Arizona ACE, Epilogue

We got back from Lake Mead today and we're headed to Colorado Friday.  It was another great hitch.  Just like last time, we were putting in barbed wire fence and camping right near the lake.  Unlike last time, we ran over a 12 foot Joshua Tree with our truck.  Variety is the very spice of life.  Time to pack!

Our time in Arizona has been pretty spectacular. Ever since we got here, I was reminded of an old Louis L’Amour book that my college roommate Hans loaned me.  So I read another one last week.  Here are some pictures from our time in Arizona, all captioned with quotes from “Kilkenny” by Louis L’Amour.  Louis is way more eloquent than I am. And badass.

((ARCHES NATIONAL PARK))

To the high valleys then, came a lone rider, a man who rode with the caution born of riding long on strange trails in a land untamed and restless with danger

It was a desolate land, a jumbled heap of uptilted, broken ledges, enormous basins, knife-like, serrated ridges and toppling towers of sandstone.  The sun climbed and grew hot, weirdly eroded sandstone danced like demons in the heat-waved air

((HITCH 1: HACK CANYON))

Although he appreciated the towns and the comforts they offered, he had grown accustomed to living in the wilds and could do it.

It was slow, bitterly hard work, but he enjoyed it.  There was no sight or sound of anything man had done but what he did with his own hands.

All three were unshaven and had obviously been riding hard and long for they had that lean, hungry look of men off the trail.

((GRAND CANYON))

His face went white and he felt his breath go out of him.  Swiftly he glanced right and left.  On either side were the broken but unscalable walls of the canyon and behind him for more than a mile were the same canyon walls.

The scene was shocking in its majesty, breathtaking in its power

((HITCHES 2 & 3: LAKE MEAD))

He got to his feet, running his fingers through his dark hair which was all awry.  He must look like hell.  Needing a shave, tired, red-eyed and hair all on end.  He wondered aloud, how could a woman ever love such a man?

“Trouble?” The fellow looked up through eyes squinted with pain.  “I got trouble.”

Yes. Here he would stop. Here he would cease being the restless drifter he had become, a man fleeing from a reputation, fleeing from the reputation of a killer.  But in this place he would stay, and he would find peace... if they let him