Words like deserted and desolate might be what spring to mind when we think of the desert. I certainly had no idea of the incredible level of biodiversity in the Sonoran desert; a landscape teeming with life, in spite of the brutal heat, as well as the lack of rain, which come in great torrents only in the twice-yearly monsoon months.

The first stop on my tour of the Americas was the south-western US state of Arizona.

First, though, I had to make one last visit to Lancaster for a leaving party; it did not end well. After eight years of living in that city, I spent my bittersweet last couple of hours the following day sat hungover besides the River Lune:

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Venturing Forth ¶

Flying out of the UK the day after a disastrous leaving do was perhaps not the most auspicious start to my trip, but thankfully I was too jet-lagged for the first few days to dwell on it too much. My mum and sister had travelled directly to Phoenix, whilst I cheaped out with a layover in Toronto, thus exposing me to the stupidity of TSA Preclearance. After reuniting with them, my uncle drove us across to Surprise and my opa’s place.¹

Soon we were joined by my aunt, who brought with her my collection of long-awaited Congressional Award medals and accompanying merch, allowing me to finally draw to a close my pre-25 quest for awards and trinkets; now I have a whole 15 years to get the Turner Prize and/or Fields Medal pipped.

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Given that we were in an over-55s community, much of the following few days was spent role-playing as a retiree, which which I mean zooming around on a golf cart and lounging by the pool:

Photo by the author

Photo by the author

A couple days later we all visited the Desert Botanical Garden, where I got to indulge my newfound fascination with botany (sparked by binging Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t videos) courtesy of the scientific names printed on all of the plant nameplates. After this, we all went for a (gentle) walk in the nearby White Tank Mountain Regional Park, where I no doubt got on everyone’s nerves pointing out every acacea or asteraceae we passed.

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We also visited my uncle’s house, behind which lies several hectares of Land Management land, and this beauty:

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We’ll get back to that in a bit…

Commencing Stay-behind Op ¶

After a week and a half, it was time for us to part ways as mum and my sister flew back to the UK, leaving me with my opa and his partner. I quickly returned to White Tank to indulge my need for a more demanding hike, completing the lollipop across the middle formed by the Mesquite and Willow Canyon Trials. Opa also lent me his pick-up truck and I got to experience the mind-numbing simplicity of driving in the US.

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I kept up my regular pool attendance, as wall as making some trips to an out-of-town workshop that Opa is trying to empty out to sell. Every trip revealed something interesting, from a 150-year-old toolbox that had belonged to his grandfather and box of matches from East Germany, to a camera tripod and a solitary hiking pole, both of which I promptly commandeered for myself.

Photo by the author

Photo by the author

After a couple of weeks, the three of us headed up to their summer home in the mountain town of Payson to close it down for the winter. Whilst there, I took an opportunity to visit Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, where I managed to walk all of the trails in slightly over an hour (rather faster than the map’s estimate of four) and then walked them all again in reverse whilst I waited for my scheduled pickup.

Payson was a pretty little town in the shadow of the Mogollon Rim, and after several weeks in suburban Phoenix—as I later discovered, a city infamous for being one of the most car-dependent in the US—it felt nice to be somewhere in which at least a cursory effort had been made to allow pedestrians to move around, and not just the Super Duty trucks that are native to the area.

We headed back to Surprise and met back up with my uncle to help prepare for a Lions sale. After a day of sitting in the sun on the driveway drinking beers, I headed off to the outskirts of Buckeye to stay with my uncle, his partner and their several cats. Though initially timid, after a few days my patient stroking efforts had paid off and the cats were happily sitting on my lap.

Because It’s There ¶

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This brought me back within spittin’ distance of that mountain, which I had been thinking about for a couple weeks now. Looking at a few maps suggested that the mountain was unnamed and that there were no marked trails up to the top, so I had long ago resolved to try and climb it. After a not-particularly stimulating one-hour walk to the base, I began improvising a somewhat-hairy scramble up a combination of loose scree and unsupportive catci.

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I had enough footholds fall away under my weight to start to question the wisdom of my plan, but by that point I was about halfway up and the goal was in sight. Then, when I finally reached the summit, I found that someone had beat me to it in the most American way possible: whilst carrying a huge crucifix.

Photo by the author

Photo by the author

I took several pictures, and then faced the challenge of deciding how best to descend. In the end, I slid down a dried-up wash mostly on my bum, and then walked the remaining hour back to the house.

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At this point one of the straps on my rucksack, which I have been using since I did my Duke of Edinburgh’s Award expeditions some eight years ago without issue, tore. Not the best start to trying to live out of it for the better part of a year, but luckily my sewing skills were up to the challenge and I patched it up good as new.

Fuelled by some fanastic dinners from a nearby Mexican restaurant called Raul & Theresa’s, I headed to White Tank one last time to tackle a monster route: Ford Canyon and Goat Camp, the two black double diamond-rated trails around the outskirts of the site.

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I took my newly-acquired tripod with me and experimented with some photography, including playing around with my timer:

Photo by the author

Photo by the author

Whilst taking this photo I ran into the only English person (who wasn't related to me) that I met my whole time in Arizona; she was from Lincolnshire, of all places.

Addressing the Elephant (and Donkey) in the Room ¶

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Arizona is traditionally a very red state, infamous for draconian immigration legislation and one distinctly monstrous former Sheriff. My inital plan was to spend a month on the frontline of this, volunteering with No More Death’s Desert Aid programme, but unfortunately that didn’t pan out. Regardless, Arizona seems to be something of a ground zero for the election and QAnon conspiracy theories currently wracking the country’s political system and, across the US more broadly, the political culture (and election advertising in particular) could charitably be described as spirited, and less generously as utterly batshit. There would be no escaping it.

So, thrust amidst the thrum of the US mid-term elections on the opposite side of the country to the handful of races I could actually have any electoral impact on, and remembering my now almost decade-old European Parliament election post, I decide to observe the proceedings with an outsider’s eyes and an Englishman’s cynicism.

For the uninitiated, elections in the US comprise a mind-boggling number of races, from the national-profile positions like the state’s Governor and its Congresspeople, through the state’s own Senate and House all the way down to hyper-local roles like school board members and water supervisors. Most of the TV ads, where the real lunacy is concentrated, tend to be for the higher-profile positions for farily obvious financial reasons, but that doesn’t mean the odd minor election ad doesn’t crop up from time to time; my personal favourite example of this was for a school board candidate who compared changes in literacy rates in a chart with an unlabelled y-axis (and, if you do that, an interesting thing happens). Regardless, I’m not registered to vote in Arizona and so I had no incentive to pay attention to any but the most unavoidable races.

The most intense were between prospective Governors Katie Hobbs (D) and Kari Lake (R), as well as between incumbent Astro-senator Mark Kelly (D) and strange vat-grown Peter Thiel fleshpuppet Blake Masters (R). With the incumbent Secretary of State (Hobbes) now running for Governor, Adrian Fontes (D) and Mark Finchem (R) fought for the now-vacant role, and there were several seats in the House of Representatives also up for grabs.

Highlights from the various ad campaigns were one in which election conspiracy theorist radical Eli Crane (R, AZ-2, and who would go on to win his race regardless) was shown with his face superimposed over what looked like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (as a visual metaphor to illustrate his links to far-right groups, but which is a reference I don’t imagine anyone outside of those groups would get). Another gem was this uncanny valley-ass ad from Blake Masters in which we are expected to believe that his infant son is in fact incredibly excited by the prospect of 18,000 new Border Patrol agents (although, game recognising game, I do like his use of long takes). There was also a particularly fascistic one from some Trumpist PAC that overlaid dramatic blood splatters over footage of refugees, along with voiceover that reminded me of the infamous UKIP Breaking Point poster from 2016. Unfortunately, I have found that many of the most noteworthy examples of these ads are nowhere to be found on popular video-sharing sites, which makes me wonder why there is no service that archives these gems for future generations; I would argue that the political attack ad is one of the most distinctive examples of American cultural production and are well worth preserving.

I also had a fairly bipartisan experience of the election coverage: my opa’s partner is a life-long Democrat, so I spent the first few weeks with CNN a constant background presence, endlessly banging on about the same things—Russian election interference, Trump’s impeachments, the Capitol riot—as the last six years. Then, for the election night itself I was with my Fox-watching relations and was treated to Tucker Carlson—the original bowtie dipshit, currently very upset about M&Ms not being sexy enough—and his hot takes on how things were going. It was a strange thing to see, as I’ve never seen Carlson in the wild before; I’ve only seen him in the context of critical commentary or vulgar impressions. I found that whilst I had at least some awareness of the events that CNN talking heads repeatedly rehashed (having at one point followed Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter from an American newsletter, and having watched the first Trump impeachment hearings live on C-SPAN, I guess because I hate myself), the conspiracy-addled bêtes noires of the right remain utterly inpenetrable to me, although I did enjoy seeing that the MyPillow guy is still getting called in for ridiculous interviews.

By the next morning, there were no clear winners nationally and barely any votes counted in Arizona. After the breathlessness of the preceding weeks there was a profound sense of anticlimax, as results continued to trickle in and only those with a professional interest in the results could possibly maintain their focus. I have only just realised, writing this piece several months later, that I never actually followed up to see how any of the Arizona races concluded. I think the different partisan media coverage provides a good demonstration in microcosm of the two parties’ current forms in macrocosm: both sides are incredibly annoying and utterly myopic, but one has a quantifiably larger and drastically louder lunatic fringe and presents far more of a threat to people, both within and without the country.

Florida Doldrums ¶

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Finally, it was time to move on. After flying out from PHX for a 10-hour overnight layover at Florida Fort Lauderdale, I nearly lost my US passport when I dropped it whilst using a water fountain. Eventually I realised it was missing and went to retrace my steps, whereupon someone by the fountain told me it had been found by a cleaner and handed in to the JetBlue desk. Unfortunately, all of the JetBlue staff had gone home for the night by this point and I had to sit through several sweaty hours before they returned and I could find out whether or not they had my passport (they did!). Also, JetBlue refused to let me board without having booked a flight out of Costa Rica (no matter how much I showed them the Costa Rica Ministry of Tourism page saying that an onward bus ticket was also fine). I slept through the whole flight to San Jose.

My time in Arizona was a perfect start to this trip: somewhere I am already somewhat familiar with and where I have somebody to visit, and with plenty of stunning scenery to explore (once I’d figured out the logistical issues of actually getting to it, at least). At one point somebody asked me if I’d ever consider living in the US, and I think my answer is still no for a whole host of reasons, but after this first longer solo visit I am definitely keen to spend some more time here. It was also good to spend some time with the side of my family that I’ve only ever seen in brief bursts before, and to get to know my uncle and his partner; they were all excellent hosts, and hopefully I wasn’t too bad of a guest.

Next stop, Central America: somewhere I’ve never been, and where I don’t know anybody (yet).