The
real heroes of the American West have to be the horses. I read about this fancy
canyon with lots of fancy rocks and so I decided to go have a looksee for
myself. I did notice that in addition to Painted Canyon, there was something
called Ladder Canyon, but I just assumed the ladder part of that was some kind
of natural formation or what have you, not a bunch of aluminum extension
ladders just casually leaned up against the canyon walls, with a few rocks
kicked against their feet for “stability.” Some of the ladders were bolted to
the rock face but most of them were not attached to the rock in any way save
the half-hearted piling at their feet. I braved a few of the ladders but this
one ladder was just a ladder too insane and here is where I turned around.
Okay
ladder:
Not
okay ladder:
Ladder
canyon is a slot canyon, which means it is a narrow, twisty passageway between
hugely steep rock formations and the ground is super sandy/rocky so my quads
still hurt two days later. When I was a kid, I got REALLY into the novels of
Zane Grey, and if you haven’t read any of his books then we’re pretty much done
here. My family was once in a used bookstore in Saratoga Springs and we (I)
came upon an almost-complete set of Zane Grey’s novels, with matching binding,
and while it required a family conference to discuss in the end my tears won
out and my sainted parents gave in and purchased their 10-year-old daughter a
set of 50 novels set in the early years of the American West and written by a
guy who died (too soon!) in 1939. They remain to this day one of my most prized
possessions and to say I was a slightly unusual child does a disservice to the
patience and fortitude the rest of my family has exhibited then and since.
Anyway, my point here is that in one of his novels, I forget which one but it’s
probably Valley of Wild Horses, a
cowboy needs to find a canyon into which he can drive a herd of wild mustangs
and then pen them up. In order to find the perfect canyon, he has to check
every possible route out to ensure the wild horses won’t be able to escape, and
I think it took him literally WEEKS to do so, which is why I say his horse and
others like it are the true heroes of the West because goddamn that is
hard/thirsty work and likely even more so if you have no bloody idea why you’re
doing it.
In
my case, I was exploring this canyon situation because I haven’t really spent a
lot of time in this neck of the proverbial woods, i.e. the non-city parts of
southern California. I heartily enjoyed my experience and look forward to
coming back to investigate more parts of it! Alas, this trip is coming to an
end all too soon: I go back to the drear and cold of the northeast in a few
days and so continued poking around looking for lizards and rattlesnakes will
have to wait for another day.
The
painted part of the Painted Canyon fully lived up to the billing and I spent a
fair amount of time goggling at rocks and taking pictures and you are WELCOME I
will spare you most of them. However, I was particularly taken by the rocks
that looked like they had completely pivoted at some point in their development
and you know what, rocks? I feel you! No reason you can’t change directions if
you want to: leave your business on the bottom and turn it into a party on the
top.
As
long as I was in the area, I zinged over to the Salton Sea to get a look at
that, and wow if you’d like a depressing story I encourage you to learn more
about this one. The short version is that the Salton Sea was created when some
engineers messed up and a dam burst and it took them TWO YEARS to fix it and at
the end of that there was this gigantic lake, whoops! Since then, the sea has
turned into an important watering stopover for all manner of migratory birds,
which is great, and been slowly shrinking/increasing in salinity, which is not.
This thing having been a fat-fingered accident, it has no natural source of
freshwater and so as water is lost to evaporation there is no new water to
replace it and let’s hope all those migratory birds have a plan B.
I
could have checked out the Salton Sea without paying my $7 day-use fee, but I
am scrupulous in matters such as these so I found my way to the ranger station
and handed over twenty-two American cash dollars and was met with such complete
bafflement I admit I actually enjoyed, for ONCE, being the person who actually
knew the math. I saw no dead fish and one (1) really excellent bird, so overall
I judged the day a success.
I
landed in Ventura, California, at one point, which has a lovely promenade along
the beach and a LOT of surfers. I risked bursting into flames/sunburn to watch
them for a while—they’re just so NUTS, getting pounded by the waves over and
over—and then a man stopped to talk to me, which is not exactly what I was
hoping would happen but he did have a nice dog with him. She was named
Rosalind, he informed me, after his sister, and she was on squirrel patrol. Rosalind
was looking very intently at something but I couldn’t make it out; this man
pointed until I finally saw it and then he said, “See, now you’re on squirrel
patrol too.” I figure that made me Rosalind’s deputy and if that chunky gal can
get away with claiming to be 72 pounds of “solid muscle” then I can go around
telling people I’m on official squirrel-related business, please step aside, absolutely
no questions, I need a slice of bread and for you to evacuate the area
immediately.
Southern
California is indeed lovely and I can see the appeal of it, but I am absolutely
certain I could not live here. The people are just too relaxed—they are so
casual and breezy and laid back and happy that they are actually making me
anxious. Why isn’t anyone FROWNING? Something must be going wrong somewhere,
people: let’s get started worrying about it! Also, your traffic situation is
OUT of control, so I’m going home where I can jam myself onto a subway with
9,000 other people and the Show Time guys like a normal person, waiting out the
inevitable delays by pretending I am somewhere else entirely, where the sun is
shining and the palm trees wave in the breeze and surfers bob patiently in the
ocean and I can enjoy for just a moment the reminder that such a place really
does exist. Enjoy it, SoCalians, and to Rosalind’s human companion, originally
from Brooklyn, who told me in all seriousness that he missed what it was like to be so cold he could see his breath fog in
front of his face, I say this, kind sir: bullshit.
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