The Long Road Home

April 23, 2018
  It's a long road from our daughter's house in Seattle to our home in Cave Creek. In fact, it's 1,486 miles. So we flew home from Seattle yesterday and as we cruised at 30,000 feet over the Grand Canyon I started looking out the window for my homeland. Was that Frazier's Well down there, or were we farther to the east? I finally recognized Ashfork, and quickly scooted westward up the twin lines of I-40 to find Seligman, then beyond the Sno-cap Drive-in lies the longest surviving stretch of old Route 66 snaking its way across Long Valley and onward to Peach Springs, Truxton and Valentine and then around the corner to Hackberry where my great-grandmother, Dolce Guess, is buried.

   It always makes me feel good to see my home country from the air. I have been down many roads in many parts of the world, but few places stir my soul more than this land.

   My curator, Kristi Jacobs, is putting together some of the themes I have painted on over the years to consider as art pieces to show at the Arizona History Conference which takes place this coming weekend in Tempe.

   One of the themes she has curated ("66 Kid Headlights") naturally caught my eye and I grabbed a half-dozen of them to paint and "improve" over my lunch hour (and she's going to hate this: I have renamed most of them!)

Hailstorm In Truxton Canyon

Blasting Thru Truxton After the Rain

             
  Kind of interesting how much many of my road memories involve rain. Perhaps because it is so rare in Arizona, or, maybe it's because those are the memories I cherish the most.

Cloudburst at Coyote Pass

Late Night Driver North of Grasshopper Junction

T-Bird On The Move South of Perfume Pass

Oatman Road at Dusk

  Why am I obsessed with road pictures? Here's one possible explanation:

"We spend our lives trying to understand our parents."

—Thomas McGuane