“Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.”    Paul Theroux

Chapter 6 - Phoenix

The weather forecast was for cool and windy conditions, so we slept in and treated ourselves to a large breakfast. I, for one, was feeling a bit road-weary and I was ready for the relaxation that Phoenix would bring. Two more days, one more night, would see us there. The unspoken words were, “I hope.” After breakfast, we headed back to the highway.
 
We continued towards the southwest. In an hour and a half, we were at Pecos. Signs on the highway pointed to Big Bend Park in the south. Pecos was a hardscrabble place, the vision I had of the cowboy town of Pecos did not agree with the look from the eyes, a look that wandered over this bleak windblown outpost out on the plains of west Texas. We filled up our tanks and headed out for the mountains.  
 
In less than an hour we passed the terminus of I-20, and we were now heading west on the I-10, the road we would follow straight into Phoenix, and then on to Los Angeles beyond. We were climbing up the eastern slope of the Davis Mountains in a buffeting wind. It was scenic but brief, after a stretch through the hills; we began a long approach downhill into Van Horn. To the west was the Rio Grande River and beyond that, Mexico. I certainly felt that we were far from Fort Bragg, figuratively and literally.
 
We took a long break in Van Horn. I enjoyed the opportunity to be out of the wind and to let the eyelids droop for a while. It was tough going riding on the highway in the wind and blowing grit, and hitting the occasional tumbleweed got my attention every time, though nothing bad ever came of it. Now, we finally turned more northwards and headed for El Paso, a hundred miles or so up the I-10. We passed through Sierra Blanca to a point where the highway turned due west; we followed this down towards the Rio Grande and the border. Just before the river, the highway swung to the north and we headed north once again towards El Paso.
 
As we neared El Paso, we saw road signs and directions for Fort Bliss Army Reservation. The country was indeed big, and the Army seemed to have big bases spread all around it. We pulled into a truck stop for gas, and Dave said he thought my brake light on the Honda had burned out. I put the lights on, nothing showed in the rear. I hit the foot brake, nothing showed at this test either. I got a screwdriver out of my toolkit and removed the plastic cover to expose the offending bulb. I had carried a few spares with me; the only issue was to find where I had stashed one and then replace it. In another ten minutes, we were on our way once more.
 
We stopped at a large motel in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It was a relief to take a hot shower and breathe in the steam, my nose and throat felt as if they were caked in concrete. Dinner consisted of hot Mexican food washed down with some cold beer. Afterwards, I had a couple of beers in the room as I let the sleep come on me watching TV. It had not been that long of a travel day, we had put on over three hundred miles, but I was feeling it and my body was tired. We should reach Phoenix tomorrow, and sleep in a house for a change. We were all excited at the prospect of reaching the Reed family home.
 
We awoke to find the wind stronger than the day before. There was nothing to do but head out into it; we needed to reach Phoenix today. We had a quick breakfast and gassed up the vehicles, and then we got down to the business at hand, traveling. We traveled up towards the Continental Divide, and it was windy and cold. At Lordsburg, the trees were bent over savagely in the wind. We took a long coffee break there so I could spend some time out of the wind.
 
We pushed on into Arizona. The landscape was rugged and beautiful. Every sight and sensation was so totally new; I was enthralled. The wind abated and the sky remained in turmoil. We ate lunch at a truck stop, and quickly got back on the road. We were living a new mantra: get it on the highway, get it up to speed, do the time, and the miles would go by. Let’s just get there.
 
Outside of Tucson, I got the ultimate reality check, rain. First, it was a light drizzle in the wind, then the wind died down a bit and the rain picked up. I had minimal rain gear, and what I had wasn’t very good. Soon it was raining hard, but any rain feels hard at highway speeds. After a half hour of struggling through it, I pulled off by an exit and stopped by the side of the road, Gerry pulled up behind me. I got off of the bike and walked back to Gerry who rolled down the window; there was no room for me to get in.
 
“I can’t go on,” I said. “I’m freezing out here.”
 
“It doesn’t look like any fun,” came the reply. “What do you want to do?”
 
At that moment, an Arizona State Trooper pulled up and got out of his car. He asked us what was going on, as he looked over the license plates and loaded car. I told him what was happening, and the difficulties I was having out in the rain on the highway. He told us to get off of the exit way, the side of the road is a dangerous place in the rain. Either press on, or get off at the exit and find a place to stop. I nodded my assent and told Gerry to follow me. I got back on the bike and we followed the exit down to its end, where a gas station and restaurant sat close at hand.
 
We sat down in the restaurant and ordered coffee. I was soaking wet and cold. “Why don’t you guys go on up to Phoenix,” I offered. “I’ll get a room and take a hot bath, and come up as soon as I can. There’s no reason for all of us to be stuck this close to our goal.”
 
Gerry and Dave looked at each other. “That doesn’t seem right to me,” replied Dave. “We came all this way together, doesn’t seem right to leave you here alone. Gerry agreed with him, so we talked about our situation and what we should do. We wanted to get to Phoenix tonight, we wanted to arrive there together, and I could not continue on the bike. So what were our options? We decided on a radical course of action.
 
Gerry talked to a mechanic and got directions to a U-Haul location. After driving there, he rented their smallest open trailer, which he brought back to the restaurant where Dave and I waited. We put enough of our luggage in the trailer to make room for me in the back seat, and then we muscled my bike up into the trailer and propped it up with duffle bags and suitcases. We inched our way toward our goal as the rain continued outside. I was happy to not be out in the rain, to be dry and sitting in a warm and cramped back seat, talking with my friends. Some steep hills along the way had us crawling up the incline in the truck lane, our flashers blinking rhythmically.
 
When we left North Carolina six days ago, we had been driving three vehicles. When we pulled into Dave’s driveway in Phoenix we were all in one car, we were towing my bike, and one other vehicle was lost along the way. Nevertheless, we were together.