Take a Roadtrip.

The 4th of July is so perfectly timed-- a celebration of America right when the country is looking its best. We've got blue skies, full green forests, warm weather, and open highways just waiting to be traversed. So why not celebrate the country by getting out and admiring it on a road trip?

We celebrated my homeland just a little early, on our way out of the country late last month. Taking off from Albuquerque, NM, we headed to Los Angeles via Utah. With the detour, we treated ourselves to unbelievable landscapes, some glimpses of offbeat rural towns, and some very restful nights in the great outdoors. And along the way, I put together a few tips for letting go and enjoying the road.

1. Stop to photograph any cool signs you see. Who knows when you'll be taking this route again, so it's always worth taking a moment to stop and memorialize it. I made Bordeaux pull over in Cuba, NM to snap up this one.

2. Splurge on one good bottle of alcohol. Just make sure to enjoy it at the campsite, not while you're driving. To me, campfires and quiet desert nights just seem to set the perfect atmosphere for relaxing with a stiff drink. For a touch of Alcoholic Americana, we picked up a bottle of Knob Creek bourbon-- which, interestingly enough, tastes just like vanilla coke when splashed with a can of Blue Sky Cola.

3. Stop for a slice of pie. Support local cafes, where you'll usually get much better meals than at the chain diners or drive-thrus. We had a fantastic plate of green chile huevos rancheros at Cafe Eklectica in Moab (despite the unfortunate name).

4. Check messages. Zipping through small towns, you rarely get much of a chance to gain an in-depth look into local social life. But paying attention to small details, like general store message boards, can give you an instant glimpse into the lives of locals.

5. Have a bad meal every now and then. While there is some very good food to be enjoyed across the country, some trashy diner food can be a fun indulgence every now and then. Bad burgers and bad mexican are especially tasty.

6. For that matter, take some bad photos. The West seems to have been sculpted for photography, with it's dramatic forms, intense contrasts in light and shadow, and rich natural colors. But taking pictures too carefully in effort to conjure Ansel Adams can leave you with a very tame album. So point the camera wildly, snap away, and maybe you'll get some fun surprises.

7. Make sure to stop somewhere spectacular. We have a pretty unbelievable country, and it's a shame how many of us don't make the effort of really seeking out its best angles. Being from the Southwest, I'm pretty spoiled with unbelievable landscapes-- The Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Arches, and the pictured above Canyonlands are all within half a days drive from my parents doorstep-- but I hadn't seen any of them until the last few years.

8. Try out some facial hair. Or a new hairstyle, or some odd new clothes. You're going to be spending your days either alone or with total strangers, so it's the perfect time to try a new look.

9. Treat yourself to a pool at least once. I'm a fan of quiet isolation of tent camping in gorgeous national parks, but a big bright swimming pool can be a different way of celebrating the US of A. We swung by Las Vegas, where in the heat of summer a hotel room at a decent spot can cost you less than 3 ten dollar bills. Just remember that the Las Vegas shock takes an hour or so by the pool to wear off.

So that's all I came up with! Anyone else have some tips? Or suggestions of where to go? Or what to toast on the camp fire?

In the meantime, Happy 4th of July and enjoy the country while I'm gone!

Motel.

The new title banner comes from the above photograph, taken of a beautiful old motel in Northern Arizona. In searching for a new banner for Primitive Culture, I was tempted at first to use an image from Southeast Asia to reflect my current locale, or of Africa to reflect my favorite continent. But there was something about this old motel sign that I loved, so in the end I went with something a little closer to my origins. On my last big American roadtrip, I collected photographs of desert motels from all over California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Here are some of my favorites.

Gila, Arizona

The two on the left are from Las Vegas, NV, the other is from Hollywood, CA

Amboy, Mojave Desert, CA

Albuquerque, NM

Albuquerque, NM

In Barren Lands.

Roadtrip, Part 1

Roy's Motel & Cafe, Amboy, CA

After picking up breakfast and coffee at Larchmont Farmer's Market, Bordeaux and I headed out of Los Angeles. Packed with all of our belongings into my Civic, we drove out of town on the 10, through exotic areas of LA that Bordeaux had never gotten to see. Eventually the urban thicket thinned out, giving way to the dusty suburbs and characterless shopping malls of the Inland Empire. We passed through towns where mid-level chain restaurants clustered against the highway; watching as Benihana and The Elephant Bar were replaced by obscure steakhouses with names like Beef and Beer and Cask and Cleaver. Eventually the city fell away completely, flickering out in sudden outlet shopping malls and fastfood drive-thrus as groves of joshua trees replaced houses. After stopping briefly in the town of Baker to pick water (and to stare up at the World's Tallest Thermometer), we continued on our way. We crossed over a sandy ridge, and exited from the desert wasteland of interior California...

...into the neon wasteland of Las Vegas, Nevada. I had tried to prepare Bordeaux for Las Vegas, but how could I? The lights were far brighter, the casinos much nosier, the cocktail waitresses far more haggard, and the people far more obese than I possibly could have put into words. We traveled to downtown Las Vegas, where we met up with friends who were enjoying cheap drinks and mingling with tattooed showgirls. Despite the alleged "revival" of Downtown Las Vegas, Fremont Street still had a sad pall of desperation. The casinos looked rundown, the showgirls even more so; a large screen flashed images of naked women, concealed with cartoon explosions featuring incongruous interjections, like "yikes!" and "gabzooks!" After losing three dollars playing blackjack at the Golden Nugget, we checked into our room at the Flamingo. The first hotel opened on the strip, and formerly the most expensive hotel in the world, the Flamingo is one of the last symbols of old-Vegas glitz still in operation. With its Miami-deco styling, palm-leafed tropical theming, and elderly clientele, the hotel has the feel of a retirement home loaded with slot machines. We passed our 24-hours in Vegas by trekking between casinos, playing nickel slots (through which I lost another three dollars, and Bordeaux won five), and searching out free drinks.

After stealing souvenirs from the Luxor's Pharoah's Pheast buffet, we refilled the gas tank and got out of town. Driving away from the noise of Las Vegas, we turned south from the 15, and entered the painfully quiet Mojave reserve. The Mojave was a stark landscape of sand, rock and joshua trees, interrupted by the occasional splintering ruin. As cotton-tails darted away from us, we walked around an abandoned corral, wondering why the ground was strewn with dirtied ladies' summer-wear.

Just out of the Mojave, we pulled into a service station in Amboy. Less a town than a series of abandoned businesses, Amboy offered a diner (non-functional), a motel (abandonded), a school (in ruins), a church (in disrepair) and a post-office (closed). We walked into the service station, and picked two bottles of water (Amboy Water, with self-printed labels) out of the fridge. Unsure of whether to just leave the money on the counter, we waited until the owner, a scrawny man with an untamed beard, arrived in his golf cart. He came with two small dogs; one of them immediately hopped up on the lunch counter, and reclined, panting, on the cool formica.