#135 / 2010 Spring: Sedona

Sedona

#135


It was a cold and windy day when we took our last hike around the Grand Canyon to get some photos, early in the morning, and then set out for Sedona and a visit with poet Gary Every. 

However the winds were so intense that the interstate was closed down so we had to spend another night in Flagstaff, this time at Wal-Mart. There was quite a glut of RVs there, plus some pretty weird goings on. The police were hovering around the parking lot, I think someone had dumped a car there after an accident. Then they showed up again for what seemed to be a domestic violence report in one of the vans. The ubiquitous Germans tourists had a big rented RV nearby, bizarre RVs like I have never seen before looked like someone had welded two Airstreams together, and a real conglomerate of interstate travelers on hold for the night.

Next morning I walked through the parking lot to do a little jogging on the nearby bike path. As I passed a trailer being hauled by a truck camper a cacophony of barks caught my attention. Ewwww. It sounded like there were about 20 dogs in that trailer. Apparently the owners opted to live in their truck camper and haul a menagerie of animals behind them. Weird and nasty looking. I think if I had seen a cop I would have asked him to call the ASPCA. 

We have been publishing Gary for over ten years, he is very visible in the underground poetry press, and we took him up on his offer to visit.

I don’t know that much about Sedona and was astonished once we came through the back mountain pass from the Canyon and the famous red rocks began to appear. As we got closer into the small town I exclaimed, “This looks like Gatlinburg.” I was referring to the line of cars barely edging through the main street into town. Tons of tacky tourist trap shops selling everything at over-inflated prices disappointed me but of course the view is spectacular.

Folks talk about the vortexes in Sedona and there is no end of VERY wealthy looking, EXTREMELY attractive people in the cafes. The usual glut of tourists are all over the sidewalks and the streets are filled with Jeeps of every color, particularly pink, escorting small groups on Jeep tours through the canyons, etc. 

An extremely high end mall is near the Hilton, featuring time share vacation suites. At the movie museum they offered us a free night at a swank suite. All you have to do is spend half a day listening to the sales pitch. We declined. 

Gary found us in front of the movie theater and offered to take us on an afternoon hike. He is really friendly and kind, he looks a little like Michael J. Pollard the actor. We went on a spectacular walk right in the middle of a neighborhood. The rocks are totally red. Gary knows all the names of the birds and plants. We saw yellow tattingers, bobolinks, woodpeckers, swallowtail butterflies all along the trail. We crossed beautiful little streams as Gary regaled us with Indian tales and myths of the Southwest. What a great guy.

We spent the night at the local Safeway parking lot and joined Gary the next day as he drove around town visiting local poets and bookstore owners. Beatlick Joe passed out our newsletters and we made some great contacts. We went back to the swanky mall by the Hilton to meet one local poet who has started a poetry program for Alzheimer’s patients. His name is Christopher Lane and his daytime gig was working at his sister’s posh shoe store. When we were introduced he said, “I’ve seen you guys around before.”

“Not really,” Gary corrected him, “they are visiting from Las Cruces.” We moved on to mutual poets we know and then Christopher’s eyes lit up. “I know I have seen you before, we have met before.” We began discussing Clebo Rainy, an early slam poet out of Dallas, and Christopher said, “Clebo was my mentor.”

Then it all fell together. Christopher had come to our home in Nashville years ago with the Dallas slam team. They had all camped in the back yard. Joe videoed them underneath the carport and ran the footage on his old TV cable access show “Speer Presents.” What a reunion it turned out to be and Gary was astonished at just how far Joe’s influence has traveled. 

We are currently in Albuquerque house sitting. I will leave him behind an d travel to Las Cruces to housesit for the month of June. This is always painful. For two people who spend all their time together in such close proximity, two hundred miles is a truly long separation. 

Happy Trails

Beatlick Pamela