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RUNNING ON EMPTY
Two thirsty guys load up a BMW SUV to try and find the way to Santa.

Text: DEREK FINKLE

EVER SINCE MY BOYHOOD OBSESSIONS WITH ROAD RUNNER cartoons and rattlesnakes, I’ve wanted to go to the wild and woolly American Southwest. So when I recently embarked on a road trip from Phoenix, Ariz., to Santa Fe, N.M., I decided to stop in Sedona, about halfway between Phoenix and the Grand Canyon. I’d picked Sedona not only because of the spectacular red rocks that surround it, but also for the resort town’s inhabitants, who have a reputation for being, well, a bit weird. Sedona is bursting at the seams with New Age professionals who, for fairly steep fees, will guide you in such pursuits as "Awakening the Master Within."

After numerous margaritas at Sedona’s highly touted restaurant Casa Rincon, I encountered a middle-aged woman in a long black dress seated at a small table in the lobby. A sign identified her as "Leslie Mason, National Psychic/Reiki Master." She was offering psychic readings for $10, so I decided to give it a go.

Leslie asked me if I had any questions as she shuffled a deck of blue tarot cards. Yes, I said. I was just starting out on a road trip and wondered if there was anything I should know. "Are you driving a rental?" she asked.

"Sort of," I said, eyeing the brand-new BMW X5 SUV out in the parking lot. "You’d better check the tires," she said.

"Is that advice?"

"No, that just came to me," she said, looking heavenward. "I’m also seeing that you’ll be meeting people on this trip you otherwise wouldn’t have met."

After a few more vague predictions, a chime rang from the little timer on the table between us. The psychic offered one more revelation free of charge. "There will be one other person travelling with you." Photographer Lorne Bridgman, who was accompanying me on my trip, was sitting just a few feet away. "Thanks for the tip," I said.

The next morning, we were off to the Grand Canyon. The green disco ball I’d bought in Tempe, on the way out of Phoenix, was hanging from the rear-view mirror. Lorne was wearing his $10 highway-patrol-officer shades. We were road trip ready.

What can I say about the Grand Canyon? If the view doesn’t blow you away, your fellow tourists will. While reading a sign about air pollution in the canyon, I met a retired gentleman from Florida who began telling me about "those damn environmentalists." "I’ve got a jet boat back home with some serious horsepower," he said, "and I can only put around in it because they don’t want me killing any manatees. I mean, if I’m doing 70 and happen to smack into some manatee – " He was interrupted by his wife, who wanted to know if he was ready to go.

"We came all this way to see the Grand Canyon, and you want to go?"

"Honey, it’s a big hole," his wife replied. "You’ve got to get a look at it at least once, but it’s still just a big hole."

After that, we headed toward Monument Valley, several hours to the northeast, right on the Utah border. Monument Valley is in the middle of the massive Navajo Indian Reservation that takes up most of the upper-right-hand corner of Arizona. We stopped at a gas station in the town of Kayenta, and I asked the cashier if she knew where we could buy some beer. "I’m sorry, sir," she said. "You can’t buy alcohol anywhere on the reservation."

Lorne looked slightly panicked. "How long are we going to be on this reservation?" he asked me.

"Two nights," I said.

"That’s definitely a problem."

After consuming a non-alcoholic brew with my tenaciously tough barbequed ribs in the no-frills dining room at Goulding’s Lodge, the only accommodation close to the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, I agreed that we were, indeed, in a troublesome spot. On the bright side, though, we were free of alcoholic pollutants for our morning horseback tour through the breathtaking buttes and mesas that have been pushed up from beneath the dusty red plain over the last 10 million years.

Our young Navajo guide, Marvin, was a real cut-up. When I asked him why Lorne’s horse was called 30-30, he said it was named after a type of bullet. "Why," I asked. "Is he fast?"

"No, he’s the laziest horse we have," he said, whispering so Lorne wouldn’t hear. "But every now and then he takes off like a shot." He flashed me a conspiratorial grin. "But let’s not tell your friend that."

After Lorne survived 30-30, we met our second Navajo guide at the Canyon de Chelly National Monument, about a 90-minute drive southeast of Monument Valley. At the visitor’s centre, you can hire a Navajo guide for $15 an hour to lead you on a tour of the canyon’s ancient Anasazi cliff dwellings and pictographs provided that you have your own four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Fortunately, we were well equipped with our SUV – or so we thought. The X5 had been impressive on dirt roads, but the floor of the canyon was covered with such deep sand that our vehicle’s undercarriage was practically working as a plow.

As soon as it became clear that the X5 was going to make it after all, I discovered another problem. The dashboard computer screen had indicated that we had about 130 kilometres worth of gas when we entered the canyon. I watched that number drop to 70 after less than three kilometres of four-wheeling through the sand. It was time to head back.

A red jeep appeared in my rear-view mirror as I turned around. The driver slowed down when he got beside me and said, "You’ll never make it back in a car like that." I smiled and stepped on the gas. He was eating my dust – literally – for the next hour.

Nearing the visitor’s centre, Lorne turned to our guide, Seth, whose name has been changed for reasons that will soon become obvious, and delicately broached the subject of obtaining some bootlegged suds on the reservation. To our surprise, Seth offered to help us out. We drove all over the little town of Chinle, waiting outside one home after another as Seth went in to inquire on our behalf. The town, it appeared, had drunk itself dry, so we gave up and drove Seth home.

Twenty minutes later, after we’d checked into the Thunderbird Lodge motel, there was a loud knock on my door. It was Seth, holding a large knapsack. "My brother-in-law had lots of beer," he said, laying out a dozen cans of Bud Light on the bed. "He only drinks light beer. But, hey, at least it’s cold."

The seven-hour drive to Taos, N.M., the following day was the longest drive of the trip. But a good road trip isn’t just about arriving at the next destination. After three days on the road, Lorne and I had become comfortable with long bouts of silence. It wasn’t that we were bored; we’d simply learned how to savour the journey. Still, I have to admit that I spent quite a bit of time entertaining myself with car toys like the global positioning system on the X5’s computer screen or trying to find something on the radio other than country-and-western twang or Jesus-saves talk radio.

The dearth of good radio was all but forgotten when we arrived in Taos, a great old adobe-style town where we enjoyed the finest margaritas of the trip. After dinner, we walked to a local bar called The Alley Cantina. After a few rounds of beer, our waitress, Alene, set us up with her favourite tequila, Hornitos. We were belting it down when an enormous woman at the end of the bar, whose Hornitos count was much higher than ours, charged over, grabbed Alene in a bear hug and started licking her face. The woman, laughing like a wounded hyena, then charged toward the cook, who was smoking at a table by himself. After his face wash, she stood up and looked at me, which was precisely the moment when I downed my final Hornitos and fled into the night.

We took the famous High Road over the forested Sangre de Cristo Mountains, winding through some old Hispanic villages on our way to Santa Fe, the last leg of our journey. In the daytime, Santa Fe is pretty much an art lover’s paradise. Native folk art pieces worth thousands of dollars are as easy to find in the city’s ubiquitous galleries as $25 Georgia O’Keeffe prints. But when the moon is out, Santa Fe is not to be outdone, even by Taos, in the strange behaviour department.

We ended up at the Catamount Bar, where a band called Matt & Dave was entertaining the regulars, most of whom were dressed up for a special costume night. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were sitting at the table to our left. Medusa was to our right.

Enjoying the first sip of a great Colorado-brewed amber ale called Fat Tire, I watched a guy with a Don King wig and an enormous boom box on his shoulder walk into the bar. The theme song from Shaft began drowning out Matt & Dave’s torturous rendition of Jimmy Buffett’s "Margaritaville," much to the delight of the patrons.

The guy with the afro sidled up to the bar next to a guy dressed in black – black micro-mini skirt, black halter top and black heels. The afro guy ordered a beer and when he noticed who was beside him, said, "Calvin, is that you?"

"That’s right, sugar," said Calvin. "But tonight my name’s Pebbles."

"With a body like that, Calvin," said afro guy, "I’ll call you whatever you want."

And with that, we ordered another round.