This part of New Mexico was pure desert, mostly flat when we started out in the morning but we could see a massive rocky mountain looming on the highway as we drove towards it. Checking the map identified it as Shiprock and it looked like a mass of sails towering into the sky. I will have to Google it sometime, but my guess it the remains of a volcano. The state park where the 4 States meet was close by now and we were happy to learn we wouldn’t have to pay the normal $3 entry fee as it was a holiday. Why anyone would want to go there and pay to have their picture taken surrounded by a circle of souvenir shops… I don’t know. 90% of the stalls were closed though so we grabbed our pictures and got the hell out of there. The Grand Canyon was getting close now just another day away and the scenery became more rugged and dramatic. Shiprock was a just a taste of monument valley further up the road. I should look at the map a bit more I guess but that wasn’t my job any more. We drove slowly through a huge valley of dramatic rocks erupting from the red dust, flecked with snow that hadn’t quite melted.

Dani was trying to do something on my computer and the road was too windy for her to take the wheel briefly as we would do on the highway while I clicked a few things so I pulled over to take a look. Bad mistake! The ground was sodden with a layer of thick clay, this place was in the shadows of the surrounding hills and got very little sunlight. The heat it got just served to melt the ice by the side of the road and increase the mud we were now sitting in. We weren’t by a garage like the time I was stuck in Florida and that unhappy (and expensive) memory was taunting me as I got out to take a look. The mud caked my shoes on contact and made them cold and heavy. Cursing my stupidity I got back in to see if we were really stuck. Mud flew into the air as my front wheels spun futilely. It didn’t look good. Remembering my own advice I got out to let some air out of the tires and found the wheels weren’t really dug in like they were in the dry sand before. Maybe I could get out. I put my crud encrusted shoes in some plastic bags and said a small prayer to St Christopher before trying to reverse a bit.

More mud splattered everywhere as I pushed my foot down but we started moving, but not in the direction of the road. I put it into low gear, told dani to watch for oncoming traffic on the bendy road and released the brake. The mud coated my windscreen and mirrors and we inched forward, but I didn’t care I was being covered with crap as the tarmac drew closer. Breathing a sigh of relief we made it back to the sealed road, which was always just a few feet away but seemed like miles in the cloying muck. I hopped out to take a couple of pictures and the car was now filthy. It wasn’t going to win any beauty contests before but now it looked like I’d be competing in the Paris to Dakar rally. It was a small price to pay for freedom.

We stopped at the next supermarket to get some supplies and refill the air in the tires. This was Navajo country and we listened to their stations on the radio, so proud to have survived the deadly invasion my ancestors inflicted on them. Everyone looked Indian in that town but the supermarket stocked the same unhealthy junk I saw all over the country and despite their pride and survival were still being slowly poisoned by the US food industry. With few exceptions the food in America is insanely bad. I would go slowly insane if I had to stay more than a few years. Not only is everything deliberately covered in sugar whenever possible but its so full of chemicals that it never goes off. I bought fresh bread which I lost in the back of my van which was still soft and fluffy after a couple of weeks sweating under the seat. What kind of crap do you have to pump it with to make it do that? I was buying Organic milk whenever possible and that was always ‘ultra-pasteurized’ so hardly ever went off either, which was somewhat of a relief given the price I was paying for it. I was slowly getting used to the weak coffee they would serve at the gas stations but I wasn’t going to put the little pots of ‘creamer’ into it. It’s just liquid fat and chemicals as far as I can see.

Still I was doing something right somewhere. When I got my pre-trip vaccinations I was weighed at the doctors and was nearly 13 stone (181lbs). I weighed myself in Santa Fe and was now 11 Stone 4 lbs (158lbs) and my month of wandering around Canada and Boston were long gone. I guess since I was unable to find anything nutritious on the road I was avoiding eating junk food. I’ve never been a fan of French…ahem, freedom fries or potato chips and I could always get fruit. Looking at the contents of the shopping carts of the people before me in the supermarket reveals a nation in crisis and I would wonder how much self respect you would have to have lost to ride around Wal-Mart in one of their specially provided electric shopping carts, filling the basket in the front full of carcinogens and artery blockers. I guess the really fat people didn’t get out much because I was surprised that I didn’t see more of them, but occasionally I would do a double take as a huge person just one surprise away from death would waddle past. I could jump on their back and be convicted of murder when their engorged pathetic hearts couldn’t take the strain of an unexpected piggy-back ride. The kids all look normal, running around happily after their oversized parents but then you see the other families and that the same diet of TV food and no exercise will be killing a couple of generations with the same choking diet of chemicals and fat.

I wasn’t immune either, I was now driving everywhere, but they make it so hard to walk. Shops next door to each other have fences in between the car parks and if you wanted to go up against the traffic to the shop next door you then have to drive down, turn back and cross the road again, all for the want of a path between car parks. There are no buses anywhere. I hardly saw a bike on the streets outside major cities and most cities are not bike friendly at all. Respect for pedestrians is so low that when the children leave school they have to employ people on every junction so the distracted drivers don’t mow down the kids as they cross the road. I do it myself, you just look for the cars, who would be mad enough to walk around crossing roads. Maybe they deserve to die. America, despite its flirtation with intelligent design is the purest form of evolution on the planet. If you don’t own a car you have no money and you don’t deserve to survive. Drive everywhere and you might live, even in Wal-Mart.

We stopped for the night at Tuba City, I’m sure there’s an interesting story why it called that but it was so unimpressive I wont bother to investigate now. We managed to find a seemingly nice café to check if there was any where to stay and it seemed there were only 2 hotels in town. Not much choice there then. The quality inn was $80 and the other place only $50. Clear choice. We drove back down the highway to check it out. The previous night we had been burned for another $10 since there were 2 of us, but the lock didn’t work on the door, we had to collect our own towels, no wifi and the stupid maid tried to get in at 9am. We were feeling burned by the whole motel experience and ripped off. I went into the office alone and asked for a room for the night. “Just one?” he asked and I said yes. He didn’t specify one night or one person so I was happy for the situation to remain unclear. He then went on to tell me all about the rooms with broken locks and non working heaters non of which interested me in the slightest. I wanted a room with a key, heater and wifi. I wasn’t interested in rooms that were reserved or had problems. Eventually I got him to agree to give me the room by the office with good wifi and no problems. It only took 15 minutes more than it needed to….

What a weird town. We went back to the café and despite me going in and asking when they closed (9pm) they were shut and it was only 7.30pm. Seems if its quiet they kick everyone out. So much for the American sprit of enterprise! We went back to the hotel and Dani sneaked in past the security cameras to cook up a microwave meal of tortillas and tuna salad. Tomorrow one of the wonders of the world!



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