hats off to (Roy) Harper

I woke for the first time at 2:30 a.m. I know this because I rolled over sluggishly and flipped open my cell phone to check. There was a sort of half-light in the tent. After a moment I realized it was due to the waning moon on the rise overhead. The next time I woke up was 3:30 a.m. The next was probably 4:30, or thereabouts. And so on, and so on. At 6:30 I reckoned I'd about reached my limit. It wasn't that I was uncomfortable, goodness knows. For the first time in my life, I'd actually done a fair job of blowing up my air mattress. It was firm and well-seated. I wasn't cold; between the sweats and the down sleeping bag, I was pretty toasty, even though the night had gotten down to 32 degrees Fahrenheit. This was merely my morning custom: as the sleep chemicals in my brain slowly exhausted themselves, I woke up, dropped back to sleep, woke up, dropped back to sleep, woke up, dropped back to sleep...ad infinitum, sometimes through a dozen cycles. At 6:30 I finally quit on the business and stayed awake, listening to the cars beginning to roll down Center Road a few hundred yards away, the ravens cackling in the trees overhead, and the elderly folks next door (up insanely early, like most elderly folks I know). John was like a rock. He was sleeping on his right side; but neither sound nor movement could I detect. I couldn't even hear him breathe. I'd shared tents with a few people in my time, cabins with a few more, and rooms with a multitude. None of them slept as silently as John did. He's going to make some woman very happy someday, that guy. He also brags that he never needs a midnight glass of water...unless, he adds with a devilish grin, he's doing something that results in a loss of bodily fluids. Right around 7:30, John woke up. By now, the rising sun was lighting the tent with a tender glow. Both of us laid there a moment longer, debating whether it was better to wait 'til things warmed up outside the sleeping bags and then decamp, or simply grin and bear it. Unsurprisingly, I planted my flag in the latter camp. I'm a cryophile, you know. I prefer cooler temperatures. And when I say that I prefer cooler temperatures, I of course mean that, while all of the North Dakotans and Minnesotans were huddling in their warm dorm rooms at North Dakota State University in Fargo, watching the slow-laden blizzard howl past the windows at -44 degrees, I was out taking a stroll through the hip-deep drifts. My ideal temperature range is somewhere between 50 and 65 degrees. Seventies are usually okay, though, 's long as it's breezy. The 40s and 30s are pretty peachy, too. It was only, like, forty-something outside now that the sun was up and coming. So, John and I manned up (or as John prefers to say, we "cowboyed the f___ up"). John got the fire going while I performed a few emergency ablutions: thanks to the condensation inside the tent, my hair had been bent up into the most fantastic shapes imaginable. I could've given Stygimoloch a run for its money. I washed up in the restroom, plastered my hair down, and went back outside to help John. I cut up some canned potatoes while my friend fried sausage and eggs together in a pan. The remainder of our cedar was burning in the fire pit, and that bright yellow ball in the sky was climbing slowly through the pine trees. I made myself some hot chocolate while John sipped some cold orange juice. Then we sat down to our hearty camp breakfast. It was sinfully delicious. As we'd observed the previous night, everything tastes better when it's cooked outdoors. The potatoes may have been canned, but Jimmy Dean has never flunked a sausage yet. I couldn't have asked for a better pick-me-up while out on the road. Except, perhaps, for a gorgeous female hiker who'd somehow misplaced all of her clothes stumbling out of the bushes nearby. Can't win 'em all... All around us, Mather Campsite was coming to life. A dog was barking somewhere to the south. The elderly folks were already packed and ready to go. People were filtering in from nearby campsites to use the restroom. The zoological caucus was out in force, too. As we were cleaning up, John spotted a family of deer poking their way unconcernedly along Juniper Loop, just across the lane from our campsite, nibbling on various herbage as they went. I didn't get very good pictures of this amazing sight (there were two bucks, a doe, and a little fawn) because the batteries in my camera conveniently chose that moment to peter out. As stealthily as possible, I went rifling through my duffel bag for the replacements we'd purchased in Yuma. I managed to find them in time to get a few shots. Following this wildlife encounter, we finished cleaning up; disassembled and repacked the tent; stuffed the sleeping bags into their sacks; and rolled up the pads (not in that order). We loaded everything back into the car, made sure the fire was out (John had used up the last of the lighter fluid earlier by nonchalantly flinging squirts of it onto the hot coals), and took off. We drove back out to Center Road and headed right. After a short distance we came upon the Yavapai Lookout, on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Anticipation built by the second as we got out of the car, readied our cameras and slowly approached the lookout point. I suddenly realized that I'd never been to the Grand Canyon before. I began to fully appreciate that I was standing just a few yards from a rather impressive crack in the ground. I began to get an idea of what I was in for. Nevertheless, the two of us somehow managed to keep our gait sedate as we approached. And then the thing opened up beneath us like the gaping jaws of some planet-spawned Titan. We gazed in silent, elemental wonder. Or at least, I did. John was taking a couple of deep breaths a few feet behind me. Poor chap's acrophobic. I'm not really sure if I could muster the poetry to describe just what a full-body experience viewing the Grand Canyon truly is. I was and still am gobsmacked. I felt as if the fluid in my eyes had been replaced with electrolysis gel, and my guts had been turned to empty air. It was a religious moment. The sheer size of the canyon, the majesty of its contours, the subtle mysteries of its recesses, the utter incredibility of the sight...all combined to form a tangible blow to the solar plexus. Unable to do much of anything else, we stood behind the short rock wall marking the canyon rim, staring out and down. John, at least, retained enough of his rational mind to do so in silence. I kept up a steady stream of inane and fatuous commentary. After a few seconds of looking over the massive, primordial formation of rock, sand and sediment, I turned to face John and said, in a voice of faux portent: "Now that, John, is a grand canyon." After a quick tour of the actual lookout station, where the impressive geologic history of the canyon was delineated... ...we took to wandering along the canyon rim, trying to toe the fine line between actually appreciating the miraculous vista with our eyes and taking a suitably large number of photographs. We also toed the line between capturing some heroic poses at the edge of the precipice and falling hundreds of feet to our deaths. This involved much pushing of camera timer buttons and scampering like drunken mountain goats along narrow ridge lines and uneven rocks before the ten seconds were up. Finally, though far from exhausted with our surroundings, we sensed it was time to hit the road. We meandered back to the parking lot and swiftly exited the park, finding ourselves once more among the rolling, scrubby hills of Arizona. After a mere twenty miles, however, we arrived in Valle for the second time. And that was when I finally got my chance to check out that air museum. I may not have mentioned this, but I am an absolute fiend for vintage aircraft. Any old prop-driven airplane, from the Wright Flyer to the Ford Trimotor to the F7F Tigercat, gets me all excited inside, like a kid in a candy store. I especially love World War II-era fighters and bombers. So of course, when we'd passed the museum the day before and I'd seen this sitting out front... ...I knew I had to take a look inside. It was absolutely marvelous, second only to the Grand Canyon. There was a gift shop full of the most magical assortment of books, baseball caps, T-shirts, posters, models, coffee mugs, bumper stickers and badges imaginable; a hangar floor with a gang of my old favorites inside, some of which I'd never seen in person; and outside, some giant classics shining gloriously in the desert sun. Like this MiG, for example... Or this C-54... Or this Grumman Duck, which I'd never seen without amphibious floats... Or the sexiest beast on the lot, the B-26K Invader, which I'd only ever encountered in books and pictures... Or the crown jewel of the museum, this little honey, this shining triumph of aerospace engineering, General Douglas MacArthur's personal transport during the Korean War, a Lockheed C-121 Constellation (coincidentally the same type of aircraft whose engines can be seen flaring to life at the top of this page)... ...the legendary Bataan! Being inside was like a dream. The interior had been lovingly restored to its original form, as MacArthur had actually used it. An old Canadian sailor, Trevor, who'd fought aboard a destroyer during the Allied invasion of Incheon during the Korean War (in which my grandfather, an infantryman, had also participated), showed us through it. Inside were two lavatories; a closet with real uniforms from the period, flight suits and dress uniforms, hanging up for review; a spacious office-cum-living area where MacArthur sat and reviewed ground deployments of his troops from on high; a surprisingly roomy kitchen replete with coffee pots and an electric range, which was an utterly novel concept at the time; a large navigator's compartment, which even had a sectional chart laid out on the desk; and, of course, a knob- and dial-ridden cockpit, which I drooled over. Trevor explained some fascinating trivia to us about the aircraft, and even took some pictures of us: John and myself, in the navigator's compartment... ...and me, standing right by the general's desk. Note the phone, the radio, and the clock with Roman numerals. (We couldn't find his corncob pipe anywhere, though.) All too soon, we were climbing back out of the Connie and back into the sun. We stepped inside the museum again to do a little shopping. I couldn't resist. Planes of Fame was a world-renowned vintage aircraft restoring (and flying) organization, and they had some souvenirs to die for. I managed to limit myself to a deck of cards printed like WWII-era plane-spotter aircraft recognition cards, a Hawaiian shirt coated with fighters and bombers and palm trees, and a ribald bumper sticker for a pilot friend of mine (which read "PILOTS MAKE SMOOTHER APPROACHES"). I paid up, slipped two dollars inside a clear plastic jar labeled "Aircraft Maintenance Fund" and then, after a last goodbye to the lovely old lady behind the counter, we vacated the premises. John, who had acted pretty blasé as we'd toured the museum (except for that MiG), took a few minutes to drool over a Corvette ZR6 in the parking lot. We made a quick stop at the classic car museum right next door (which had everything from Model Ts to old Honda power scooters from the 1960s), and then took off down the highway, bound for home. To say that the remainder of the trip was uneventful would be a gross understatement, even though it consisted of nothing more than us refueling in Williams and driving home on Interstate 40. Between Valle and Williams, we put on Led Zeppelin III, which I'd purchased in Flagstaff. Picture me, in the driver's seat, aviator shades on, my face straight, my insides bouncing up and down like Christmas morning with new music and airplane goodies, my fingers tapping on the steering wheel, the car flying through the sunlight and breeze and golden-green hills; John, in the passenger seat, the log on his lap, baring his soul on paper, the subliminal voice of Robert Plant on "Hats off to (Roy) Harper" ululating out of the Chrysler's speakers. So we traversed AZ-64, refueled in Williams (where John switched again to the driver's seat), got on I-40, and rolled on. Pensive and preoccupied, neither of us said much as we drove by Kingman... ...crossed the border, passed the celestially beautiful Mojave National Preserve... ...and arrived in Barstow just as the sun set. We exited the 40, reunited with our old friend 247 for the drive to my house, and got home right as the last pink light was fading out of the star-lined evening sky. John and I got my stuff out of his car, carried it inside, shook hands, and parted. And that was the end of that road trip. How I felt afterward might best be described by this picture: