This is the second part in the series High Desert Desertion.
See Part One HERE.
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Once I made the decision to start walking there wasn’t much to think about except putting one foot in front of the other. I crossed the bridge over the highway and the road turned the wrong way.
I could still see the tip of the steeple I was using as a guide peering over the horizon. The ground was open desert with sparse trees and scrub brush. I debated following the road but I didn’t trust it. Who knows how far out of the way it went?
I decided to save time and cut across country. I was leaving obvious tracks in the loose dirt so I could always follow my path back if I got lost. As long as I didn’t hit an obstacle I should get there.
Walking into the desert alone, what could happen?
All I knew about the desert I had learned on television. Step by step, years of TV dangers crept into my head. I seemed perfectly safe but I began to hear tense underscoring in a minor key well up from my subconscious. I wondered if I was the bold hero or the hapless victim heading toward my own crime scene. I kept walking.
My fears didn’t materialize. I saw no rattlesnakes, sidewinders or wolves. No buzzards circled overhead. There were no alkali waterholes with longhorn skulls nearby. No box canyons or dusty outlaws on horseback blocked my way. No roadrunners or coyotes raced by. No ACME anvils fell from the sky.
What I did see was unexpected. Nothing was like I’d imagined. Not a plant or bird looked familiar and no wall of pine forest blocked my view. The dirt wasn’t sticky Mississippi mud. Even the sky was a deeper blue because of the altitude. Walking on level ground I was at 7450 feet, higher than the tallest mountains of the Eastern U.S. without knowing it.
In fact, the depth of my ignorance was as vast as the high desert. I couldn’t tell a poisonous Juniper from a Piñon pine or a Prickly Pear cactus from a Cholla. I had seen flowering Yucca but never thought about making a basket from one or eating a Pigweed salad like the Navajo.
But my ignorance inspired awe. For the first time I understood why explorers called this the New World. Every view in any direction was uncommon, nothing was familiar. It was barren, empty and dazzling at the some time.
I stepped out of the scrub brush onto a powdery dirt road. It seemed to be heading my way. I shifted my guitar to the other hand, wiped sweat from my eyes, caught my breath and started again.
