We didn’t bother looking for breakfast in Kanab—which was sound asleep when we left—so we went off in search of coffee and breakfast on the road. And it was worse than we’d thought. Not only is the tradition of getting up early to get things done dead in this part of Utah, but, as a helpful guy at a gas station explained, even though it was mid-October, a lot of businesses—even entire towns—close down for the “winter.”
Yeah, it was cold . . . And we saw a lot of CLOSED UNTIL MAY signs.
Capitol Reef was magic psychedelic geology as usual. Is this what happens when planets hallucinate? If computers can, why not planets? Or interdimensional gods?
Tezcatlipoca? Tezcatlipoca? . . . do you read?
The restaurants on both sides of the Aquarius Inn in Bicknell were closed, permanently, boarded up, as were a lot of the businesses we saw. Sort of apocalyptic. Was anything coming back in the spring?
The religious utopia that the Mormons tried to create is crumbling. Will they all leave, creating a mystery? What happened to the Mormons? Where did they go? Will we see animated pseudo-documentaries about them going off in flying saucers? Could they be living on some far-off planet with the Maya?
Or are the hard-working brown people moving into Utah now Maya rather than Mexica?
What goes around, comes around.
I finished re-reading Phil Farmer’s “Riders of a Purple Wage,” a tale of another imperfect utopia. Gotta tell the dissatisfied younger generation about it. It could help. It could cause trouble. What the hell, gotta do something. We’re all desperadoes these days . . .
Next morning it was freezing when we left Bicknell at 7:19AM. Then it dropped down to 20 degrees. I was glad the Carol’s car had heated seats.
Thank Tecatlipoca for newfangled chicanderas.
We passed through a town called Koosharem. What kind of name is that? A local tribe? So alien . . .
In Circleville there was a sign on a house: BUTCH CASSIDY NEVER SLEPT HERE.
Soon we were back in St. George.
I wrote some disparaging, if hilarious things about St. George the last time we were here. This time I found it a bit more charming, but my twisted sense of humor helped.
It is still cheerfully dystopian in a Firesign Theater/Philip K. Dick manner, like chunks of SoCal sprinkled over red rocks. I tried hard to photograph the surrealism, but it was difficult, like taking pictures of smoke or fog.
I actually found cargo pants (I need them to lug my prescription sunglasses) in a thrift store. One had a tear, and they sewed it up and sold it to me at a discount.
What really knocked me out was the high density of Mexican restaurants. It competes with Glendale, Arizona. Guess they’re letting Mexicans live here.
I had fun, but dystopia, even an absurd one is by nature, disturbing. The happiness is artificial, like zapping your hypothalamus with an electric cattle prod. The shit-eating grins are creepy, and when the dopamine rush burns off, there’s a toxic emptiness that is also a side-effect of the postmodern, transurban sprawl environment.
When will some corporation come up with a cure for it that isn’t addictive or expensive?
The Sprawl (as William Gibson labeled it) is growing. Excavators chew up the ancient, natural, and historic beauty. An artificial consumer environment is being installed. And crackerbox instahomes are popping up all over.
Also, large houses, suitable for polygamous living. Stekes (or stakes) and temples in ritzy neighborhoods. Temple dresses, $150. And Mormon guys in nerdy clothes and haircuts. Brave new Mormons in a world being assembled by Mexicans.
Next stop Nevada, America’s favorite post-apocalyptic Mars colony, but first a short zig--or maybe it was a zag--under stormy clouds and a desert with drying evidence of rain through Arizona. You can never be sure about these parts.
We whizzed through Las Vegas to drop something off to Mike’s daughter.
Out of town, Whiskey Pete’s Casino was shut down.
Gas was $4.95 a gallon near the expanse of solar concentrators.
The California inspection station at the border was unmanned. Gas over $5 a gallon in Yermo. $4.25 in Barstow.
Most of the restaurants seem to be run by Mexicans. Even the non-Mexican ones. A plot to take over the food supply? Or will Mexican food save America?
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