He agreed, but meticulously studied the rear view mirror
for signs of federal agents or black helicopters or something.
“Perhaps the roads weren’t closed at all,”
I continued. “Perhaps we have passed a test. Perhaps
we will be greeted at the mouth of Scotty’s Canyon
by Feds who will congratulate us for being true Americans,
who have cut the bullshit and the bureaucracy.”
“Yes, I am sure they will be waiting to pin a medal
on us,” BZ smirked.
Since the roads were closed, there was no human being within
50 square miles of us. We had a rented sedan with minimal
ground clearance, but it was needed as off-road transport
to get us closer to the grottos. When the pavement ended,
we switched seats and I drove a couple of miles up a riverbed
that used to be a road. The Chrysler high-sided only once
or twice. There were a couple of vicious hits on the undercarriage
and BZ covered his ears. “Mother of Mary,” he
winced. “Don’t worry,” I consoled him.
“It probably still has the oil-pan...”
We finally parked it a damp ravine and began climbing towards
the mouth of the canyon. Confused by The Frog’s concept
of topography, x and y co-ordinates and the English language,
we began temporarily hiking up the *wrong* canyon, a cock-up
I blame on The Frog, but BZ blames on me. (Light was precious
and this wrong turn had serious ramifications...)
We backtracked a couple of miles and then began climbing
again. A couple of miles in, we found the first of the three
grottos The Frog wrote about. The ambush was staged at the
third grotto.
We pressed on. Against anybody’s better judgment.
We
were caught in Scotty's Canyon as the sun went down.
“The only way we are going to find the car is reverse
our steps, including the part where we went up the wrong
canyon,” I posited.
“No, let’s just cut across the desert, and
when we find the ravine where we parked the car, we’ll
just turn right.”
“Umm, your approach summons the phrase by that great
Armenian philosopher Hovsepian, who said: ‘There must
be a great deal of comfort in knowing the precise location
of your death, leaving the only question the exact time.’
No, we must re-trace our steps and we must stay together.”
We argued, but we stayed together. I knew we had enough
water, bread and soy butter to see us through the night.
I had even brought blankets, but they were in the trunk
of the car. Finally, we found our riverbed of a road. We
continued backtracking with BZ feverishly hitting the electronic
“un-lock” switch on his key ring in hopes of
making the car’s headlights flash... Or once we found
it, I hit the high beams, drove around boulders and vainly
tried to follow our tire tracks. I nearly drove the sedan
off of a small cliff that would've stuck the car into a
gulley of sand...
Once we got back on the roads that had been shut down,
BZ hit the interior light and began reading. “This
guy says only soccer moms get lost trying to find the grottos
and location of Scotty’s ambush.
“Miserable freaking frog.”
+++++
More pictures of the ill-conceived adventure are here:
http://www.kerosenebomb.com/grotto/
Cole Coonce is the author of Infinity Over Zero, Come
Down from the Hills and Make my Baby and ghost-wrote part
of that justifiably-maligned NHRA coffee table book, Life
in the Fast Lane. He signed a piece of paper saying he would
never disclose who actually wrote that book, but he swears
he can’t find it.
