We left Austin at about 2:30 a.m. (after Thor's gig). I drove through the night in our beautiful white rental car with great speakers, greeting the dawn in west Texas and it's odd vista of slowly bobbing oil pumps and mesas.
Thor then drove us to our first destination: Carlsbad Caverns. Amazing formations of cool, damp, dripping rock. Living earth. Indescribable. Tourists saying to each other "Look honey. It looks like an oriental sculpture." It was far deeper than that.
On through the same day to John's friend in Taos. Stopping at a Dunkin' Donuts in Santa Fe. It was right next to the cemetery. The "regulars" at the counter said "Yeah, sometimes they come in here for coffee too". Taos was the beginning of the sage, the stars, the stillness. John's friend lit a sage smudge-stick. A ritual. The next morning, we had fresh apples plucked from the tree, still dusted with sage. The best apple I have ever eaten.
Hot baths at Ojo Caliente. Picking bunches of sage at the side of the road to fill the car. Playing Peter Gabriel's new album "Us" over and over and over. It was the soundtrack for the trip. Missing the Petrified Gardens by only a short time. Driving, driving, driving. Past the red cliffs (the Vermilion Cliffs) in Arizona heading up to Utah. The stars, the moon.
The festival itself was wonderful. Hearing Glen Velez, Brent Michael Davids, others. Glen Velez pulling the soul from his frame drum. (Thor has since painted Glen playing: tears rolling down his cheeks) Playing in front of huge RED cliffs, with the spirit of Carlsbad and Taos floating with us. Spiritual. Exploring Zion National Park. Sensual Weeping Rock, the water dripping on our faces. Red cliffs, white sand. Blasting the Ohio Players' "Fire" as we sped past the hoards of slow-minded tourists. Our senses expanding in every sense.
Returning, we stopped at the Grand Canyon North Rim. The aspens with their eyes & golden leaves. Sinead O'Connor playing. Starting down the trail into the canyon, but there were too many pools of donkey excretions to make it enjoyable. Instead, we warmed our skins, our bones on a huge rock in the sun. Soaking in the elements. We became the elements.
Again, we missed the Petrified Forest (Gardens?). Trying to decide where we would camp for the night. John chose Blue Lake in New Mexico. It looked promising.
Blue Lake turned out to be a desolate hole of water surrounded by dirt, rocks and a few scrubby trees. We joked about calling our friends back in Austin and having them come get us at "beautiful" Blue Lake. Once they got there, they would become angry and we would say "It'll be funny in a year". (Tour jokes, guess you had to be there. We were getting a little delirious by then, too.) Setting up our tent in the dark. Just like in the comedies, the tent refused to assemble itself in any facsimile of a lodging. The three of us crowding into it eventually. "Sleeping" on hard rocks. Cold. Ridiculous. Rising with dawn the next morning. Unfolding from the tent. Rumpled. Thor has told me I looked beautiful that morning...
Speeding down through New Mexico, Texas. Night fell again in the wooded hill country. Peter Gabriel playing yet again. The stars, the darkness all around us. Flying through the night. Thor and I did not want to return. John had become grumpy and wanted some decent coffee. We came home
From my journal:
10/8/92
Bone littered pages
Red mountains
Sagebrush dusted
Morning-cold apples
Quivering yellow/white aspens
Eyes
Half moon in the
Black-bright sky
Racing by.
Hurtling through the darkness
(all around us)
We saw shooting stars
You & I
10/9/92
Carlsbad. Taos. Zion. Grand Canyon. Peter Gabriel. New Mexico.
Arizona. Too much to write. The images will stay with me. Weeping
Rock.
Ingrid