0 ... Gabriel Morrisprobably get out at the canyon, since I really wanted to hike down
into it.
Once we got there, however, my plans quickly changed. It was
snowing. As mentioned, I wasn’t fully prepared for the cold. Although
it would have been warmer at the bottom of the canyon, ,000 feet
below, it wasn’t worth taking the risk. After hanging around on the
edge of the canyon for a little while, ooohing and aaahing in won-
derment, the three of us went into the tourist trap of a restaurant for
coffee and French fries. Soon enough we were all piled into the van
and back out on the road.
We drove all through that day and late into the night, through a
huge snowstorm. We slept in the van for a while at a rest stop before
continuing on the next morning. They dropped me off in the small
town of Santa Rosa in eastern New Mexico. From there I planned to
hitch down towards either White Sands National Monument or else
Carlsbad Caverns.
I spent that morning doing laundry and checking out the town,
which I soon discovered was predominantly Native American and
Latino. Though I felt very respectful of Native American spirituality
and culture and had worked with many Latinos for my dad’s con-
struction company, I began to notice that the vibe I was getting there
wasn’t particularly welcoming. I started to get a little worried about
getting a ride out of town.
After waiting at the edge of town for only a few minutes, my fears were
realized when a beat-up old station wagon full of young men squealed
by. One of them stuck his head out the window just long enough to
curse at me, “Fuck you and your ride, you stupid piece of shit!”
While standing there numbly for a little while trying to decide
what I should do next and what the message was here (although it
was pretty obvious, literally at least), I looked around me and real-
ized that I was right on the edge of the desert that I had so wanted
to spend time immersed in. With that, I strapped on my pack and
buckled it tight, hiked a little farther down the road away from town
and the Interstate, and then hiked into the desert.