strange days

I want to talk about two quite unusual places I have been so far in LA,
the first is the Upright Citizen Brigade Theatre in Franklin Avenue, south of Sunset.
http://www.ucbtheatre.com/
It is a kind of improvisation theatre that, I think, started up in New York. It is a word-oriented kind of theatre, many comedian and stand up comedian have started from this sort of experience, one name for all John Belushi. The theatre is very small, about 100 seats, the stage also very small, the audience and the performers are all young with about 80% I would say under the age of 30. The great majority of performers are young male that want to become professional comedian and train in that direction. It is a collective performance. About six actors get to the stage, and ask for a word from the public. Then they start a number of scenes, one of them begins and the other support. They come back to the same scene two or three times and develop the story. The evening I was in there were two groups, one quite bad that seemed like a bunch of guys half drunk and having fun telling made up stories from their past, the second group was quite good, and you could not believe that something so elaborated was , it is really incredible that all you see is not at all prepared but 95% improvised there and then.

The second place, unique to LA is the Museum of Jurassic Technology, on Venice Bld. in Culver city. http://www.mjt.org/
hard to describe, the creation of David Hildebran Wilson, it opened in 1989, and it is a mix of various things, a cabinet of curiosity, a set of different collection, a museum of natural history, and one of popular culture. But it is more and less than all of those things, because in it, you are exiting the realm of positive knowledge to enter in a sort of machine that reflects on knowledge and the museum. As an authoritative voice tells you , over a German original, about a fantastic theory of memory and reality as cones and planes, you start to wonder if what you hear and see is actually true and to what extent. Have these scientists ever existed? And the charts about trailer homes parks around the world are they reliable or they just serves the purpose to convey ethnographical character to the collection? You are exhausted and you end at the Russian themed tea-room serving tea from a samovar. When you exit in the bright California daylight you feel like you understand Alice a little more.

Santa Monica

Sunny saturday, temperature around 23°, more importantly low breeze from the ocean. A good day for a fist LA beach experience. Of course I am not alone in having this thoughts,
Santa Monica downtown is quite crowded with stollers in the pedestrian zone, 3rd street. I have a beach towel,, but I miss few basic items to spend a day in the sun, suncream protection factor 70 (I always buy the highest factor available) flip-flaps, an american institution, and a hat. Thus the first half an hour is dedicated to shopping.
Here I am in the course of my transformation towards a californian look

Second round is the farmers' market, with ridicously overpriced vegetables and fruits, 6 $ for a 2 pounds (900 gr.) of oranges, but they are organic and we are in Santa Monica. Overall not very different than doing your shopping in S Domenico di Fiesole, or at an organic shop inChiantishire, isn't it? I buy plants: Basel, Parseley, Mint and Sage, to make my place feel like home.

The sand portion of the beach is about 50 to 100 m wide,



This place, on the neverending ocean promeaderather is rather basic and unrefined, it played vivaldi music as it served omelettes and burgers.




Here I am as I exit the cold pacific water, pictured by the friend I came with, still a bit overweight. It is mindblowing to be on the beach like it was high summer....

Getty Centre

Yesterday, in the afternoon of a very clear day I went to visit the Getty Centre, In Brentwood, LA, not very distant from Santa Monica. The centre takes its name after J. Paul Getty, the oil industrialist and author of the famous book "How to be rich". Although I had look at it in the internet, I was flabbergasted already at my arrival, 7 floor underground carpark and internal tram system to take you to the centre. What an opportunity for an architect in this case Meier to be playing without hardly constraint of budget....

The dimension of the project and of its realization are beyond scale, more the legacy of an emperor than that of an industrialist in a democratic society, the center stands like the works of those roman emperors that built an aqueduct or a temple, or a Pope, like Pius II and his Pienza.

It is built in white, with a stone quite familiar to Italians, travertine from Rome, but instead of being polished the squared block are left with a rough surface that conferrers more natural grandiosity to the complex. The sections built in white painted steel are instead flat.

It contains a series of terraces, roof gardens, gardens, fountains, statues, few pavilions for the art collections and a research centre where they gave me a two years long reader status with badge for not paying the carpark. In the library all the stacks have an "earthquake bar" to keep the book from falling during an earthquake.

The day was clear thus I visited only one of the exhibitions and spent quite a long time looking at LA from the terraces. I am amazed how green it looks, . with hills and trees everywhere. Travelling on the freeway you often feel you are crossing the countryside. What you see in the photo is freeways 405 that goes south, the Getty is just off the 405, and Century City, the only other area of LA, besides downtown, with skyscrapers.

This is instead a picture of the 405, heading north one can see the traffic of the afternoon. I had to remain in the area until 8 pm before heading back east and home.

griffith park and more, more....

More explorations of LA, this past weekend, Saturday was hazy and was the day of Griffith Park, the largest Urban Park in the US, it is the one where the observatory that figures in Rebel without a cause and the HOLLYWOOD sign are located. You can walk for many hours in it, going up and down on the hills, it is left un-kept and now that is spring there were a profusions of greens from the emerald to the gray.
The best image that I have, but not a photo yet, is LA as seen from the hills north east of it, as it appeared on sunset at as I was driving on the 210. Flat green grey and brown with two set of skyscrapers. Far on the back closing in with the sky, the ocean. The 210 is really a freeway like the one you see on documentaries on LA life, 6-8 lanes on each direction, it borders the hills north of the city to take people east towards S Bernardino. It is the freeway that runs closer to where I live.
As everywhere else in order to communicate with others about a place you have to learn the various zones, and learn their position and the values attached to them. You start with North and South, rich and poor, and then West and East, a little more complicated, Westend seems to be associated with arty people and the entertainment world, Eastend I still have not grasped it.
And then the many centres, like Pasadena, Altadena, San Marino, the ones closer to where I live, each with their own distinctive identity. Echo park, Angeleno, Venice beach, the ones I've practised the last two weeks. South of Pasadena there is Rosebud, and it is an entire area, that expands toward West populated by Chinese people, 70% of the inhabitants. All the shop signs are both Chinese and English.
I wonder if, because there is no a clear centre-periphery dynamic, there is a greater symbolic autonomy of all these various centres..

.....

"Such a fresh glance into a new land in which we are to abide for a time has still the peculiarity, both pleasant and foreboding, that the whole lies before us like an unwritten tablet. As yet no sorrows and joys which relate to ourselves are recorded upon it; this cheerful, varied, animated plain is still mute for us; the eye is only fixed on the objects so far as they are intrinsically important, and neither affection nor passion has especially to render prominent this or that spot. But a presentiment of the future already disquiet the young heart; and an unsatisfied craving secretly demands that which is to come..."

Goethe, as he, upon his arrival, contemplates Strasbourg from the Cathedral. From his autobiography, english translation, 1882, vol I page 296.

Pasadena Lifestyle

I am in search of "Patio Furniture", yesterday evening at dinner I got the right keyword. The site of the revelation was an Afghani restaurant in central Pasadena, which is a lovely and lively little centre. "you are looking for Patio Furniture...."
One of the problems of everyday life, even if you master the language decently, is how to ask for... So as I want a confortable chair to sit and enjoy the afternoon shadow with a book or write the blog, etc. How do you ask for it? I need soemething to lean in the courtyard, I want a reclining chair, a rocking chair, either too generic or too specific, the attendant looks at you with strained eyes and slowly says, no we do not have those.
They really did not. I went around three Antiques shops, they do not sell old beautiful furniture, but just old, second hand stuff, but they did not have anything for outside. Thus today I will probably go to Home Depot a chain of department stores specializing in everything for the house.

In the meantime I am trying to find my way around the lifestyle in this area of california, of Los Angeles.
Yesterday I went to visit a piece of history of Southern California, the first Trader Joe's store ever opened in 1958. Trader Joe's in a sense stands to Southern California as Dunkin' Donuts stands for New England, a philosophy of eating. But Dunkin' Donuts is a fast food chain providing caffeine saturated fat and sugar, Trader Joe's is a chain of quality and foreign food supermarkets dressed in hawayan shirt. It started in the sixties to market food from abroad with a focus on quality. They have a Hawayan logo and shirts that was introduced to distinguish the company from rival food chains.

http://www.traderjoes.com/index.html

I was not particularly impressed by the store itself, but I suppose that forty years later all chains have learned to have their quality section...

Open food market with fresh product is a political statement. http://www.pasadenafarmersmarket.org/ Every tuesday and saturday there is a farmer's market. I long to go and have a look. They say that tomatoes are tasty, I want to check that out.

In the meantime at the Huntington, this morning upon entering the library there was a basket of free lemons, very tasty and juicy, from the botanic garden.

Orange and olive tree, a golf course

Today I had to move out of sweet Echo Park area to my new place in Altadena, the car was full of stuff, two suitcases and food and my bag, and the two overcoats etc etc. I am staying on one of the last street before the mountains starts, I think one might even walk there right from the house.

There is a golf park right in front, very suburban, area, I can park on the driveway, "stradella" in Italian, an olive tree on the right and an orange tree on the left I think I can recognize this entrance.

My room is a guest room at the back of the house. I can enjoy the courtyard and the wooden patio. Excellent for working and eating up outside, they say they do not have mosquitos here, what else will they have? I will discover it.

Tonight I am going to the cinema, first time in the US, unbelivable, I do not recognize mysef, to see Buster Keaton with live music. At the http://www.silentmovietheatre.com/index.html

Between the desert and the ocean

I remember a remark by Braudel saying that the Mediterranean sea borders this other infinite, a sea of sand, the Sahara desert. If you think of it, here is not too dissimilar, East of here 2000 km of desert land; west, the infinite pacific Ocean that probably offered less vital exchange opportunity than the Mediterranean sea. The metropolis itself partly conquered to the desert, this is the condition of Los Angeles, or maybe of the coast of Southern California, between two wild infinities and far from other inhabitable lands. But instead of sticking together in a tight territory, humans have lined themselves along the roads as boats in a huge harbour. And what is the center of an harbour? that stretch of water that takes you in and out? The airport? The freeways? the car? Funny that entertainment industry would find its home here. Is there a connection? Maybe, if any, a poetical one.

rambling round on saturday, till the obvious M. Drive

In this cafe on Sunset boulevard are playing a country song "I've been everywhere, man". I am 5 minutes away from EchoPark, one of the locations of Chinatown I have watched again few evenings ago, as a movie on Los Angelels. This morning I set in my quest for a glove department's lock for the davidmobile, as it was broken when I bought the car and I did not have the time to replace it. Remember, I got the car on a Wednesday and left for the cross country journey on Saturday morning. I first set off for a car breaker that specializes in Japanese cars. I want to get there without using the freeways and instead crossing the city. The area is southern LA. I take Broadway direction south. As I hit 5th street it is like I changed city, and I enter what reminds me of southern Europe cities, Palermo, for instance:large stores packed with stuff and with rather basic overcharged shopwidows. This lasts for only about 10 blocks. At 20th street you are already another world, like a dirty periphery, full of cheap buildings and stores. The typical one family house in wood mixes with the latino shaped houses in stone and bricks. It could well be the Mediterranean, only there would be many scooters... and different faces maybe. However, in this area I have a tendency at thinking LA as Los Angeles and reading it in castillan... My destination is not far from Long Beach Avenue that runs on both sides of an urban railway. When I get there they do not sell the lock on its own. And do not see, to have many Eclipse's parts on the side, this seems strange to me as the eclipse in the US is quite a common car.Well, I leave, direction north for a Mitsubishi dealer, in Glendale, north of Downtown LA. I leave the dirt of southern LA, cross the city centre and going north I pass by an area called Los Feliz, a nice area with cafes and nice houses, yet another environment, I border the Hollywood hill from the south and cross the LA River. Glendale is very middle class, very suburban. Very similar to S Marino and Pasadena, where The Huntington is located. S Brand Bld is long series of auto dealers of all the major makes. I get my lock and set off home without looking at the map.

Lock replaced I set on foot around the area, on Sunset Bld till Echo Park Some Mexican ladies sell corn cobs, as their men play cards on the benches across the yard.There is lots of informal business going on, people sell on the street, a shoecleaner's van, oranges, it is like Palermo but there is more on the sidewalks and there are not the cries of the sellers, maybe it reminds me of Moscow in the summer. The same informal economy sprawling along the boulevards. I set to have a one dollar crushed ice, "granita" with mango syrup.

At 5 pm I can set for the most obvious drive I have to do while in LA. Always without taking the freeways I set for Hollywood Bd, and Beverly Hills, it is very strange to see written on the walls such words as Beverly Hills clinic or something like that, then a little north I find the indications for where I want to go.

It is very long, and curvy, the sky is rather misty so it is not worth to take picture, actually it overlooks Los Angeles from many angles, It is opposite to Hollywood, and you see the famous sign: for a certain section one sees downtown LA, further down one sees north of LA, west of Hollywood, and probably some other areas. I should go back and look again at the opening scenes of the movie to try to understand which view did Lynch choose.

Too many emotions, I can go back home...

first swim in LA

Lockers, at the Caltech huge athletic department are open, you bring your own lock, so I got myself one, with the turning bolt so I do not have to carry a key in the water. As I opened the door towards the pools I was unprepared, it opened... in the open. The pool is an outside pool. It is only March, are we supposed to swim outside? Nobody had told me, evidently it is a given fact. Air was not cold just fresh, and fortunately the water was warmer than air. I think I will get a cold and I will have a early sun-tan this year.

Campo di Marte forever

And I got myself a new place to work. For those of you who do not know it is The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens. It is the result of railway fortune, a library specializing in british and and american history, an art collection and a botanical garden. In recent years it has developed a policy of opening more to the public and there are tourists and schools all day coming to visit the art galleries and the botanical gardens. I am impressed by the number of asian looking people and pupils. A first sign, I wonder, of being on the pacific coast?

Our everyday schedule is regulated by two bells, the 11 45 am bell, when librarians’ lunch break starts, and the 4 45 pm when the day ends. It is very funny to see at 11 45, after the bell rings, scholars lining up, as if they were pupils back at elementary school, to hand back their precious rare books and prepare also for their lunch.

As all readers, I have access to the botanical gardens and the relaxing strolls you can take over there, I have yet to visit the gardens and the art galleries.

There is a cafeteria over the gardens. I am writing this note sitting at one of the tables outside.

My new swimming pool closes at 7 pm thus it seems that right after work I will head straight for the water.

Campo di Marte, a destiny?

Yesterday I went to see the room I am going to have from next week, It is in Altalena, north east area of LA right under the mountains at the end of the Valley. A residential suburban area. I felt like, oh this is the Los Angeles campo di marte. Residential, under the hills, quiet. I am not sure I am totally happy about this. Apart from that the place is very nice, I get access to a kitchen and a portion of garden, I can park my davidmobile in the driveway. Opposite the house there is a golf course. As a movie setting, it looks more like Desperate Housewives than Mulholland Drive.

Settling up

I've been very busy these past two days starting up in LA. I've got a badge for the library, I've paid my subscription to Caltech swimming pool, and set up a bank account, my netflix movies have started to arrive. By my third morning here, I have my (free) way in and out of the Huntington Library pretty well set up. From the radio on the car, LA talks to you like you would expect, cosmetic surgery, smile set up, hair transplants, the show business and the economic crisis. Public radio stations talk about environment, central american politics, water and waste management. Yesterday, I thought I should wash the car that was extremely dirty after the snowy areas in the Rocky Mountains, I enter one of the places and I found out that was not a self service. Going beyond my initial shame, I had the car washed and polished. First time in my life.

Epilogue, Venice Beach

As I was stuck in the freeway 101, the opening scene of Falling Down came to my mind, when Michael Douglas leaves his car stuck in the gridlock and starts his 'mad day of folly', as the title was translated into Italian. He heads towards Venice where his Italian-origin- ex wife has moved (where else could an italian go? the police officer comment in the movie). I thought it would be the right conclusion for Attaliano's journey cross country. Venice Beach on the Pacific.

I took the car back to the freeways and I was lucky again, I got to Venice Bd without problems. I basically parked right on the sand. Stylish houses on the walkway along the Pacific.

It was half an hour before sunset, if this is not perfection....

Such timing would be worth of Phileas Fogg, the English stereotyped, over punctual, protagonist of Verne's Around the word in Eighty Days.

It was springish and people have been clearly enjoying a worm day on the beach. There was, in the air, that excitement when people feel cold days are over.

And there there was, the boardwalk where, in the movie, Douglas finally gets killed.

I am in LA.

More desert, then LA, ninth day

After few days on normal roads I have grown weary of Interstates, thus I decide to alter my route to LA, instead of travelling all day on the I 40 I will take some state roads and rejoin eventually the I 10 which I had left in the middle of Texas.

Thus I get out and follow a road that heads south following the Colorado River. There is a lake, a tourist resort, I see the first palms.

A new landscape. South of the lake there is a spur road that traverses the Colorado passing over the dam that I suppose creates the lake. It is a scenic route along many summer resorts, with summer houses and people practicing water-ski on the river.

Eventually it takes me to Route 62. When I enter California there is a Car Inspection Station. Like a border control, they look at your car and let you pass. this is the first time I encounter this in the US.

Route 62 runs for more than one hundred miles in the California desert, (how many forms has the desert!! this one is sands and low shrubs). Invites you to drive off road, I wish I had a cross motorbike on a trailer behind the car.

For about 80 miles there is absolutely nothing. Then as you get to Twenty Nine Palms, south of a military base, you enter the Yucca Valley, and it becomes more populated, here I see the first cactus like palms.

Actually, overall it does not look much different that western Sicily.

The I-10 welcomes me about one hundred something miles from LA. Forests of windmills for the production of energy populate the hills around. Quite high mountains in the distance, I did not know about them. I am a little nervous about getting around, in the legendary forest of freeways. I have read carefully the directions to my destination, but will I be able to find them? I have kept the computer in stand by since I could not print them, but I press the power button one extra time and it shuts off. Google's maps cannot be saved as html pages, thus I am on my own with my memory.

It would not be LA without a blocked freeway, is Sunday afternoon, people getting back after the weekend?

More than one hour for the last 3 miles. However it is very straightforward and I arrive home without any problem. When I park the car, it is 4 30 pm, local time, the odometer marks 126012. The entire journey has lasted 4152 miles long, more than 6500 km.

if landscapes were interior...

day 9 is articulated thus I need to divide it into chapters. Wireless at this motel is not very stable, I will post the pictures later on

Chapter One: Navajo Land.
Crossed the San Juan river I am back in Navajoland going south on the 163 passing again through Monument Valley. John Ford's point is off the road, four miles east. You pay 5$ and you can make a tour on a dirt road and visit the local indian centre. Today I am ready for the "authentic". The view is spectacular, grandiose, you can enjoy it from the restaurant and from the hotel, would you decide to sleep here. Here a typical tourist picture of me.

At the indian centre there are plaids, John Wayne postcards and the infinite population of gadgets. Here is a nice picture of a window at theMonument Valley Indian Centre, for you, picture reading people.

This one is instead the usual been there picture. Notice I've put on my raincoat, as if in Once Upon a Time in the West.

As I tour briefly on the dirt road and go back to the 163 I play a cd of indian music I made the lady at the counter chose for me. This is the best, she said. As I discover is a series of litanies sung on drum music. Their settlements are never on the road, you can spot them some miles away, under the shadow of the monuments of red rock and sand. Like the white spots in the picture below. They have their store on the road but retreat away from it.

So this is what remains of them... they are here, they live here, with their pickup and their trailers. I am shocked. White people arrived, killed the buffalo, defeated the tribes, destroyed the basis of their way of life. And then did not do anything with the land. They moved on towards greener lands. What a waste. Why did the US army was sent here? They must have realized quite soon that this lands was useless to the pioneers. Greed pushed the white people? but of what? Economic drive is clearly not the answer. Power? the sheer pleasure of domination? geography? Are these the effects of monotheism?

As I travel south, and the cd makes its way to its end, snow make its reappearance, and it started to snow. This time very heavily, visibility is down to 100 metres and the road is covered in snow. I proceed slowly, I imagine it will change further down the road.

This reminds me we are high. Between 1200 and 2000 metres of altitude. I keep forgetting it. And at this heights weather changes rapidly. I remember from my mountain experience. A high plain is a very unfamiliar experience for an Furopean. If we travel flat, we mentally position roughly at sea leavel. At 1500 metres the road is either going up or down, and if it goes steady is curved and you look one side and there is the slope.


Chapter two Grand Canyon.

I leave the 163 for the 64 going towards the Grand Canyon National Park. Approaching it from the South. This is not an Indian Reservation, but they have their stores on the side. As I navigate towards it on the side of the road there are this huge canyons, going down for hundreds of metres.

The natural scenery is impressive and mighty. The entrance to the national park is 25$ and gives you a weekly pass. The first viewpoint is only half a mile inside the park, it is called Desert View. Photos, mine certainly, cannot render it. Words, mine, neither.

How can I express it? It is like you have reached the end of your world. A crack has opened in the planet. Another universe starts. It goes down and down, vertically. It is not just a break but an articulated abyss, made of many ravines, one deeped than the other. Another world is there, like yours, on the other side, you guess it, but cannot be sure, as you cannot guess if the other side that you see is encircled by one of the wings of the canyon. How can I describe it? for those of you who know the alps, it is like when you see the Dolomites. It could be the place where god casted the dolomites and took them out from. Then forgot to fill the hole. The same expression of mighty timeless nature, but this doesn't climbs up to the skies but digs down in the skin of the planet.

Tourist pictures looks incredibly pointless here, but here is one.

The road takes you to other equally stunning view points, people have climbed down from Grand View, and opened hotels, an airline offer tours of the Canyon.

It is a pity, one reasons. it can only excavate down at sea level, no matter the millions of years. Where would otherwise end?

I wonder if they have statistics of how many people faints or have some sort of attack in front such spectacle.
I feel my day is over, where else could I go today? Emotionally, I am exhausted. after this. Yet I know I still have to get a couple of hours driving down my way.

Chapter 3 in search of Route 66.

I see on the map that south of Grand Canyon and along the I 40 there is Route 66, not any route 66 like the one I took a picture of, in Virginia I think, but the Historic Route 66, as they label it here. Thus at the first exit I go for it.

Motels, bars, guitars, signposts are there, but there is not road, just a half a mile stretch. After going up and down a couple of times I ask at a gas station, I should proceed 15 miles on the motorway and use exit 139. At mile 149 there is another exit route 66, I take it, It intrigues me, what is the matter with this Route 66 that appears and disappears? Again 400 metres of road, an inn, a visitor center and then nothing, A little word under the sign suggests a solution, it says Route 66 loop. I decide (decide?) I will follow the advice. Evidently route 66 is historic also in the sense that it does not exists in its entirety anymore and has been eaten up by highways. At exit 139 there is however the old road. It is Saturday afternoon, a beautiful day, I expect it to be picturesque. Not at all! No hitch-hikers, no guitars, no VW vans, they have remained forever in the loops. How appropriate!! Route 66 is correctly just a yellow desert and a very deserted road. Very beautiful. And the car must be very happy to be on Route 66...

The road runs along a railway with long trains proceeding slowly. I drive into the sunset. Mistakenly I pass Seligman, where some motels are located, I will not find another one till Kingman 70 miles down the 66 at a new junction with the I 40.

Navajo breakfast

This has hardly been a culinary tour, actually often I have skipped a meal just because I did not feel like one after a long drive, my eyes had eaten landscapes all day, enough for me. Anyway, this is quite normal for me. This morning I am having breakfast at this lovely motel; it is served by a native american woman, probably the wife of the guy and the office. Their son, about 12 or 13, has a green punk, or should I say Mohican, haircut painted in green. I asked for the Fry Bread and what I got is a large round deep fried flat bread, a "focaccia", of yeasted white flour. It comes served with honey.
The temperature is fresh, the sky is grey, I was lucky yesterday with my sunset light.

Enlist for your free fistful of navajo land!!! a non-virtual souvenir of this drive together

Dear friends,

you presence as readers of this diary has been very important for me. All along my journey I have felt your presence and your affection. It has provided me with eyes and a voice and some of the strenght needed to drive 8, 9, 10 hours per day. Maybe this condition of togetherness at a distance is very congenial to me....I have never felt alone. Quite the contrary, it was like the car was full of people.

As I was collecting the land from Navajo Springs in a large envelope, I thought that as a tangible sign of my sincere gratitude I could offer you a small souvenir of this trip. Thus, if you fancy receiving one fistful (what else?:) of Navajo land, and you are not ashamed of tacky ideas, I will gladly sent it to you in an envelope. Just write a comment or send your address to oldmutant@gmail.com

A blessed seventh day, as it should be

Today was my lucky day. Surprises, decisions, guesses turned out not to be wrong. North of Espanola, I cross the Rio Grande, then the road starts to climb.

I am in the mountains, what a change from yesterday!! Few miles ahead I found myself in the middle of some light rain, I know the weather would change with such wind as these days. And I thought I had not had rain yet during this journey, so it is fine. Patches of snow started to appear. Looks who's here, I did not think I would have met snow again. I cross the Navajo river, I need to take a picture.

Today, for me, should be about two or three things, my adolescential readings of Native American literature, such as I buried my hearth at Wounded Knee; the reminescences of Italian comic book saga hero, Tex Willer -who is also a Navajo chief- and finally the scenery of John Ford's classic westerns such as The Searchers or Stagecoach.
As I enter Colorado the snow starts to become more consistent and the rain mixes with snow. Temperature must be quite low because the rain freezes on the margin of the windshield and on the wipers. The landscape has become alpine, or at least prealpine.

The entire landscape now is covered in snow, as it was in Farmington when I arrived at the beginning of February, and it continue to snow. I look at the road for ice, there are hardly any other car and there is no connectivity for the mobile phone and at certain points not even a radio station on the entire FM band.

I drive in this condition for about 2 hours and an half. Then I must have changed valley or maybe I have arrived on a high plane because the temperature raises, and the snow disappears altogether.

At two 'o clock I stop to collect a plan for the rest of the day. Of the lunch I have said (look at the previous post), the weather is getting better, monument valley is not too far but I will get there around 5 30. My planned route skirts the Indian reservation and would take me there from the north east to monument valley. Something does not work. I change my route from Cortez and take a route that crosses indian land and then gets me to monument valley from south west, so that I will get the sun -if any- from behind and not in front.

Longer, but what are few dozens of miles by now? It was the right choice. A casino welcomed me in the Navajo reservation. A beautiful deserted red land. As I drive I see their settlements, poor houses, huts one should call them. It is a high plain, between 5000 and 7000 feets high, between 1500 and 2000 metres in altitude. I do not have the heart of stopping at the indian shops where they promise "authentic" artifact, I feel in a very similar way to when I visited a WWII lager, my heart and soul shrunk in desolation, here in contrast with the beauty of the landscape.






Just after a junction, I pass Navajo Springs. Here is my site. I turn back and stop. Not just to take a picture but to collect from land from the Navajo river.

Further up in the road, there is the Four Corners monument. This land in the second half of 19th century, indian and civil wars over, was divided up by geographers among 4 states. That meets up in one point. The site, paradoxically is runned by the Indian community. The lady at the cash is undoubtedly not a caucasian. The land is very red, hardly anything grows, only nomads could have lived here.

Finally I get to the 163, I turn right, northbound, to the monument valley. It is 5 pm. The sun is there and starts to be low, in half an hour I am at the valley. My guesses were correct, I have the valley beautifully lighted by the setting sun behind me. A glorious drive.

and this one at the background of a scene with the cavalry, and the general view of the stagecoach and the cavalry, same movie, a few minutes later

Where to sleep, hitting back to the south? the nearest centre has some national chains Inns, checking in the tourist hotel at the monument valley center, with John Wayne show, runned by the Indians? My heart refuses. I will visit some indian centre tomorrow. I drive on north some 25 miles to the nearest centre, Mexican Hut in Utah. I am lucky there is a Motel right on the other side of San Juan river (that marks the boundary of the Navajo Indian Reservation) A beautiful spot. It is only 6 30, I have time to enjoy the last minutes of light, and then the wireless functions even on the riverfront. There is time to write and then watch a western. Bliss.