Los Angeles #1

I am currently writing from the abode of my high-school friend Colleen and her boyfriend Jose, two of the most generous and hospitable people I've ever met. We left Tuba City yesterday early at around 8 (Navajo time, 7 AM Arizona time), and here are some of my thoughts from the road:

Wednesday we hiked a few miles into the Grand Canyon. It was a struggle at times but I'm so glad we did it. You really have to push yourself at certain points to get through it, but the reward of finishing is so worth it. I'm reminded again--and was the whole time going back up the canyon on Wednesday--of the quote "It's not the mountain we conquer but ourselves." What I found incredibly calming about hiking into the canyon was the ability to be alone and reflect. Yes, the three of us hiked in together, but for 90% of it, we were involved in our own introspection. And because of that, all three of us weren't the same people hiking out of the canyon as we were hiking in. It has that surreal effect on you.

Serenity and peace bring me happiness--the goal of this trip. One of the most serene moments of this voyage so far was at Cedar Ridge--our inner-Canyon destination. I lodged myself between two branches on a tree and just sat and contemplated everything surrounding me. I felt so insignificant, but the massiveness, the grandness of that feeling almost brought meaning to my life. Compared to this hole in the earth, compared to all the people on this grand earth, I am still here, still living, breathing, and being. It was an awesome revelation.

On the road Thursday morning, we stopped at Simpson's Market in Arizona at the intersection of I-89 and AZ-64 in the Navajo Nation. A Navajo man said good morning to every single person waiting on line for their breakfast burritos--a New Yorker, a few French Canadians, and a few Navajos, all radically different--and he said so eloquently, "It's a beautiful day to wake up on this side of the grass." I'm so glad I have this man's positive outlook to remember my stay in the Navajo Nation because some of the other Navajos we encountered were a little less than gracious and welcoming.

We were back on I-40 W, the National Road as we saw it called in Ohio. The mountains in Arizona certainly aren't as illustrious as we've seen. They are mounds of brown with specks of green. They make me long for the mountains of Wyoming and Montana or the sweet release and endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

The Arizona desert is sparse and unwelcoming, a contrast to what we've seen in this country all along. The Mohave Desert in California is not exactly what I pictured (sands stretching out into infinity, with level ground and no mountains). Instead, there are millions of cacti and other desert plants of a brownish, dried-out color. The mountains in the distance are either brown heaps or haze-covered shadows. There is a sense of endlessness here, in the state where we are to actually end our journey.

I could not believe the smog surrounding I-15, heading into LA. Every mountain, building, road in the distance was covered in a thick haze mixture of smoke and fog. I kept thinking of Matt's new friend Denver Phil who said LA is a "vacuous city." We drove on Route 66 (just to say we did), but the road was uneven and a poor drive--both with road conditions and the trailer homes that sat on its shoulders and dotted the National Trails Highway that spans from east to west coast, just like we have done in this past week.

We made it into LA alright. The city is big, with skyscrapers jutting out of the skyline. It was nice to get back into a fast pace again, something I have been missing in the land-locked states of this country. We visited Beverly Hills yesterday, having lunch at the Beverly Hills Diner, which was old-fashioned and delicious. We walked around 90210 admiring the stores, rich people, and anyone on Rodeo Drive in general, rich or not, tourist or local.

Our friends Colleen and Jose took us to a great local restaurant, Marie Callendar's, for dinner, and it was a nice change of pace to be with people we knew. It's a good way to end this trip across the country--with the comfort of friends and family who remind me of home, all the way on the opposite coast, but appearing as a glimpse here on the west Californian coast, with the endlessly blue Pacific Ocean to our west and the entire continental United States recently crossed and experienced to our east.