up the bed and get in it. I did manage to sleep better the other two nights, in spite of continual activity outside my van.
The strip mall across the street was occupied by many homeless people. They lined the edges of the parking lot, with shopping carts full of “stuff.” The lot itself was quite full of nomads. There were many, mostly older class C rigs, a few vans and a couple pull-behind trailers. It was quite easy for me to spot their occupants in the grocery store or sitting outside of a restaurant or just walking around. I’ve gotten good at recognizing fellow nomads, and they, as well as the homeless, often nod at me in recognition. For better or worse, they are part of my tribe.
When we said goodbye on Friday morning, Jonah was headed to Phoenix to get a plane home, and I drove east to Two Guns. I’ve stayed there several times and loved it. When I arrived, it was blazing hot, but beautiful.
It always feels like a pretend world of long, long ago. I was worried about the heat, but within minutes of getting settled, the black clouds rolled in and it poured, cooling everything down. The wind howled and summer disappeared for a while.
When we moved to Two Guns, Cosmo and I both let out a sigh of relief. Civilization is overrated. It was nice to be back in the middle of nowhere again, with only the occasional tourist pulling in to check out the nearby Indian Death Cave. There were lots of places to explore so we took many long walks. Cosmo explored an abandoned swimming pool that is covered in graffiti and, I believe, used by skateboarders, though I’ve never actually seen anyone in it.
Lessons From The Road: Homelessness and transience seem to be another piece of the Flagstaff population puzzle. Many people who were at Motel 6 where Jonah stayed appeared to be construction workers. There were many trucks emblazoned with the initials of some construction company. Men with fluorescent orange or yellow shirts came in and out. I think many were from Phoenix where it is way to hot to work outside in the summer. At night the parking lot always had more than its share of U-Haul trucks and trailers. I wondered if people were moving to or from Flag, or just passing through. As we walked on the trails in the afternoons, we sometimes encountered people with backpacks and bundles or even shopping carts full of their possessions. The strip mall had more than a few homeless folks. I had expected the motel to be full of vacationers. It seemed to me that was not the case. The people there reflected the population of every spot I’ve stayed in Coconino National Forest. It was a strange mix of poverty, Native and Hispanic, with just a hint of scallywag thrown in for good measure. I’m starting to understand the expression “Flag is Flag.”
At night, people came and went from their motel rooms. I wondered where they could be headed at 1:00 a.m., but never found out. It would get somewhat quiet between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m., but way before dawn, construction workers would come out and stand chatting in the parking lot. Many of them were Hispanic or Native American, I assumed waiting to be picked up and taken to a jobsite. If NY is the city that never sleeps, then Flagstaff is the city that always prowls. I was often aware of being surrounded by people who were just getting by, or people who didn’t have enough. Jonah and I discussed how nice it would be if we could choose where our taxes were spent. We both would spend a lot less on the military and a lot more on making sure everyone had enough to eat.