The Four-Corners States   From Minneapolis I flew via Denver to Albuquerque, where I picked up my rental car to drive to California. At first there was a bit of a mix-up, since it was a one-way rental, but they ended up giving me a two-level upgrade, and a car with California license plates, so I would be in effect taking this car “home” from New Mexico.

I would be starting out this visit to the Southwestern United States in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, in that order. If you can’t tell why I’m referring to these four as the Four-Corners States, it will become clear shortly. Aside from that, it’s curious that we always think of these four states as the “Southwest”. Afterward I’ll also be going to Nevada and California, and although they are just as geographically southwestern as the others, we tend not to consider them the “Southwest”. Logic loses out here, which is why I’m calling this a trip to the Southwestern US and not just to the “Southwest”.

The areas in these four states I’d be visiting are in what is known as the High Country. Although there are mountains, generally the land spreads out in high plateaus, which tend to be in the 6,000-8,000-foot/2,000-2,500 meter range.

Albuquerque   I started in Albuquerque, New Mexico’s largest city because of the Santa Fe railroad having bypassed a costly connection to Santa Fe itself and choosing Albuquerque instead. At the airport there were listed its sister cities, which included Alburquerque in Spain. Apparently one R in the original name never made it to the New Mexico version. I wasn’t planning spending much time in town, but from the airport the first thing I did was turn off to Central Avenue, which was clearly marked “Historic Route 66”. One stretch of the street looked particularly well-cared for and/or restored, with Art Deco shops and cafés. Albuquerque is one of seven US cities which receive federal funding to preserve its Route 66 roadside architecture.

The only other thing I wanted to see in Albuquerque was Old Town Plaza. It’s the historic core of the city around a beautiful, tree-shaded square with shops surrounding it. The buildings are either original pueblo structures, or in the Pueblo Revival style. On the north side is the Church of Saint Philip de Neri from the 1700’s. Original pueblo buildings are made of mud mixed with straw, and have no sharp edges, just rounded ones. They are reddish-brown in color, which is imitated in Pueblo Revival style. Even other, more modern buildings tend to keep this color, which was also evident in Santa Fe and Taos. Wooden ceilings are made of log beams called vegas, with boards above them called tablas, laid out “table” style. The style gives a very Spanish Colonial feeling.

Santa Fe   Do remember that Santa Fe is up in the mountains, and that the Santa Fe Trail had to hook around a bend to come up NW to the city. Also, the original Route 66 came in an inverted V, first NW to Santa Fe, then SW again to Albuquerque, before it was diverted to avoid this deviation. But history continues to repeat itself. Coming up on Interstate 25 from Albuquerque, even the modern highway traces that inverted V, going first NE, grazing Santa Fe to the south, then swinging SE again to go around that hook, before proceeding north again to Denver. The highway exit I took shortly joined the Santa Fe Trail (the city street is still called that), right up to the very end of the Trail at the historic Santa Fe Plaza. This piece of the Trail is also marked “Historic Route 66”, but I smiled when I saw the additional notation “Pre-1937”. I was also interested to learn that pre-Trail Santa Fe was more isolated than I had realized. Travel deeper into Mexico had been difficult and rare, with infrequent commerce, so the Santa Fe Trail really opened up the city—but connecting of course to the US, not to the rest of Mexico, which clearly was prophetic, since the Southwest eventually became part of the US. In addition, I’ve always wondered about the “New” in New Mexico, assuming it took that name once it became part of the US. I now find that the region that today covers both New Mexico and Arizona had always been called Nuevo Méjico, even when it was still part of Mexico. The name implies that it was considered more of a buffer zone on the border rather than an integral part of Mexico.

Since Santa Fe was founded in 1607, there had always been an inn at the southeast corner of the Plaza, and when the Trail arrived and ended at the Plaza, it also ended at this inn. The original inn was razed in 1920, but the present one, La Fonda (The Inn) was built in 1922, and was where I stayed. It’s listed in the Historic Hotels of America, and is entirely and ebulliently in Pueblo Revival style, with hand-carved vegas. In 1925 it was purchased by the Santa Fe railroad, to be operated as a Harvey House (remember that Fred Harvey opened restaurants and hotels all along the rail routes in the southwest; also remember Judy Garland playing a Harvey Girl).

The center of Santa Fe gives an attractive pueblo-style look, and also an amazingly low-level look, with many buildings being just one story tall, even including the Palace of the Governors on the north side of the Plaza. Both the Palace and Plaza are on the National Register of Historic Places. The flat-roofed Palace, built in 1610, is one of the oldest occupied buildings in the US. Lew Wallace, when he was Territorial Governor, wrote Ben-Hur in 1880 while living in the Palace.

Both Santa Fe and Taos are great art centers, and I noticed so many art galleries particularly in Santa Fe, which also has a Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, since she lived in, and was a strong proponent of, the area.

The official, original Spanish name of the city is Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís (Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi), now shortened, but which explains why a city would be named Holy Faith (Santa Fe). Natives stress the first syllable and drop the T: SA.na.fay, while outsiders usually stress the last syllable, with or without the T: san.ta.FAY or sa.na.FAY.

It also explains why the cathedral is dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi. Also, the cathedral stands out from all the pueblo buildings, since Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy had it built in French Romanesque style in the late 1800’s.

Two comments about Lamy, one another literary one, and one geographic. Willa Cather wrote her Pulitzer-Prize winning novel “Death of the Archbishop” based on Lamy. Also, it’s the town of Lamy, New Mexico where the spur line from the Santa Fe railroad came up to finally connect Santa Fe to the outside rail world. The railroad tried to get movie stars traveling between the coasts to get off at Lamy to visit Santa Fe. The spur line and Santa Fe Depot are used today by a small private railroad for tourist train day trips down to Lamy for lunch.

[It occurs to me that there were depots all across the southwest named after the railroad, such as the Santa Fe Lamy depot. So should the one actually in Santa Fe have been called the Santa Fe SANTA FE Depot?]

Taos   Leaving Santa Fe I stopped off at the famous Santa Fe Opera, which is out in the country off the main highway, not in town. It’s noteworthy that the highway overpasses in the area are frequently decorated with Indian and other Southwestern motifs. Further up north into the mountains is Taos, which rhymes approximately with “house”, except that it has two syllables. It’s also known for its production of art, yet I preferred Santa Fe. The Taos Plaza, although historic, is small, and is too fragmented by structures built within it. The Taos Pueblo, just north of town, is the only place the Indians built pueblos as high as five stories, but, because of an Indian religious festival, it was closed to visitors while I was there. Fortunately we had seen it years ago.

What I did enjoy in Taos is the remarkable San Francisco de Asís church, built 1710-1750, just south of town. It’s a massive, buttressed adobe church, which is probably the most painted and photographed church in New Mexico. Both Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams have used it as a subject for their work. It’s back faces you as you approach, and it’s single door and three tiny windows are not yet visible. It resembles a huge, seated elephant seen from behind. When inspecting the front closely, you can very clearly see the straw embedded in what was mud as part of the adobe construction.

Just beyond Taos, the highway crosses the gorge of the Rio Grande on a three-span bridge. People stop at either end of the bridge to walk out to the middle and see the Rio Grande rapids 650 feet below. I thought about the fact that I was looking at the Rio Grande this far upstream now in the summer heat after I had seen it further south in El Paso last January in the cold.

I enjoyed the Bed and Breakfast in Taos I had booked online earlier. It was a converted adobe home from the 1930’s. It was also the only B&B I’ve ever stayed in that provided not only breakfast but an evening light buffet, everything in a very southwestern motif.

Cumbres & Toltec   Although so many railroads grew out of the Midwest, the Denver & Rio Grande grew out of Denver, starting in 1870. It represented the epitome of mountain railroading. It included the highest mainline US rail line, over Tennessee Pass in Colorado at 10,240 feet/3121 meters. West of Denver the through connection connecting Denver westward to Salt Lake City and beyond was made via the famous Moffat Tunnel, which I’ll pass through next year out of Denver. Because it was to be a mountain railroad, it started out narrow-gauge, since narrow-gauge tracks and trains can take sharper curves, and also, it was cheaper. At its height it was the largest narrow-gauge railroad in North America. However, in time, the lack of interconnectability of this three-foot gauge with standard-gauge (4 feet, 8.5 inches) railroads became enough of a problem that it was felt that the original decision had been shortsighted, and many, but not all, of the routes were changed to standard gauge starting in 1890.

Its name indicates that it was planned to go south from Denver to the Rio Grande, but the name doesn’t say that it was then also planned to continue to Mexico City. That never happened, and the main reason why was that silver was discovered in the appropriately named Silverton, Colorado. The route had reached south to the little town of Antonito, Colorado at this point, 1880, and all of a sudden, instead of continuing south, the route was suddenly shifted west, through the Toltec Gorge and over the Cumbres Pass down to the little town of Chama, New Mexico, then west to Durango, Colorado, and up north to Silverton. This swing west out of Antonito in 1881 was called the San Juan extension. There were two additional branch lines out of Durango, but most interestingly, there was a branch line south out of Antonito to Santa Fe, meaning that Santa Fe was connected to the north here (narrow-gauge) and to the south via Lamy by the standard-gauge Santa Fe railroad. All these branches are now, sadly, gone.

Although trackage from Denver down to Antonito (and elsewhere) was standardized, the San Juan extension never was, yet both freight and passenger service thrived for many years on it. But by 1968 the entire extension was not considered economically viable any more as it had become an anachronism, and it was planned to be torn up for scrap. (!!!)

However, the section from Durango north to Silverton was purchased privately to be an historic, tourist railroad, the Durango & Silverton, and in 1970, the states of New Mexico and Colorado purchased the section between Chama and Antonito for the same purpose, calling it the Cumbres & Toltec Railroad, considering that to be the most scenic section. But again, sadly, the trackage between the two preserved sections, along with those other branch lines, is now gone.

The Cumbres & Toltec is now America’s longest and highest narrow-gauge railroad. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Site, and is a National Civil Engineering Landmark of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

I decided to stay at the Chama (New Mexico) end, and although it’s a rather simple village, I had found online a charming Victorian B&B called the Parlor Car right across from the station. There is a number of selections for trips, each taking a day, and each including a hot lunch off the train at a special central location in Osier, Colorado. You could either do a half-day round trip from either end, or a one-way either way, with the return by bus. I chose to do the full-day out of Chama to Antonito, returning by bus. I also chose the more comfortable parlor car accommodations at a slight extra cost.

It was a steam train, and of course had narrow coaches. You could also step out onto an open gondola car to enjoy the scenery. Both Chama and Antonito are at about the same level in this High Country (Chama 7863ft/2397m, Antonito 7888ft/2404m), but Cumbres Pass tops out at 10,015ft/3083m. The grade on this western slope is a steep 4% (the eastern slope is a mere 1.5%), and years ago, freight trains had to be split up in Chama and brought up to the pass in small sections. The ride is very scenic, and, where I had expected brown and gray rockiness, was pleasantly green and treed along the whole route. [Actually, in all four of these states, sometimes you did find mountainous scenery, sometimes desert, sometimes greenery, sometimes very unusual rock outcroppings. Often these would follow one after the other as you drove along.]

Between Chama and Antonito, the route crosses the border between New Mexico and Colorado a total of eleven times. (!!!) At a discrete distance behind the train there follows a man in a little yellow fire vehicle riding the tracks. Its purpose is to catch and put out any small fires started by cinders escaping from the steam engine. The Durango & Silverton also does this, and the railroads have been praised by the Forest Service for their caution.

Durango   Not too very long ago, I instituted my Carpe diem! policy of no longer putting off to the future places I wanted to visit. I started to Seize the day! with my return visit to Alaska and Skagway to ride the White Pass & Yukon Railroad, at which point I said I wanted to include two more rail projects that were National Civil Engineering Landmarks The Cog up Mount Washington in New Hampshire and the Durango & Silverton in Colorado. Getting to ride The Cog developed into last fall’s visit to the Northeastern US, from Portland and Boston down to Washington, Philadelphia, and Pittsburg. In a similar manner, getting to Durango developed, after additions before and after, to this entire trip to the Southwestern US.

Although I went to Durango for the historic rail trip, it turned out that the town of Durango itself was a highlight of this whole trip. It is the epitome of what a town from the Old West is like, with modern cars mixed in. But it isn’t the dusty stereotype the reader may be picturing. It’s a somewhat upmarket, contemporary town as well, in the Old West mode, with a population of 14,000.

The center of activity is in the Main Avenue Historic District, which has hotels and shops dating from the 1880’s, as well as the historic train depot. Durango, at 6512 feet, is still part of that same High Country. It is a child of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, having been founded as the railroad arrived in 1881. And it looks it. The rail line here was constructed to haul silver (and gold) ore from the mountains between here and the aptly named town of Silverton. It was built in only nine months, and climbs 3000 feet, where it is 10-15° F cooler. It also carried passengers, and the historic train even today makes stops along the way at hotels and resorts which can only get their guests in and out by rail. It chugs along at about 18 miles an hour.

Numerous films have been shot in and around Durango because of its Western atmosphere. A few that involved both Durango and the railroad are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), How the West was Won (1963), Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), and Viva Zapata (1952). Those shot here but that didn’t include the railroad include City Slickers, Across the Wide Missouri, and The Cowboys.

There are a couple of period hotels, but most outstanding is the Strater, dating from 1877, where I stayed. It’s listed in Historic Hotels of America as an exceptional example of Victorian American architecture. It’s red brick with distinctive white stone cornices. It has the ambience of the real Old West. It has embossed ceilings, carved columns, crystal chandeliers, and wallpaper authentic to the 1880’s. It has one of the largest collections of Victorian walnut furniture extant. At the corner of the building is the Diamond Belle Saloon, with live period music. I’ve made a couple of literary references to Willa Cather and Lew Wallace, so here’s another. Western novelist Louis L’Amour found the atmosphere in Durango and the Strater so inspirational that he frequently stayed in room 222, a corner room right above the saloon, where he wrote some of his novels.

As I was settling in the day I arrived, I heard a whistle, and looking out my window, I saw that day’s train returning from Silverton, slowly chugging along passing behind the hotel. That evening I went to the free rail museum behind the depot. More interesting to me than the old engines and restored cars in the museum was the actual business being done in back. For the first time, I saw a steam engine on a turntable being moved for entry into the roundhouse.

The next day, which by the purest of unplanned coincidences happened to be my birthday, September 1, I took my ride to Silverton. The 45-mile route goes along the river canyon, and is very scenic, but it only takes just over a couple of hours, so after visiting the Silverton Historic District for the two-hour layover, I continued back on the train, as did many. Others, more in a hurry, did one direction by bus.

I had again opted for the Parlor Car, which was more comfortable and was again at the end of the train, with the back platform for viewing. Here it was called Presidential Class, and I was in the restored, plush, Cinco Animas car dating from 1883. The attendant served pastries and beverages, gave out bars of chocolate, and had a full bar with drinks for purchase.

Months ago, when I made the reservation at the Strater, it seems to me I was forewarned that there would be a biker convention in town over Labor Day Weekend when I was there. It didn’t delight me, but I figured I could work around it. Even when in Chama a few days earlier, there was talk about the bikers, and when driving to Durango, and for a good week later, the were more bikers on the roads than usual.

As it turned out, having so many bikers in town worked out very well, and to me it was historically significant, which needs an explanation.

As after centuries the Horse Era developed into the Motor Era, there was a correspondence in changes. Heavy-duty wagons pulled by horses became trucks. Stagecoaches became buses. Various buggies such as landaus, victorias, hansoms, and others, became cars, with a great deal of correspondence, including standard versus sportsier models, two- versus four-doors and hard-roofs versus convertibles. Continuing the analogy, what then happened to the single rider on horseback? He became the biker.

Especially here in the West, picture the swaggering cowboy walking down a Durango street in the 1880’s and a biker swaggering there today. Leather is a common fashion element with both; I even saw some bikers wearing chaps over cowboy boots. Picture a cowboy hitching his horse, and a biker parking his bike on a Durango street. Picture a row of 6-8 horses hitched along a Durango street, and also picture a row of 6-8 bikes parked there—perpendicularly, just as horses would have been hitched. Bikers being in town while I was there was the modern equivalent of cowboys in town, as I saw it.

There is always the tatooed, bandana-wearing, pony-tailed, over-leathered image of the biker—and that includes the men, too. (!!!) But the Hell’s Angels types are in the minority, as most bikers are really quite normal people, who enjoy the open road in a different way than others of us do. I remember the time (Reflections 2001 Series 2) when, shortly after arriving in England I was driving from Exeter to Land’s End and had a flat/puncture. I took Beverly out of the car and seated her in the wheelchair and started working on the tire/tyre, when, out of all the cars passing in the road, it was two bikers who stopped. They were fully in black leather, including a face-covering helmet, so they looked a bit like they were from outer space, but they took over, changed the tire, and were on their way.

Well, I had another positive biker experience on the train out of Durango. About half the people in the parlor car were apparently together, and were bikers, though not necessarily in leather at this point. Anyway, on the back platform I got talking with a guy about travel, and mentioned it was my birthday. After a while, he came over to my seat and insisted on buying me a Bloody Mary. I protested that it was only 11 AM, but did relent, and we had a nice talk. He was a home-fuel dealer in Kansas, and had just gotten into biking recently, so this was one of his more distant trips.

For some time now I’ve been traveling with two black spandex teeshirts that are very easy to rinse out and to let drip-dry in a hotel room. Also, instead of my usual beige chinos, I’ve this year gotten some very nice black ones. In other words, my appearance lately when traveling is a “vision in black”. This has resulted in two events of interest. When I was walking into the Santa Fe cathedral, a guy coming out came up to me and said “Are you a priest?” Well, of all things. Then, when registering in Durango at the Strater, I had a question about parking the car among all the places reserved for bikers. The sweet young thing checking me in asked “Are you a biker?” I was incensed! “Do I LOOK like a biker!!?” Then I looked down at the black outfit I was wearing and admitted: “Well, I suppose I do!”

With all this biker activity I rounded out my experience by ending up asking someone later on in California for my first ride as a passenger on a Harley, which I’ll discuss in due course.

There was one last thing of great interest in Durango that also really added to the period atmosphere. Within the Strater Hotel was located the Diamond Circle Melodrama, which was completing its 46th season. Time Magazine has called it one of the three top melodramas in the US.

Fitting in to the Durango historical period, the genre known as melodrama first became popular starting about 1860, so if one is going to see a historical town and historical railroad, seeing a historical theatrical genre is a rare treat to complete the circle.

The prefix “melo-” means “song”, as in the word “melody”; however, it’s not singing, but instead background music that’s essential to this genre. Music both increases the emotional response (joy!) and suggests characters (the villain!). Moreso than in other genres, set formulas are the rule, as are stock characters. Melodrama is characterized by exaggerated movements, which are precisely choreographed, and there are strong onstage emotions. Just think of the heroine showing despair by putting the back of her hand to her forehead. At one point in the presentation I saw, the characters on stage wanted to be sure no one was hiding and listening to what they were saying, so en masse, all the characters suddenly looked left! then right! then ahead! All was safe! Of course today, the audience giggles in the wrong places, but people also giggle when they see some of the fashions worn in other eras. It just depends what you’re used to.

All summer this year they were doing two shows in reperatory. The night I was there they were doing “The Wicklow Wedding” from 1864, where the evil process server ends up breaking up a wedding taking place in County Wicklow in Ireland. There was a full complement of Irish stock characters and British officials.

How do you make a museum piece palatable to what is going to be essentially an audience of tourists (and you know what I mean by that word)? Well, the emcee was at the piano and did a sing-along first, then instructed people how to boo, hiss, sigh, and cheer at the appropriate places. I thought it was a bit much, but the audience seemed to enjoy the participation.

The theater is set up like a nightclub, and I was seated at a table with three local women. It was only a slight shock when the waiters taking orders before the show ended up being the actors onstage, but during the intermission, it was even more of a shock when these characters that you by now had gotten to know reappeared as waiters. To see, say the heroine totally out of character asking someone if he wanted that drink on the rocks or straight up seems weird, as is that evil process server suddenly smiling and being charming as he serves the popcorn. Afterwards the actors form a receiving line in the lobby to chat with the departing audience. The whole process is very refreshingly intimate, since the artificial wall between that mysterious backstage area and the audience comes down entirely, and both sides of the proscenium become one.

Actually, the full name of the company is Diamond Circle Melodrama and Vaudeville. The ladies at my table essentially informed me that the melodrama might be fun as far as it goes—after all, you’re seeing a museum piece—but the real fun comes with the vaudeville, and so it did. It was the same troupe of actors, and I was afraid they were just going to do a song here, a dance there, but it was the funniest and most enjoyable part of the evening. In one scene, the three actresses were dressed in orange jumpsuits and were behind bars, à la “Chicago”, and sang an updated version of “He Had it Coming”. These murderesses hadn’t killed their boyfriends for cheating, as in “Chicago”, but it was all updated, since these boyfriends were being bumped off for the cell phone offenses they committed that we all love to hate. All these vaudeville acts were well done and hilarious.

Real melodrama also took place that evening. I saw the performance on Friday, August 31, the evening before the train ride on my birthday, and there was another coincidence, since, ever since I had booked the hotel, train, and theater ticket, I knew that that evening was the last performance of the season. It’s amazing how things worked out so well. The only thing was, it had also been mentioned on their website that it would also be the last performance forever. Apparently the Strater Hotel wanted the theater space for other business reasons, and it was all going to come to an end. When I picked up my ticket before the show I asked the woman in charge if it was really all over, and she did say they were trying to get permission to move somewhere else, but the papers hadn’t been signed yet. But, at the end of the show, the emcee played appropriate piano music to announce that papers had just been signed so that the Diamond Circle Melodrama (and Vaudeville) could move to the Durango Arts Center next season, but a huge fundraiser would be necessary to renovate the building. The next morning, it was front-page news on the local paper, and I read every word. Then, just as I was driving off, I went one block over and one block up to the Durango Arts Center. It’s a modest one-story brick building, and not on Main Avenue, and apparently there’s now a children’s museum of some sort there, so a lot of work will be necessary. I wish them well, since they do do a good job.

Melodrama continued from the 1860’s until (silent) movies became popular in 1910, and it’s easy to say that they’re gone. That couldn’t be further from the truth. True, melodrama in the theater is no longer around, but melodrama transferred directly to the silent screen. All the exaggerated motions, stock characters, heavy, exaggerated makeup, and all the rest, most notably including the musical accompaniment, are part of silent movies. Even when talkies came in it took quite a while for acting styles to change, as evidenced by the films of the early to mid-Thirties. It also strikes me that the musical accompaniments of films for many decades later (think Henry Mancini) must be a remnant of the music accompanying melodramas, often assuming a life of their own (The Theme from “Picnic”).

But melodrama is dead now, right? Nope. As talkies came in, melodrama moved to the new medium of the time, radio, in the form of soap operas. They got that name because, since they tended to appeal to housewives, they were often sponsored by detergent (“soap”) companies, and the use of the word “opera” to imply musical background is also very interesting. After radio came TV soap operas, and today the Spanish telenovela is becoming ever more popular. But think of the stock characters in soap operas, and the very obvious villains versus heroes. Melodrama lives! To say nothing of the fact that when, in real life, someone is “overdoing it”, you tell them to stop being so melodramatic.

Before leaving the topic, we need to diverge just slightly and really have to discuss one of the most famous melodramas ever, the one that’s even added vocabulary to the language, as well as stock images, and that has to be “The Perils of Pauline”. It started in 1914 with Pearl White playing Pauline. It was a very popular silent movie serial (just as later soap operas are in serial form) in weekly installments. 20 episodes were made, but not all survive. What remains today is a mere nine-reel version that was released in Europe in 1916. One item of trivia is that one of the episodes shows the first film appearance of Milton Berle as a young boy. The episodes always had the stock situation of a damsel in distress pursued by a villain and saved by a hero. Each episode ends in a cliffhanger to get you to come the following week to see the resolution. (But then what about “Who Shot JR?” for a cliffhanger?)

Now the word “cliffhanger” is precisely how Pauline influenced the language and culture, because of the episode, well, where she’s hanging off a cliff. What a stock image that has become. You may be interested in knowing that, given that most films through the Teens were made in the New York area before moving to Hollywood in the Twenties, the cliffhanger sequences were shot on the New Jersey Palisades on the Hudson River.

Another stock image is that of Pauline tied to a log headed for the sawmill. It’s an image we’re all aware of. I seem to remember a later version of that same theme with James Bond tied down with something like a deadly laser beam about to cut him in half.

But there cannot be any doubt that the most famous cliffhanger of all is Pauline tied up, lying across the railroad tracks with the train approaching in the background. That image is part of the culture, even if someone never saw the actual film. It was also filmed in the greater New York area, just beyond New Jersey. Across the Delaware River from New Jersey is the town of New Hope, Pennsylvania, a pleasant excursion. I remember being there and seeing where you can take a scenic short train trip on the Reading Railroad’s New Hope Branch, which I haven’t done. But I do read that when you take that trip, shortly out of New Hope you cross the trestle where that episode was filmed, and they announce that it’s now known as “Pauline’s Trestle”.

Four Corners   Natural borders, such as rivers or mountains, are quite obvious, but most people are also really quite aware of the uniqueness of some political borders. For instance, Basel is called the Dreiländerstadt (Three-Countries City), since when leaving Basel to the northwest you go from Switzerland to France, and leaving it to the northeast you cross into Germany.

Such tripoints are quite common. I remember being on the Delaware River at Port Jervis NY and within a few minutes being able to cross bridges from New York to Pennsylvania to New Jersey and back. Visiting Cumberland Gap, you stand in Virginia with Kentucky right next to you, both facing Tennessee. You can dance around both of these tripoints, but they are actually unreachable, one being in the middle of the Delaware River and the other on a steep hillside.

It’s easiest to spot tripoints with the straight-line borders we’ve talked about in the past. Scanning the map, you’ll note that the greatest concentration of straight-line borders involves internal borders in Australia, Canada, and the US.

But tripoints are a cinch. Look at the maps of these three countries and you’ll find dozens of tripoints. The challenge comes when looking for quadripoints. With all of Australia’s straight-line borders, you will not find four political entities coming together at one point. Looking at Canada you’ll also have a lot of trouble, although there is a new, very remote one I’ll talk about in a moment.

But even as a child, I remember looking at a map of the western US and seeing where, spectacularly, four states join at one single point. I made a reference to this last November (Reflections 2006 Series 14) when discussing Rapa Nui (Easter Island), saying that Santiago is below Boston, but Rapa Nui is below the Four Corners area in the US West.

There is a straight line at approximately 39°N with Utah and Colorado above it and Arizona and New Mexico below it. Rapa Nui is south of the straight line at about 109°W with Utah and Arizona to the west and Colorado and New Mexico to the east. This spectacular quadripoint is not only known as the Four Corners, the areas in the states involved economically and touristically make reference to it. For instance, Durango is described as being in the Four Corners area of Colorado, in this case, meaning Colorado’s southwest. It is for this reason that I am referring to these four states in this Series, often called “the Southwest”, as the Four-Corners States.

So leaving Durango, before continuing into Utah I just had to go to the Four Corners Monument, since I’m not the only one that celebrates this sort of geographic phenomenon. Actually, the Navajo Indian Reservation is in the Four Corners area of Arizona, and spills over into Utah and New Mexico (but NOT into Colorado), so the monument is exactly ¾ on Indian territory, and they charge a $3 admission fee to visit it.

Doing so is a somewhat dizzying experience, since you keep on changing states. From the map it looked like the diagonal highway going from Colorado to Arizona would get you there, but mere FEET before arriving, I apparently left Colorado and was welcomed to New Mexico for just that little distance. It’s a short New Mexico road that gets you onto the property.

The monument consists of a metal marker by the US Geodetic Survey, commonly seen elsewhere, attesting to the quadripoint. It’s then surrounded by a large platform with the four state flags on the appropriate sides. There’s a circular parking lot around that, and around that, a circle of booths with Indians selling artifacts, mostly jewelry. The uniqueness is that, while merely driving counterclockwise around the small circular parking lot looking for a spot, you go from NM to CO to UT to AZ.

It should be noted for accuracy that nothing is perfect in this world. The north-south border here, ostensibly at a longitude of 109°W, had actually been drawn a bit higher than that, at 109° 02’ 40.24”W, and the east-west line, at an ostensible latitude of 37°N, falls actually a bit short, at 36° 59’ 56.3”N. But they remain straight lines, and a quadripoint nevertheless.

What does one do at a quadripoint? First, you wait until those photographic fools let up on their picture taking, and then you do a few things. First you stand with both feet, then just one, right on the little quadripoint marker so that you’re in four states at once. Then, after you give others their (photographic) chance, you go back and squat down and touch the ground with two hands, so that you have a hand or a foot in each of four states. Then you walk around the marker in a circle between four states.

It was fun, but there could have been two improvements. First, the concrete platform was constructed in a diamond shape rather than in a square, so that you have four triangles, one per state. I found it confusing. Also, I would have liked to have seen the borderlines drawn further, right across the circular parking lot and between the Indians’ booths, just for the fun of it. Long lines marking the borders would have made it much easier to visualize.

On leaving, I went down the short NM road, turned left into CO, went five miles up that road, and turned into UT, which was my next destination. By the way, in this area there were traffic signs with a picture of a cow, labeled “open range”, so you really know you’re in the wide-open West. Also, you saw the odd oil well or two, just pumping away.

Now, up until recently, Canada had no quadripoints, but it does now, way up in its remote north. For many years, there had been a tripoint where Manitoba and Saskatchewan met, both facing the Northwest Territories. I understand that surveyors had journeyed into the wilderness to mark this tripoint. But in 1999, the Northwest Territories were divided into two, and the eastern part became the Nunavut Territory. (Yukon Territory still lies to the west, so Canada now has three territories). To mark the new division, the above-mentioned tripoint had a straight line drawn first north, then sideways, effectively forming a quadripoint at 60°N, 102°W. Although this is a perfectly valid quadripoint, there are two issues that would lessen interest in it. While the US one has four states joining, the Canadian one has two provinces and then just two territories joining. But the main disadvantage to this quadripoint is its remoteness. I wonder if even the surveyors have ventured into the wilderness to bother to update the old tripoint marker.

National Parks   I hadn’t visited any national parks in many years. Back in those old 1968-1969 drives, we went to Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, in the east to the Great Smokies, and to a number more, but they haven’t been on my list for a long time. On this trip I went to six more, five in this area and later, one in California. They used to have an annual pass if you’re visiting more than one park, and still do, but I took advantage of the newest thing that just came out recently, the Senior Pass. At the first National Park you visit (the fees are usually $25 per car), you pay a mere $10 to get the Senior Pass, which is then good FOR LIFE (!!!), then you enter that park and all the others at no charge whatsoever.

I actually went to the first of these five parks out of sequence. I had time before Durango to go to nearby Mesa Verde NP in Colorado, and then I went to Durango and Four Corners, then to the other four parks I visited in the Four-Corner states.

Mesa Verde NP   Mesa, the Spanish word for table, is used in an extended meaning to mean tableland, in other words, a plateau. It is also used in English in this extended meaning, so that Mesa Verde means Green Tableland, Green Mesa, Green Plateau (we once again have this flexibility of translation, so take your choice). Driving up to it, it appears as a tall outcropping. Once you enter the park, you can drive up to Park Point Overlook, the highest point in the park at 8572 feet/2613 meters. From here you can see four states quite magnificently, which should not surprise in the slightest, since the park is even closer in Colorado to Four Corners than Durango is.

But this park is different, since it’s meant to preserve the works of man instead of the works of nature. The ancestors of the present-day Pueblo Indians in the region, no longer referred to as the Anasazi but as Ancestral Puebloans to indicate the proper relationship, lived high up on the Mesa Verde between 750 and 1300 CE (Common Era, =AD). Originally, they lived on the surface in pithouses, and you can stop and see some archeological sites showing just how. Picture digging a shallow half-cellar—call it a sunken living room--then erecting a tent over it. I suppose burrowing a bit into the ground gives a bit more protection and permanence. Indeed, since it’s just these “pits” that we can still see today.

They later built the cliff dwellings they’re famous for, but, surprisingly only for the last 75-100 years they stayed on the mesa. There are openings all along the sides of the mesa, especially in side valleys, that look like large horizontal gouges. They built adobe houses in these, sort of like attached town houses, although they went up several stories.

The easiest one to visit, and one of the best preserved, is the Spruce Tree House (Photo by Ken Lund) near the Visitor Center. It was built between 1124-1178 CE, is the best-preserved and third-largest cliff dwelling, with 130 rooms built into a natural alcove and housing 60-80 people. You zigzag down an 100 foot/30 meter slope for about ½ mile/1 kilometer and then enter the dwelling area, which is 89 feet/27 meters high and 216 feet/66 meters long. It’s only a house or two deep. Except for the unusual location, it seems like any other pueblo dwelling. (Do note that “pueblo” is the Spanish word for “village”.)

It is not known why they suddenly decided to move from surface living to the cliff dwellings, nor is it known whey they suddenly decided to abandon Mesa Verde entirely after only 75-100 years of living in the cliff dwellings. One theory for moving in is for additional protection. Also, since most of the dwellings face south, they did offer light and warmth from the low winter sun, and shade from the high, hot summer sun.

It is also possible to visit, with difficulty, a number of other structures, but they all involve going with a ranger (for a fee), and climbing down a lot of wooden ladders, which I felt I could easily forego. However, by driving the rather short Mesa Top Loop and walking some very short trails, you can look just slightly downward on the Square Tower House (Photo by Garbagemantree)—click to inspect details. The tower is in ruins and only about four levels tall, but it’s believed it might originally have been as much as twelve levels high. On this drive you can also look across and down to the impressive Cliff Palace (Photo by Ken Lund)—click to look into the shadows. It was built between 1190-1269 CE, but abandoned by 1300. It's the largest cliff dwelling in North America, with 150 rooms.

Arches NP   Crossing into Utah after the Four Corners Monument I saw three National Parks in a row. I drove north to Moab, where I had booked a charming little B&B on a quiet back street, and then spent the afternoon visiting Arches NP.

All the terrain in southern Utah is highly unusual, with red sandstone outcroppings varying with desert varying with green areas. Entering Arches NP you drive upward on a red sandstone mesa for some very unusual views, not up or down, but generally at eye level.

This sandstone is very soft, and brittle, and wears away particularly easily. Picture a long, unsliced loaf of bread, then picture making a number of slices in it not across, but lengthwise, leaving long fin or wall shapes. Now picture a long slab of sandstone that’s been pushed upward by natural earth movements. It’s split the long way, like the loaf of bread, into several wall-like structures next to each other, maybe just 2-3 here, maybe 8-10 there. Don’t picture sharp splits, since erosion has warn every sharp edge down to a smooth roundness. Both the color and roundness have that adobe look by coincidence. Now these walls themselves are unusual enough to see, but there’s more. The long walls further erode and crumble until there’s just a row of pinnacles left. Picture rows of red pinnacles one after the other. And these walls, and pinnacles, are perhaps an average of 8-10 stories tall.

The pinnacles wear away unevenly. Most look like a vertical string of beads. On a number, the top “bead” is a bit larger, and gives the look of a rock balanced on the top of a pinnacle.

Given the number of what looks like balanced rocks in the park, when you note on the map that you’re coming to one actually named “Balanced Rock”, you should expect something spectacular, and that’s what you get. On top of a slender pinnacle of maybe eight stories there’s a HUGE pear-shaped “bead” of maybe four stories seemingly balanced. It’s really attached, but looks precarious. Making it look even more precarious is the fact that it’s considerably off-center. You get the feeling it would fall if you breathed on it.

Some of the “walls” wear differently. Instead of turning into a row of pinnacles, the wind, sand, water, and freezing temperatures start eating out a cave in the wall. The wall being not all that thick, over time the cave might end up being cut entirely through the wall and voilà, you are left with an arch up above it. Given all the different kinds of erosion, it’s still the arches that give the park its name. One location is called Double Arch, since you can clearly see two arches that have developed at an angle, perpendicular to each other.

Skyline Arch is impressive, since it shows that changes can take place quickly on occasion. There’s a photo that shows it before 1940 to compare to how it is now. In that year there was a sudden, dramatic change, when a huge boulder fell from under the arch, doubling it in size. The opening is now 71 feet/21.6 meters wide and 35.5 feet/10.2 meters high.

Sand Dune Arch is memorable for a different reason. It’s not visible from a distance, and you have to take the short trail in between two “walls” to go see it. Actually, it’s small and not particularly impressive, but the great fun was walking between walls. You get out of the hot sun into the cool shade, then the trail sort of ends. I slipped off my sandals and walked barefoot in the cool, cool, extra-fine red sand between the walls. It was a thoroughly refreshing experience on a hot day.

The most famous arch in the park is Delicate Arch. Its image is even used on some Utah license plates. You can view it from the trailhead ¾ mile/1.5 kilometers away, or walk up closer to it on two other trails. You can guess what I did in the heat. It’s unique because it’s so different from all the others, which are within walls. Delicate Arch is also called “Cowboy Chaps”, since that’s what it looks like. Picture a statue of a bowlegged cowboy wearing thick chaps, then cut away the part above the waist. What’s left is Delicate Arch. It’s not a horizontal bridge like most arches here, but just stands there almost vertically, like a wishbone. The opening is 45 feet/13.7 meters high and 35 feet/10 meters wide.

It’s important to realize the transient nature of all these beautiful rock formations, the arches as well as the others. The weathering forces that created them are still at work, and will eventually destroy every last one of them.

Bryce Canyon NP   The young Colorado River runs along the border of Arches NP on its way to the Grand Canyon, and just moving west across Utah to Bryce Canyon, the road went through at least one minor NP (Capitol Reef) and a couple of National Monuments and National Forests. It’s an embarras de richesses/embarrassment of riches.

Even as early as I had tried, I hadn’t been able to get accommodations at the 1924 Bryce Canyon Lodge (but did eat dinner in this National Historic Landmark), so I stayed right outside the park at Ruby’s Inn, which has been serving the park since 1916.

You really cannot tell that Bryce Canyon is a canyon, since natural earth forces have moved the east side of it miles and miles away to the horizon, so you really end up with two separated plateaus. What’s left here is the eroded west side, which seems oddly like half a canyon. If in Arches you look across, in Bryce you look down, way down, since you drive along a one-sided rim with a number of downward viewpoints. I of course saw them all, but it really isn’t necessary. By far the best area for looking down is the few viewpoints closest to the entry to the park, where the lodge is.

What do you see when you look down? I call them pinnacles, very similar to some in Arches, but here’s they’re called “hoodoos”, a word based on “voodoo”, to evoke the weird shapes. I’ll stick to “pinnacle”. The unique feature in Bryce is that you see JUST pinnacles, on, and on, and on. And looking down near the lodge, the rim runs in a pronounced C-shape, so here you are standing at the edge of what they call the Amphitheater. There are just so many pinnacles below; sometimes they’re referred to as the Silent City Formation. The best viewpoint around the Amphitheater is Bryce Point, but most famous is the aptly named Inspiration Point.

Zion NP   In nearby Zion you look UP. The main part of the park is quite compact; it just consists of Zion Canyon, which is a mere 8 miles/13 kilometers long, and a narrow ½ mile/1K wide. However, given these dimensions, note that it’s also ½ mile/1K HIGH. Put another way, the canyon floor is at 4000 feet, and the walls are 3000-4000 feet higher. The red (and some white) mountains on either side of the valley are relatively young, and haven’t had time to wear down as older cliffs would, so they are steep and quite vertical. The Virgin River, which did all this carving, still flows along the scenic road, and even today, continues its carving. Every year a million tons of rocky sediment is washed out of the canyon by the river and flows into the Colorado River, west of Grand Canyon.

When I’ve been saying “red” as the color of stone in all these parks, don’t picture a bright red, but actually vermillion, that orangey-red so favored by the Chinese in their decorations.

Traffic in this narrow canyon had gotten so bad that a few years ago the Park Service inaugurated a free shuttle service. You park your car at the Visitors Center at the entrance and ride up the canyon to the handful of locations of interest. The Zion Lodge is halfway up the canyon, so those of us staying there were mailed a windshield sticker allowing driving to the lodge, but no further. From there, I took the shuttle both up and down the valley.

At most of the stops you just gawk upwards, sometimes walking a short distance, often uphill, on a trail. At a bend in the river, at the stop called Big Bend, you look up to some massive red mountains, plus a huge WHITE mountain between them. The fact that it’s a different color gives rise to its name, the Great White Throne (6744ft/2056m), which leads to a double story.

When I was standing on the rim of the Amphitheater in Bryce Canyon looking down at that “city” of pinnacles way below, some people came up, read the sign telling about the Amphitheater, then wondered aloud where it was. Maybe the Amphitheater was down there among the hoodoos, they wondered aloud. I (with restraint) politely informed them they were standing on its edge.

Then, at Zion, a man got on the bus after seeing this huge Great White Throne, which does really stand out from all the red surrounding it, and actually asked the driver in essence if the Great White Throne was real or a backdrop behind the red mountains. Some people shouldn’t be let out of their homes unsupervised.

At what seems to be the northern end of Zion Canyon is a smaller circle of mountains called the Temple of Sinawava. The steep mountains form a C just large enough for the scenic road to end in a loop beside the Virgin River. The sense of enclosure is palpable. But wrong.

It turns out you are not at the upper end at all, just at the upper end of the wider part of the canyon. There is a much narrower section leading north from here, just wide enough for the stream and a path beside it. The signs explain that the path is one mile/1.5K long up the narrow section to the point where the path ends, and those interested can take off their shoes and walk in the stream to the section actually called the Narrows, which is about 7 yards/meters wide. Now I do short trails, but I decided to do this two-mile round trip anyway. At the end I didn’t walk in the stream, but, huffing and puffing, enjoyed the walk anyway. I suppose. Ah, nature. Actually, I vastly prefer my overlong urban walks.

Going back south in the canyon you come to the short, steep trail up to Weeping Rock. This phenomenon is attractive and impressive, but actually quite easy to understand. Layers of rock have been laid down over the eons, but not all are sandstone; occasionally there’s a layer of granite. Groundwater from springs or rains slowly sinks downward through the porous sandstone, but when it reaches a layer of hard granite it can’t penetrate it and instead goes sideways. When it reaches the open cliff surface it seeps out and drips down. At Weeping Rock the dripping has undercut the surface, so you can walk for a bit behind the dripping edge, just like you can occasionally do with some waterfalls. All the moisture encourages a natural, vertical “garden” to flourish.

Zion Lodge is well positioned for upward views. I stayed in the first of three rustic log cabins on this trip. Well, not too rustic. They had air conditioning and laptop hookups and everything else you’d need. The Zion one also had a front porch to look at the views. Walking back from dinner at the main lodge building it was rather dark, and I became aware of shapes a short distance to my right. It was a family of (shorter, pony-sized) mule deer, calmly chomping away, mowing the lodge lawn, and beyond were quite a few more.

Grand Canyon NP   One major park in Colorado, then three in Utah. Leaving Zion, I crossed south into Arizona to visit the fifth and last of the parks in these four states, Grand Canyon NP.

Doing so I was forced to encounter a quirk with the clocks. All these four states are on Mountain Time, and upcoming Nevada and California further west are on Pacific Time. But it wasn’t as simple as that.

Arizona does not like daylight savings time. I think they’re wise, since I, too, feel it’s a waste of—time. But, while everyone else accepts it, Arizona stands its ground and goes against the grain. It alone stays on standard time all year long. So while the others are now on Mountain Daylight Time, Arizona is on Mountain Standard Time.

Now if you do a bit of calculating, you’ll see that MST comes out to be the exact equivalent of Pacific Daylight Time, which NV and CA are presently on. So the practical upshot of it is that Arizona in the summer “moves itself to the coast”. In other words, going SOUTH out of Utah into Arizona I was de facto on California/Nevada coastal time.

The Grand Canyon is the largest chasm on earth, two billion years in the making. The first westerner to see it was the explorer Coronado in 1540. It’s not the world’s deepest. In North America alone, three are deeper, including Mexico’s Copper Canyon that I saw in January. But it’s its vastness that boggles the mind. You can go from viewpoint to viewpoint, and each will be just a (very little) bit different, but you can’t swallow it all. I suppose the best way to take it all in at once is to fly over it—and there are viewing flights—but even that would show you too much to comprehend I would think. Measuring along the Colorado River, it’s 277 miles/447 kilometers long and an average of 10 miles/16 kilometers across. Its average depth is one mile/1.5K, so here you look DOWN.

What you see on this very downward view is a very colorful rock landscape in many layers. It looks like erosion took place on the upper layers one way, then in another direction further down, and so on. In some places you can spot the Colorado River down below, among the colorful, carved out rock formations and cliffs.

To be brutally frank: what you see from one viewpoint is not much different from the next. It is not necessary to go to the North Rim or to numerous South Rim viewpoints, because the views are not all that different. Of course that stops no one, since you try to take in as much as possible.

Only 10% of those who visit the South Rim also go to the North Rim. Its advantage is that it’s much less developed, and more rustic. What was originally developed on the South Rim is charming; what’s been added since makes it too much like a little city. We’re still in the High Country here, but the North Rim is about 1200 feet/1935 meters higher than the South Rim. At night, you can see across the canyon, north to south, or south to north, and above its darkness a line of light indicating the opposite lodge and hotel area, and you can see how much longer that line of light is on the South Rim. The distance across the rims (10M/16K) is not far as the crow flies, but unfortunately, we are not crows. Take a mule ride down the canyon and up the other side and it will take four days. To drive, you have to make a huge circle to a point upstream where you can cross the river, and it takes about 4.5 hours.

In 1968 we had done a quick day visit to the South Rim. This time I wanted to visit the North Rim first coming south out of Utah, then take that long circuitous drive (no crows or mules for me), and then do a rather unique “double visit” back to the South Rim.

Arriving at the North Rim there were two destinations that interested me. First was the Cape Royal Drive that brought you along a number of canyon views. It ran out along the Walhalla Plateau, which projects into the canyon and allows, unusually, views to the east. Rim elevations here are 8000-8800 ft/2400-2800 m, the South Rim being lower, at about 6900 ft/2100 m.

The second destination is the North Rim Lodge from the 1930’s, which is spectacularly perched right on the rim’s edge. It has cathedral ceilings, and the lounge has huge picture windows showing the canyon view from indoors, with side terraces for outdoor views. You’re looking down into Bright Angel Canyon an internal sub-canyon within Grand Canyon. Bright Angel Canyon is also very noticeable from the South Rim. From the lodge there is one 15-minute trail to Bright Angel Point, with spectacular drop-offs, sometimes on both sides, which is a bit nerve-wracking. The lodge has no hotel rooms, but dozens and dozens of log cabins, so I had my second stay in a comfortable log cabin in the woods.

The next day I had to backtrack 40 miles/65 kilometers north to start my circular route south. The terrain, though, is gorgeous, not what you think of when you picture Arizona deserts. It’s all forest and meadow. As I drove, I pictured that below all this greenery going down for a mile were the same rock formations that behind me were so spectacularly carved into the canyon, yet these remained quite UNcarved.

Eventually crossing the Colorado upstream and several hours later, I re-entered the park by its east entrance, and stopped at viewpoints along the eastern edge of the South Rim, up to Grand Canyon Village, which has the rail connection and a free shuttle bus system that connects the remaining viewpoints. To me the most interesting spot on this east end was the site of the former Grand View Hotel (1897). You could then get to the Grand View from Flagstaff by horseback or by an 11-12-hour bone-jarring stagecoach ride. The stage cost a steep $20 and left Flagstaff M W F and returned T Th Sa. There were three station stops along the way to refresh passengers and replace horses. Until 1901 Grand View was the most popular tourist destination on the canyon, but in that year the Santa Fe railroad arrived and skipped Grand View in favor of Grand Canyon Village, 11 miles/17 kilometers west. The rail trip at that time took three hours and cost only $3.95. It was a no-brainer. At that point few opted for the stagecoach ride and the Grand View closed, with few remaining traces today.

Since I was doing a “double visit” to the South Rim, I then drove over an hour to the south to Williams for the night.

Two notable spurs to the north of the Santa Fe Railroad was the one from Lamy to Santa Fe, already discussed, and the one from Williams to Grand Canyon Village. The Santa Fe essentially opened up Grand Canyon to major tourism via this spur in 1901. For years it was the only way you’d really want to get to the canyon, but by 1968 cars had taken over and the spur was abandoned. Then in 1989 a private company took it over and it’s been running ever since as a tourist railroad, the Grand Canyon Railway. The 65 mile/105 kilometer run takes 2h15m one-way. It will be no surprise that the Grand Canyon Railway is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The GCR has its own modern hotel next to the Williams station, so I made this second foray to the South Rim in two days a three-night affair, staying in Williams, (train) Grand Canyon Village, (train) Williams. The GCR is also standard-gauge, and uses cars dating from the 1930’s and 1940’s. Again I took the parlor car option at the end of the train, where they distributed beverages with pastries on the morning trip going and with vegetable dip on the return trip in the afternoon (you could come back the same day if you don’t want to stay over). You can also purchase drinks from the bar.

The original Grand Canyon Village is along the rim and is full of charm. Actually, it’s now the GCV Historic District. It’s inland from this that extensive campsites have been established, stores, offices, and just too much more. You need to disregard all this excess and just look at the Historic District. The first historic building you encounter off the train is quite appropriately the Santa Fe Station of 1909, just behind the historic buildings on the rim itself. It’s one of the few remaining LOG rail depots in North America. Just seeing those logs tells you you’re in for a pleasant visit, and that doesn’t even count seeing the canyon, just all these historic buildings.

Most spectacular is the lodge, the El Tovar Hotel (1905), just recently restored. It has the turn-of-the-20C rustic atmosphere that sets the tone for the whole GCV. Among many others, Theodore Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, and Zane Gray stayed here.

Originally, the Fred Harvey (“Harvey Girls”) organization ran the hotel, and they hired a young female architect from Saint Paul, Mary Colter, to build a number of buildings along the rim. They are all magnificent works of art, and I now have great respect for her. I’ll mention just three. Opposite El Tovar she built Hopi House, originally to house Hopi performers, and now a gift shop. It’s an adobe building as authentically Southwest as you’d want to see.

At the far eastern end of the road along the rim she built the Watchtower, several stories tall, which you can climb up for the view. It’s not an exact copy of any particular Indian tower, but is generic and authentic. With most of her stone buildings, she personally chose every stone and decided on its placement.

But at the far western end of the road along the rim she built my favorite, called Hermit’s Rest (1914). It’s again a stone building with a double-high single room as you enter. On entering, there’s a huge arch before you separating the room in two, with the half-room behind the arch in hemisphere form, with period chairs. In the center of the hemisphere is an actual fireplace, but you get the feeling that the whole area behind the arch is within the fireplace. It’s a magnificent concept.

You would think that the GCR would be satisfied with a landmarked railway leading to a landmarked village on the edge of nothing less than the Grand Canyon, but unfortunately they’ve decided to hokey up the entire atmosphere. Before the train leaves Williams in the morning there’s a grandstand area where they play out a 20-minute “Wild West Show”. Aside from the circus atmosphere this generates, it’s in no way authentic. The train promotes a 1930’s and 1940’s atmosphere and the Wild West as the 1880’s. Lots of people went to see this show, but a number of us were more sensible and stayed away. I read my book on a park bench. At least this part was avoidable.

It got worse on the return trip. The attendant announced that “something was going to happen”. When I went up and asked her to be specific, she said the train would stop and a couple of actors from the morning show dressed as cowboys were going to “rob the train”. I got furious, and complained, and two conductors came to talk to me. I waited out this glorification of robbery on the back platform, but the whole concept, which interrupts the friendly socialization going on among passengers, is a major negative in my mind to actually taking this train. They said that lots of people like it. I would say that some like it, but others just tolerate it, and don’t speak up like I do. It was a negative ending to an otherwise enjoyable rail trip.

Route 66   Although Williams was proud of the fact that its two main streets were a loop for Route 66, it got really interesting a couple of exits further west off Interstate 40, where the long stretch of Historic Route 66 remains and takes off through Seligman and Kingman. Seligman in particular tries to maintain the roadside architecture of the period. I drove a couple of hours here on the Mother Road away from the interstate—for the kicks, if you get my drift.

The minute I got off the interstate on 66 toward Seligman I was delighted to find the first of many of these:

The Burma-Shave shaving cream company is long gone, but their clever advertising ploy lives on in these imitations. The series of signs were all brand new, and different ones were on either side of the road for miles and miles. I only wrote down a few, then gave up:

It’s a renewal of an era thought lost.

I was getting ready to cross into Nevada and California, but stopped at two locations, both on the Colorado River beyond Grand Canyon. The river forms the border between Arizona and Nevada/California, so I’ll quickly mention them here.

Laughlin   Both Arizona and Nevada are pretty much in the High Country, but the Colorado River cuts really low at this point, so out of Kingman the road went down, down, down to about the 500 foot/160 meter level to the unusually named Bullhead City, Arizona facing Laughlin, Nevada across the river. Upon crossing the river and later leaving on the Nevada side, the car climbed up, up, up again. I will discuss Laughlin in the next Series, along with Nevada in general.

Hoover Dam   Heading up from Laughlin toward Las Vegas, I veered a bit out of the way. I first went through the attractive art-deco historic district of Boulder City, which is the only municipality in Nevada where gambling is ILLEGAL. Leaving Boulder City you get jaw-dropping views down to Lake Mead, formed behind Hoover Dam by the dammed-up Colorado River, before it reaches Laughlin.

The names in the area are in confusion. The dam was to originally have been built upstream a bit in Boulder Canyon. When it was built at its present location, it kept the original name planned, Boulder Dam, with Boulder City named after it, since the workers were housed there originally. Then the dam was renamed for Hoover, so it lost its inaccurate connection to Boulder Canyon, but the basis for calling the town Boulder City still remains very tenuous.

The highway going through the area is very unusual. It goes past Boulder City, then zigzags downhill and actually crosses over the top of the dam, looking like a narrow city street, before zigzagging uphill on the Arizona side. I’ve visited the dam before, and had no plans to visit it again, but the road was busy, filled with visitors to the dam. No wonder trucks and other large vehicles are banned from this entire highway, even though its a major route from Kingman to Las Vegas.

I discovered the new solution. I saw pieces of a white concrete highway as I went along on both sides, then saw where it was to bridge the chasm just south of the dam and way above it. Presumably it will carry all the through traffic, including trucks, and the old route across the dam will remain just for visitors.

There are clock towers on each side of the dam, one labeled “Nevada Time” and one “Arizona Time”. They were the same now in the summer, but would be an hour different after daylight time is over.

Afterward I drove diagonally through Las Vegas on the freeways, since I wanted to go northwest across the California border into Death Valley first, which is what the next Series will be about.

Proust   We’ve had quotes in several languages, and now it’s time for French. I’ve found something I like a lot from Marcel Proust (rhymes with roost). Proust (1871-1922) is best known for probing memory in “À la recherche du temps perdu”, published starting in 1913, the standard translation of which is ‘”Rememberance of Things Past”. Although that English title is quite pleasant, it never did translate the actual French title accurately. I understand that newer editions are now called, perfectly accurately, “In Search of Lost Time”. But all versions indicate that what we’re discussing here is memory.

The work is in seven volumes, of which Volume I is most famous. It’s called “Du côté de chez Swann”, which is a bear to translate. Literally it could be clumsily translated as “On the Side of Swann’s [House]”. One frequently-heard standard translation is “Swann’s Way”, and, as long as you realize you’re talking about a pathway and not Swann’s way of cooking chicken soup, you’re OK, but that does remain a problem of this translation. The better standard version is “The Way by Swann’s”.

What happens in the passage in question is among the most famous events in our culture (its fictional, but so is Don Quixote). It involves the French pastry called a madeleine (mad.LEN), sort of a flavored pound cake in the form of a scallop shell, baked in a special madeleine pan, similar to a muffin tin for baking muffins. There’s really not much distinctive about a madeleine over any other French pastry (an éclair, anyone?), except for the fact that Proust used it here and made it famous.

A man is visiting his mother in the village where he was born. She serves him madeleines with tea. As he tastes the madeleine, its flavor suddenly transports him to a day in his childhood in this same village where he was visiting an elderly aunt who also served him madeleines and tea. The whole point here is about memory, and what can evoke it.

This sort of thing is called “involuntary memory” or “involuntary sensory recall”. Tellingly, it’s also called “Proustian memory”. On a practical basis, actors willfully use this to bring forth needed emotions to do a scene.

This website deals to a great extent with memory in general as well as specific memories. The Proust quote I have come across is this:

Before we get to what it means, it’s pronounced this way:

É as in café, I as in ski, note the nasal vowel, note the kiss-vowel Ü. As a matter of fact, pronouncing DI followed by DÜ several times is good practice to say Ü, since it’s just a matter of adding and subtracting a pucker.

Now for meaning. The only problem is that French can put the word “paradise” in the plural, while it sounds a bit funny to say “paradises” in English. But let’s try it that way anyway:

Ah those memories. Dear and departed loved ones. Happy past events. They gain special meaning in your memory simply because you can’t get back to them.

Here’s an alternate, but inferior, attempt to try to avoid saying “paradises”:

OK, but it doesn’t pack the power of the above, which has the additional advantage of being closest to the original. Also:

Good, but not really as clear. Let’s stick to the above. Happy memories, Proustian and otherwise.