day 12 -- el paso to tucscon

didn't have much interest in exploring el paso, which I kept calling 'UTEP' in my head, and when I staggered out into the blinding sun I was on the clock. I had reserved space on (running spot vet now retired to the southland) itchy's couch in tucson. hadn't checked mileage, but I figured it was a pretty good run...straight through new mexico since I'd covered it previously but a few scenic detours planned for arizona. headed to the mighty I-10 to skirt downtown traffic and remembered why interstates are mostly off limits for this trip. manic rush hour, had to dodge a ladder that clattered off a truck, and negotiated lane changes over a gap broad enough that it had sprouted a sash of grass. el paso inevitably recalled a second world city to me in the way I drag irrelevant comparisons to greece into everything. part of this was surely the bright sun on a treeless city, and the city looked 'mexican' (scare quotes because I've never visited mexico) because of spanish street signs and because it blended seamlessly with the sprawling-to-the-horizon juarez on the other side of a boundary I couldn't see. but...I think there was also something about how the components of the city were arranged -- apparently haphazard zoning, retail oriented toward the outdoors, garish signs everywhere.

the only way to new mexico SR9 was an awkward loop on a square-shaped belt road named after esteemed legislator pete domenici. I was for some reason worried that I'd miss the turnoff and end up in the queue for a secondary border crossing at santa teresa. ended up in an el paso suburb at a gas station with an attached 'tortas' burrito joint, where I had a kickass chorizo/egg burrito. eventually crossed into new mexico proper for the quickest non-interstate traverse I could find. SR9 was another why-is-there-a-road-here strip of asphalt that passed nothing but ranches that probably reached all the way north to I-10, in sight most of the time. in any case, I soon realized that I was sharing this road with the border patrol (late-teenagers in ill-fitting uniforms). more than half the traffic was an endless stream of white broncos with dark-tinted windows, either on the road or creeping slowly along on a dirt track immediately to the south of the tarmac. I even spotted what I swear was a refueling truck. every few miles there was some sort of mobile lookout post that brought to mind an imperial AT-AT from Hoth. not that these looked like they could move, but the cockpit was raised and lowered on jointed legs...not sure why these weren't just fire tower-like constructions. too easy/inexpensive. so...your tax dollars hard at work -- I must have seen 80 vehicles (very low estimate) prowling along this unlikeliest of crossing points. I tried to figure out how the tea party/NRA/free enterprise crowd can reconcile all that goes into 'defending borders.' federal agents and federal regulation and restricting the free (labor) market and expensive federal programs -- surely doesn't add up, right? right.

most of the other vehicles were mysterious late model black sedans of uncertain make (no hood ornament). for about an hour they passed going east, one by one at regular 2 mile intervals. looked nefarious to me, but surely nothing was getting by the patrols. anyway, the first town on this road to nowhere in particular was columbus, new mexico. and amidst the sleepy/dusty border town vibe was something remarkable. a coffee shop...the first sign of coastal affect I'd seen since downtown cincinnati. outside of college towns (and not even all of them), the south I'd seen had resisted the cafe that has invaded so many formerly french-coffee-resistant places elsewhere. no starbucks even. so a mark of things to come, esp in arizona. because arizona is where the west coast starts in earnest -- tourists and jewelry stands and mochas and real estate brokers. sleepy towns are not so sleepy, and the resigned-to-oblivion attitude disappears. that this rather more refined west is also the home of a refusal to observe daylight savings time (because who doesn't want to get up at 5am?), a refusal to acknowledge MLK, and of course enthusiasm for a 'papers, please' police state could suggest contradictions. but I think not...the reactionary garbage from a state that's really not so backwards is a symptom of trying too hard. arizonans really want to be daring frontiersmen in texas-white pickups. but in reality they all live in phoenix and sell insurance...and moved there from somewhere else. and can live there because the corps of engineers has built dams for them. the cowboy hat doesn't quite fit when you're driving a lexus SUV. so they overcompensate by electing a 'maverick' and begging the rest of the country to outsource its inmates to florence. this isn't new...this is the state that brought us barry goldwater, after all.

the 'real' arizona is unabashedly contrived. real cowboy towns like lamesa have nothing on bisbee and tombstone anad sedona, which have managed to turn that one colorful event (the OK corral, for example), mountain scenery, and proximity to LA into tourist gold. towns as theme parks, and a long history of self-promotion that predates the new american tourist city by decades. the neon motels advertising 'refrigeration' (I think that's A/C), the whole route 66 phenomenon...the American roadtrip started in arizona. and the shift to this was immediate and remarkable...SR9 ended near the border, and as I looped south to douglas, AZ and then back north into the mountains the towns transformed. land for sale, horseriding/canoeing/ATVing outfitters, and those ubiquitous jewelry stores. and on cue the landscape changed as well from the undifferentiated scrubby desert of southern NM (not all of the state looks like this) into an almost lush grassy plain that recalls iceland or sound of music alpine. back to desert, then into cute mountain village territory and ponderosa pines.

and so I found myself in the late afternoon sitting on a wild west boardwalk in the utterly fake town of tombstone stealing wireless and making an appointment for a bike tuneup in las vegas. the flies were swarming me mercilessly...at first I figured it was the stench of me/my jacket. or was it the patina of smashed insects? or did they think that the leather was still attached to a cow / water buffalo? I would have camped in tombstone and taken in a show at a saloon, but I didn't want to keep the early-to-bed itchy waiting, so I set out for the final stretch to tucson. high desert now with saguaros starting to pop up on the outskirts of the city. finished with an edifying tour of the industrial wasteland of east tucson when I tried to outsmart the googlemap directions only to be blocked by the airport, but arrived before sundown this time nonetheless.