It was raining when I started… an omen mayhaps?
A long drive can go a lot of different ways. Today’s 8 hour trek out to Sedona went my second least favorite way. It afforded a wooden nickel tour through my memory palace, with my mind shuffling through the libraries of lament, the salons of sorrow, and the rooms of regret. It’s a mind trap of melancholy and makes the drive seem much, much longer.
I tried distracting myself with stops along the way. As I was on the 10 East out of LA, I made my traditional Cabazon stop.
Large Marge first introduced me to this location during Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.
The dinosaurs have a new paint job and the place seems to be undergoing a bit of a renaissance. It looks almost downright borderline respectable as a tourist trap versus my long held belief that it was more a fallen-on-hard-times roadside attraction trading on the power of nostalgia.
I was running low on gas and wound up having to put $5 in just a few miles shy of the Arizona border. A necessary expense to get into the land of cheaper gas… though I suspect the car’s gas gauge isn’t entirely true on what’s left in the tank. Nonetheless, the overpriced CA station did afford a weird insight into desert economics. Unlike say Wall Drug in South Dakota which offered free ice water to travelers, this place on the California border was in full on drought bunker mentality.
Just as the feeling of depression over time, space, and life reached an event horizon, the Arizona Red Rocks peeked over the literal horizon. I stopped at the Ninococo Ranger Station and snapped some photos… including a selfie with this bear–
As I drove into Sedona proper, I kept taking the scenic vista turnoffs; they came about every mile and a half so it was slow progress… but I didn’t care. The beauty cannot be duplicated on film. I’ve tried tweaking the colors and lighting on the images my iPhone lens captured but they remain probably a tenth of what I saw with my own eyes. Still, a 10th is better than nothing, so:
The packet pickup and “expo” was at the Sedona Elk Lodge… I’m not entirely sure I know what Elks do. I always think of them wearing water buffalo hats but then I realize that’s on the Flintstones…
I so hated the white event shirt that I broke down and bought a merchandise shirt — it’s blue and has the course printed on the back. While waiting in line to pay, I chatted with some fellow runners and we decided the race organizers purposefully did a crappy event shirt so we’d all plunk down another $25 for the tech shirt. Diabolical!
In any event, I’m packeted and bib’d for tomorrow. At the very least the scenery should be jaw dropping.
In order to carbo load I’m treating myself to this, which is also a bit jaw dropping:
