Downing

Ah, August. As I write this, at the kitchen counter of a little
house perched on the side of Oak Creek Canyon, I can hear chickadees
and canyon wrens and kids laughing down in the creek. To be honest, I
can also hear cars passing on Route 89a just below, but the tinkle of
the creek and the sound of the breeze in the oaks and ponderosas helps
mask it.

Best of all, there’s no phone here and no TV, and the radio
reception is abysmal. As a result, we have not heard the words
“health-care debate” or “Arizona Legislature” for six days.

In short, we are happy.

And at the moment, I am utterly on vacation, because I semi-crippled
myself the other day on a semi-epic hike with my 26-year-old son. Just
5 miles, but 1,200 feet in elevation gained and lost, then regained and
re-lost. I have not done this sort of thing for a while, so I am now
too sore to do anything but read. (Well, and type.)

David and I have a long history together of biting off more than we
really care to chew, hiking-wise. I’m afraid that I trained him to be
over-ambitious on forays up Sabino that more closely resembled forced
marches, by the end, than anything recognizable as recreation. (Hutch’s
Pool was always the semi-mythical objective. On one occasion, when he
was 12 or so, we actually reached it, with his poor friend Jesse along
for the brutal slog. After that, we didn’t have to do it anymore.)

So the situation here was utterly familiar, but our roles had
somehow reversed. Now he was the one asking how I was
doing. He was the one waiting up ahead, pretending to be interested in
the view while I trudged slowly, slowly upward like Frodo on Mount
Doom. At one point, he even lied encouragingly about how close we were
to the top—never mind that I could see perfectly well that we
weren’t anywhere near the pass (there would have been fewer rocks and
more sky)—but it was still nice to have him tell me that we were.
Cheerful denials of obvious physical facts soothe only the dopiest
region of the brain, the wishful-thinking lobe, but hey, that’s
something. He learned this from me.

The highpoint was getting photos of Dave slouching nonchalantly out
on a sandstone arch. This was also the far point of the
hike—which we had intended to be half as long, but, well, you see
an arch mentioned on a map? And it doesn’t look like you lose quite
all your altitude getting down (then up) to it? And, really,
this other side’s shadier, and there aren’t so many rocks?

And the next day, your quads hurt so bad that you hobble?

But in a way, my encripplement was just fine, because David and his
friend Batya had to be on their way, and Ed and I have with us a jumbo
Trader Joe’s shopping bag full of books—fresh, fat, wonderful
vacation books, and since I have been disabled for hiking, I have done
absolutely nothing but lie on my back and read, with occasional
breaks for eating, drinking and desultory bird-watching.

Come evening, after a day of perfect leisure, we take a look at the
ridiculously brilliant stars before retiring early to sleep as the
cool, spicy forest air washes in and out the open windows. This long,
quiet sleep is all the sweeter, since one of the many restful features
of our house in the woods is a total absence of dogs. We do miss our
buddies sometimes, but not at dawn.

Tomorrow, it’s back down the canyon and through chi-chi Sedona, down
into the Verde Valley and then up onto the gorgeous highlands, which
actually last quite a ways before you hit three hours of hectic south-
and eastbound ugliness. Is there anywhere on Earth where the contrasts
between immense beauty and hell-bent uglification are more stunning
than in Arizona? Drought, in every sense, is upon us—even the
creosote is biting it, and much of the development along Interstate 10
looks tattered and half-abandoned. (Seen around Chandler: Right behind
a video billboard for a casino, a sign for 24-hour bankruptcy
lawyers—800-BANKRUPT. I swear.)

But these are Tucson thoughts, workweek thoughts. For now, I have no
tasks, not even the task of worrying, and I am surrounded by natural
beauty. Extreme natural beauty, truth be told: millions of shiny little
leaves glittering in the sun against an impossible backdrop of pink and
white. And my only duty is to read gluttonously.

Surely vacation is good for all of us.

This article appears in Aug 20-26, 2009.