Skimming the Arizona desert just after the turnoff to Pahrump and past Searchlight (where the UFO's land) you don't want to miss a stop in Oatman and get the story behind Shinarump Drive. I'm sure there is one I just don't care enough to find out.
Further along Interstate 40, you can't miss the Great Hopi Pyramid. Believed to have been built in the 4th Century B.C., this pyramid predates all but the oldest Egyptian pyramids. Today this magnificent structure resembles nothing so much as a large hillock of rocks and shrubs and could easily be mistaken for a large hillock of rocks and shrubs IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW THE TRUTH. Aren't you glad I filled you in?
This
is the only photo known to exist of the fabled Navajo Peyote Silo
outside Teec Nos Pos. At great risk of personal injury I snapped this
photo whilst motoring by on the interstate but had I been discovered
and apprehended - well I wouldn't be here to write about it, that's for
sure. That long conveyor leading from the top of the silo crosses the
highway and runs for miles up into the sage covered arroyos.
If
you were to follow the track - you might never be seen again. They say
the natural Peyote blossoms are harvested by the light of the Coyote
Moon by virgins and placed on the ceremonial conveyor. By the time the
buds cross the sizzling desert floor for miles and reach the silo, they
are perfectly dried and ready to be vacuum packed for shipment to
religious festivals and Grateful Dead concerts throughout the country.
I'm gonna stop on my way back and see if I can find either some peyote
or some virgins. I'll let you know.
These
skeletal giants are all that remain of an ancient race said to inhabit
the Southwest during the time of the Dinosaurs. What must once have
been robust monoliths, reminiscent of the towering heads on Easter
Island, have been scoured by the gritty desert winds and dessicated by
the searing desert sun until only their fragile exoskeletons remain for
us to see today. Connected one to another yet to this day by a filigree
of gossamer strands, they march silently across the moon-like landscape
keeping the secrets of their origin from us still. Natives of
the region are still superstitious of these behemoths towering into the
sky claiming that they still retain some of their power of old and may
yet kill those who would trespass on their bony remains with bolts of lightning. 
The
Four Corners National Monument is the only place in the entire United
States, in fact the entire world, where a single individual can be in
four physical states at once. Amazing but true. As you read this you
may be in the state of denial or even the state of confusion but if you
journey to the four corners you can also be the states of Arizona, New
Mexico, Colorado and Utah at the same time as illustrated by our tour
guide, who adds a fifth dimension by being in a state of inebriation
while performing these gyrations. You can actually set one foot on the
marker and accomplish the same thing but why do it simple if you can
throw your back out by imitating an end table.
Finally,
after a long day of dodging suicidal mid-westerners in Giant Winnebagos
and basking under the high desert sun like a George Foreman Grill, you'll
want to save enough energy to make it to Cortez, Colorado and the
locally famous Aneth Lodge. Nothing screams luxury like a neon Aneth
and at only $35.90 for a single... well you probably couldn't handle a
double anyway. You can tell those boys at Motel 6 to go ahead and leave
their thilly old light on, you've got a better offer right
here. Hope you're all having a wonderful summer. I'll be back with more adventures almost before you know it. Certainly before you're ready.
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