The Search For American Freedom

There is a massive hole in the middle of the Arizona desert and I’m not talking about the Grand Canyon. The hole is south of Winslow and can be reached by a short detour off Interstate 40 where its approach is proclaimed by a series of increasingly importunate road signs that remind one more of the cardboard placards painted by panhandlers rather than directions to the site of a serious scientific oddity.

For it is a meteor crater which we’re talking about here, not the biggest ball of yarn, or the tallest cross in the western hemisphere (which I drove past today in the Texas panhandle; it looked like unusually thick telephone pole). The Barringer Crater, as it’s called (named for mining engineer Daniel Barringer, whose family still owns the site), was formed by a piece of intergalactic rock that managed to plummet to earth about 50,000. It's supposed to be pretty impressive and, if you want its stats, here they are: it is approximately 4,000 feet in diameter and 570 feet deep. Moreover, it rises dramatically above the surrounding desert by about 150 feet. On the other hand, it costs $15 just to take a peek and for that amount of money I could purchase about 70 miles worth of gas, so I drove on, choosing, as I have done most of this trip, to view America at a speed of 70 miles per hour, stopping only as necessary to refuel and sleep.

I just did this two months ago, so please view the archives for an account of the more leisurely and, it has to be said, optimistic drive west. Now the car is in reverse – not literally, of course – and I find myself retracing my steps and assuring myself that what must seem to the world like a retreat is really an advance, a renewal of sorts, a more determined settlement in New York after some sort of western epiphany. There is, however, the distinct possibility that I am returning simply because I am tired of driving.

I am typing this post, by the way, in a surprisingly pleasant Starbucks near Oklahoma City. The Cadillac sits outside, loaded with everything I brought to California and more. This morning I greeted 2008 in a motel room in Amarillo, Texas, wondering at the old face I encountered in the bathroom mirror. I have not been carded by any of the gas station attendants who’ve bagged the 40s I’ve bought and brought back to the motels to numb my evenings. It is amusing to reflect that I once fervently desired the cessation of the intrusive practice asking for identification for the purchase of alcoholic beverages. Now its occurrence is pleasant and reassuring.

So, what’s next? A thousand or so miles back to Virginia to pick up the rest of my things and then a swift resettlement back at 113th Street, followed by unpacking and perhaps some repainting and recarpeting. When I left Santa Barbara on Sunday morning, I removed my sweater at a gas station and drove all the way to Flagstaff, Arizona in shirt-sleeves. But there was snow on the ground in Flagstaff and the temperature plunged that night to a low of nine degrees. I put on my sweater again and added a jacket and unpacked my suitcase. If the past few months have provided anything, they have inured me to almost any displacement.

The photo above was taken on Monday morning, as I left Flagstaff.