Flagstaff: Adventure on the Interstate
By Jim Rue
Flagstaff, Arizona stands at about 8000 feet. Route 66 cuts through it, and Grand Canyon is only 80 miles away. But it is difficult to get to. My flight from Phoenix takes off without me after I am told the pilot may have to skip Flagstaff if he can't find it in the fog. If that happens I will have to find a way back from Farmington, New Mexico in the middle of the night to make my early morning speaking engagement there. Facing a five-hour drive if that happens, I cancel the flight and rent a car to ascend Interstate 17 to Flagstaff for a two day stay.
Turn of the Century Feel
Flagstaff, AZ is a cute and spacious, if somewhat depressed town. Local businesses display in their front windows historic photos of turn-of-the-century Flagstaff when the town was comprised of a dozen or so unpainted pine shacks with second-story facades. Half the storefronts were saloons. Most of the rest were 'hotels.' From the old photos, the hotels are undetectable to a twentieth-century eye accustomed to Holiday Inns and Raddissons, but that's what the captions say. Flagstaff denizens clearly harbor a fierce pride in their small, isolated town. It doesn't seem so isolated. After all, Phoenix lies two hours to the south on a good day.
Storm Clouds
Today is not a good day, but today I leave. At noon the sky opens. Snowflakes larger than thimbles splat against the windows of the hotel At 2:00, the people I am with warn me that I may have trouble meeting my appointment in Phoenix the next morning. I see what they mean. The snow is already a foot deep on my rental car. By 4 P.M. most of the people in my meeting have left, concerned that they may not get through the mountain passes separating them from their families in towns more remote than this one.
I have promises to keep. I call the local office of the car rental company. They will swap me my rental for a full-size car with front wheel drive and studded tires. I will make Phoenix tonight. Using my Daytimer for a snowscraper to loosen 18 inches of wet snow from the back deck of the car, I dump my belongings into the trunk. For the first time in over twenty years, I back over the pile of snow left from that clearing, skidding sidewise down the gentle hill toward the driveway. It is a world of white! This is why I moved to California!
Half an hour later I am all of five miles away, in the lot of the hotel where the front-wheel-drive replacement car should be found. I park on the snow and stand by the desk of the rental agent, watching the snow fall in the dusk outside. After 20 minutes a hotel employee tells me the agent left more than an hour before, saying he would be right back.
Diving In Headfirst
I am fretful. The snow is deeper than ever and coming down hard. And it is nearly dark. I bolt for the midsize car I have and within minutes am hot on the heels of a snowplow on the interstate. We are going 20 miles per hour downhill, but we are going. Ten miles down the road, the snowplow exits the freeway to plow in the opposite direction. I continue on alone. Visibility is lousy. Cars and trucks are few and far between, and the radio reports are calling this particular stretch of roadway impassible. In southbound lanes, chains are required. I have no chains but I can't turn back now.
Lost in the Snow..this is Arizona?
I continue on, driving slowly when I am the only vehicle in sight, speeding up when I am passed by tall Wagoneers with snowchains. When their taillights become lost in the snow, I slow back down. Diamond-shaped yellow signs warn me to watch for deer and moose, and even Californians have warned me that those hulking animals are often hit on this stretch of road, usually causing injury to the driver. But I have quite enough to do keeping the car on the road, avoiding snowbanks and other cars.
Though it was not my first choice, I am pleased with the car. It has antilock brakes, and I soon discover that this is exactly what it means. Now matter how slick the surface and no matter how hard I brake, the car refuses to skid if I am going in a straight line. Never again will I poke fun at antilock brakes, I pray, if I get safely off the mountain. At one point I see a four-car accident on the northbound lanes. The first car skidded into the back of a semi at what must have been a high rate of speed. It has apparently just happened, but I can't stop to help. There is nowhere to stop without getting stuck or being hit myself, and I have no way to get across the fifty yards of snow to the northbound lane. A moment later I am relieved to see an emergency vehicle making its way up the mountain.
Two and a half hours down the mountain the snow suddenly becomes rain. The roadway is clear here, and I am soon doing the speed limit. I stop in Camp Verde for a fast food burger and a sigh of relief. I buy a large coffee to celebrate. It keeps me up for most of the night, steaming along on caffeine-assisted nervous energy as I review the adventurous evening past.