Blythe to Arizona (Day 4 - 1/1/14)

Today is the day of the great open road. We decide to travel only some of the way again, mainly so we could see some more of America in all its dirt-yard, mesquite tree, flag-waving glory. Within the hour we cross over into Arizona from California, and the real proper desert is immediately all around us. I'm talking low, rocky mountains. Huge Bugs Bunny cacti (the sort that wear red neckerchiefs and cowboy hats). Flat-roofed houses surrounded by rusty Americana car shells, pock-marked tin letterboxes, and metre-high wire fences. It was like being inside the television set of my childhood.

Wickenberg mural.

Wickenberg statue.

Our first stop is Wickenberg, reputed to be a historical hotspot but in reality a whole lot of boring. To be fair, it's New Year's Day, so we're lucky to even find anything open. The town is tidy and empty, decorated with weird painted statues and plaques that note the area's history. We pop into a local grocery store to use the toilet and pick up some supplies for the road. The Duck pulls me aside in one of the aisles, laughing, "I can't believe we're overseas and you've taken me into a supermarket". 

From here the Duck decides to drive to Prescott, another town she's read about. It seems like a good idea at first but our flat desert drive comes to an end when we arrived smack bang up against a mountain range. The car begins to climb drastically upwards, my stomach plummeting like a magnet repelled, and the narrow winding road weaves up into the sky higher and impossibly higher. I'm so freaking scared, and it doesn't feel like it's ever going to end. The view is probably spectacular but I wouldn't know because I'm too busy shrinking into my seat. Duck yells at me for not taking some photos but I can't really hear her because I'm gripping the door frame with whitened knuckles and yelling back at her to slow down to the speed limit so we can keep as distant from the cliff edge as possible. Each bendy turn prompts a premonition of the car slipping over the edge and rotating through the air to a violent, fatal end. 

Yarnell: the town at the top of the mountain.

When we break out at the top it's 5000 feet above sea level. We pull over at a bric-a-brac shop-slash-museum in the mountaintop town of Yarnell, and I calm down enough to talk to the shop owner for a bit. She's very curious and concerned about the bushfires we get in Australia, and asks me what causes them. She looks like a bit of a hippy, so I half-jokingly tell her, "Climate change", only to immediately find out that this is something she does not enjoy hearing. After her initial annoyance drifts back off her face she proceeds to tell me, at great length, that the fires are due to solar flares caused by the sun rotating. Cool story, bro.

The temperature so far has been around 20 degrees Celsius on average - not too cold, and hot enough in the sun to only require a T-shirt. After Yarnell, however, it suddenly gets very cold. So cold in fact that snow can be seen in great big clumps carpeting the pine forest around us! It's beautiful.

Prescott is beautiful too; a rather large but secluded town decked out in a huge amount of Christmas lighting. I don't have much else to say about it, except that the town hall reminds me of the clock tower in Back to the Future. It's also named after William H. Prescott, the preeminent 19th century American historian.

Save the clock tower!

Three bars side by side in Prescott.

By the time we move on again it's night. We begin winding our way up the mountainside again, now ever scarier in the pitch black of deepest evening. It doesn't help that we lose an hour crossing over into Arizona, and that once again I'm near-paralysed by my fear of heights. I fear for Mexico if such journeys are to be taken by bus. At the end of this mountain trek we creep into the small but densely-arranged town of Jerome, perhaps my favourite American place so far. 

Jerome. Let me try to describe it, although I doubt I can do it justice.

Imagine a 19th century American version of Victorian London, perched amongst the dry, frozen mountaintops of Arizona, the tall and ornate buildings clustering together like huddling giants squeezed into paved crevices, sparkling with multi-coloured faerie lights, and inviting us into their warm, fire-lit interiors with the promise of whisky, burritos and papercrafts. Later, we find out that this town is reputed to be one of the most haunted places in America, and (even spookier) that Tool singer Maynard James Keenan lives there.

The haunted 'Spirit Room' in Jerome. They had a nice fire going in here.

Rad artwork in Vaqueros Grill, Jerome.

The waitress had these cool tattoos of Van Gogh and Dali.

After this we finally get to our destination for the day, Camp Verde, a small and uneventful suburb on the flat (wonderfully flat!) ground.

Oh so flat.

American Food

In general, food is cheaper in America than in Australia, and comes in much bigger servings. Every time we order a Coke it comes out in a huge gallon-sized cup and tastes very syrupy. In Australia we have about 5-10 fast food chains to choose from. In America there must be at least 30 or 40.

The Duck spends a lot of time talking up the south-western breakfast food item that Americans call a 'biscuit' (not to be confused with our biscuits). It typically comes with a vomity-looking grey sauce called 'sausage gravy', which she loves. I'm not impressed when I try these biscuits, and I would liken them to a hard, stale version of a scone. The Duck is inexplicably embarrassed when I try to spruce mine up with jam.