All inches of our beings

We have been on the road for two weeks now, watching America take shape from the window of our van. California has sped past us, we have seen oceans change to forests, change to mountains, change to deserts. California has sped though us; imprinted its vastness, its depths and strangeness, into all inches of our beings.

We began amongst ginger trees the size of apartment blocks. In the Giant Sequoia Forests of California. We had heard stories of roots so sprawling that their bases had been made into dance floors; couples side stepping across their ancestors. We had heard of trunks so wide that cars would drive through the middle of them, speeding through the heart of history and past the circles that time had naturally formed. We found the worlds largest tree, The General Sherman, that had been growing for 2,400 years. We climbed over the fence that entrapped it, the fence that made sure tourists couldn’t trace their fingers across its skin. We sat in the pit of its stomach, straining to hear the story of twenty four centuries; the aching and insight of a life lived that long.

We left the forests to drive into the endless desert of Death Valley. Saw nothing but sand dunes, cracked dry earth and rocky mountains for 140 miles. Turquoise and pink embedded into the surface of rock faces, strange cactus, and scurrying beetles. In the middle of nowhere we met a teenage girl working behind the counter of a gift store. She looked angry and hot, perhaps the stillness of desert weighs heavy on a fourteen year old's momentum. She wore makeup like all other girls her age, but because of the heat her eyeliner left smudges under here eyes and her forehead collected beads of sweat. She grimaced when we handed over a dollar bill for postcards, told us that she hated new notes as they stuck together and she miscounted the money at the end of the day. We asked her what she enjoyed and her mouth cracked like the dry, desert earth.
‘There’s nothing better then sliding down sand dunes on a mattress,’ she told us.

We arrived in Las Vegas Wednesday morning. Saw neon bulbs waiting to become ignited, speeding cars and hotels thrown up from the middle of the sand. We saw an advert for a show called burgers and bullets, saw endless rows of chain smokers hypnotically posting coins into slot machines. Saw pawn shops with queues of people streaming out of their doors. We accidentally checked into a hotel that had an aquarium in the middle of its swimming pool. The aquarium was filled with sharks and a water slide that went through the middle of it, so guests could slide passed to the depressed and board looking creatures in the tank. I ached to free them, to send them of with a pocket full of gold nuggets and a one way ticket to the Atlantic. Surrounding our hotel there were more hotels, with roller coasters wrapped around them and lasers of lights shooting out from their tops. We saw the Egyptian Pyramids, The Eiffel Tower and huge pirate ships sailing across fake oceans. We played roulette; winning thirty dollars, and then played again, and lost it all. 

In the morning we went to the ‘all you can eat’ buffet the hotel provided, ate eggs and fruit and tried to fill the whole of emptiness that the money loss and the flashing lights and cigarette smoke had left. The food didn’t work, so instead we went to find the seventh wonder of the world. Now The Grand Canyon isn’t easy to describe with language. It’s the sort of thing that can be felt, but to write it is near impossible. In the two days there we heard a pack of coyotes wailing, their voices sounding like the laughter of manic women. We stayed on the American plains, imagining the Natives that must have stood upon it before us, feeling loss and growth a thousand times through. We walked to the bottom of The Canyon, which took two hours, and then to the top, which took six. Saw something so vast and unusual that it stole our breath and captured pieces of us. From their we drove back through the desert, to Joshua Tree National Park. Stayed amongst giant boulders and cacti that looked like people who were throwing frozen dance moves on a floor of sand and stillness. We saw a tarantula in migrating season cross the road. We listened to country songs about sleeping in the back of pick up trucks and drinking beers with Jesus, and for the first time in years I heard everything silence had to say for itself.

The last four days of our road trip we spent in two of the most opposing places I have ever been. The Salton Sea. Apocalyptic deserted landscapes and a two thousand strong town of societal outcasts, anarchists, artists, rebels, visionaries, madmen and pioneers-Slab City, ‘the last free place on earth.’ An ex army base in the middle of disused desert which has attracted enough people to form a city, to create of one of the most amazing art pieces I have ever seen, Salvation Mountain, and to speak for everyone, everywhere, who has ever felt like they didn’t quite belong.

Then finally, we left for everything that is LA; for Venice Beach and Bel Air. For Compton and Hollywood. For swearing as freely as breathing, slick buildings and iconic landscapes. For famous hand prints, traffic and very, very large breasts. Now the Chevy has been returned. The next plane has been boarded and we begin the final chapter; the unfolding and exploration of Mexico City.