America the beautiful

The words we now sing as “America The Beautiful” were written by Katharine Lee Bates. Bates was a woman in 19th-century America, and lived for a quarter century with her female companion—what in that time and place was called a Boston marriage. So we can confidently say that she was not a fully equal citizen of the country she wrote in praise of.

This is one of the reasons I am fond of “America The Beautiful.” So much of U.S. history is about those who were, and are, not fully included or treated shamefully—women, African-Americans, the Native people of North America. Yet Katharine Lee Bates wrote my favorite American patriotic song, and she wrote it in praise of what, to me, are the best things about America:

“O beautiful for spacious skies, 

for amber waves of grain;

for purple mountain majesties

above the fruited plain!”

I’ve never really been a fan of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Something about the cheering at ball games when rockets and bombs get mentioned. The anti-protest folks may disagree with me here, but I’m not convinced a single American soldier ever died for the anthem (or the flag, for that matter). “America The Beautiful,” on the other hand, manages to celebrate the country accurately, even ways in which it could be improved. Here’s the seldom-sung final chorus:

“America! America! God mend thine every flaw,

confirm thy soul in self-control,

thy liberty in law.”

Why am I going on about this here? Because when we got to Yosemite, one of the national parks that charges an admission fee, we bought an “America The Beautiful” pass. For US$80, or less than the cost of driving into three fee-charging national parks, up to four people in our vehicle now have access to all the parks for an entire year. And because Americans’ attempt to preserve wilderness represents the best of the country, we intend to get as much out of America the Beautiful as possible.  

Together with Ben’s family (our parents would be joining us via a flight to Salt Lake City), we embarked on an epic road trip north from Arizona to Montana. Or in American Indian terms: from the Navajo Nation to the Blackfeet Nation.

We booked our camper van back when we were in Malaysia in January. It was the cheapest option we could find, but still amazingly expensive compared with our experiences down under. We knew each Escape Campervan was hand-painted with a different design, but not until we picked it up did we know which one we had.

There were cowboys on the other side. We weren’t sure how sensitive it was to pick up this vehicle and immediately drive it north through Indian lands, though I don’t think the western scene was meant as a disrespectful portrayal. In any case we were soon distracted by signs for Horsethief Basin, a “Colt Sale,” and “Protect our guns.” Not, you will note, “our children.” Oh, and a boat called “Boobie Bouncer,” possibly the tackiest name in a land where there is lots of competition.

If you’ve never traveled around the western United States you probably still have an image of it. The landscape has been in so many movies and television shows, westerns and otherwise. It changes as you rise from the hot, flat desert to a rainy elevation with pine trees. East of the Grand Canyon, nothing much rises out of the soil but the odd butte. 

In northern Arizona we ascended along a highway that passed through canyon walls. We stopped at a gas station near Lake Powell, a reservoir that sits on the Arizona-Utah state line. In the same way that I find bars in Nevada nostalgic, I was strangely pleased to see Big League Chew on sale at the counter. Big League Chew is a brand of shredded bubblegum that comes in a pouch. It is obviously meant to make children feel like they are dipping tobacco with the major league baseball players. As such, I’d expected it to be long since banned, like the Kinder Surprise candy eggs which contain small toys thought to be a danger to children in the U.S. Unlike, say, assault weapons.

We spent our first night in Kanab, Utah. There’s not much to say about that except that we managed to put the camp bed down successfully. This van was not a Hi-Top so you couldn’t stand up inside, but the bed was surprisingly comfortable. That’s because it was a proper bench seat, with seat belts, on which up to three additional passengers could safely sit. When folded out it was like a hide-a-bed, and one of the more comfortable ones I’ve slept in. Among other things, it was long enough to accommodate tall people. Maybe it’s an American thing.

Kanab, I have since learned, is a charming town whose surrounding area was one of the most heavily filmed in the Western movie era. We didn’t make it to the charming part, but stopped on the first strip of main street coming up from the south. Chains, mostly. But we got our rest for the night and were up early the next morning heading north.

We were taking the scenic route again, through our second national park, Zion in Utah. You are going to get tired of hearing this, but Zion is beautiful. We only took the road through it (with frequent photo stops) but it winds spectacularly through the canyon, down and out to the west. And this is only one corner of Zion National Park.

One of the things we loved about our camper van was that it was so compact. The refrigerator was a solar-powered drawer, easy to pull out and sort through the contents (our other campers had vertical standing fridges which could be awkward). And the removable camp stove in the back could be used anywhere, other than in the rain. We just stopped in the national park and T. cooked bacon and eggs. Breakfast in Zion, which sounds like a Bob Marley song.

I cannot tell you how much I’d been looking forward to this particular adventure. I am a lucky individual in that my siblings, grown up, are my best friends (when we were children it was quite a different story). Various versions of the Knowles family, like revolving bandmates, had had big American vacations in 1987, 1997 and 2007, and I’d been fortunate to be involved in all three. It was a year late but now here seven of us were, headed for more national parks with our America the Beautiful passes in hand. 

First, though, we had to get to Wyoming. It was smooth going north along Interstate 15, where I could drive for hours without T. having to be awake to give directions. Somewhere further along, however, I became confused. I can drive or I can navigate, but I’m not good at doing both at the same time. And T. was awake, but couldn’t find her reading glasses (I think they were in the back somewhere). In desperation, I pulled into a Burger King. Inside there were only a couple of customers and the staff were all chatting behind the counter.

“Excuse me,” I said, “but can I ask: Where am I?”

A young man, made up kind of like the guy in Human League, told me kindly that I was in Heber City, Utah. I acknowledge Heber City here because although we didn’t stay or spend any money, I felt welcome just the same.

It is pretty ridiculous how much I was looking forward to Idaho. For one thing, I needed the bathroom. We were in Idaho only briefly, where a state highway runs for less than a mile along the Wyoming state line before becoming 89 again. That is to say, we drove the entirety of Idaho 61. Stopped long enough to take a picture, though.

And then we were in Wyoming, and I looked out eagerly for Smoot. Smoot is a small community along Highway 89 which we could have easily missed, only I remembered seeing the sign for it back in 1987. I don't know what Smoot's population was the first time we saw it, but it was immortalized in this song, as created on the spot by my mother, Gracie:

“Oh I’m driving to Smoot

’Cause I’m missing your snoot.

You big old lug

I want to look at your mug.

So if you’re crying just hush

Till I see your mush,

Oh I just can’t wait 

To rub your old bald pate.”

Maybe you had to be there. In any case, I sang hello to Smoot and then, at last, we were rolling into Thayne, where Ben & co. had stopped for the evening. They’d directed us to a campground on the outskirts of town. The office was shut (it was nearly 8:30 by now) but there were still a couple of grassy sites available.

The only trouble was that it was now pouring down rain. T. said she wasn’t prepared, given the lateness of the hour, to wait it out until she could stand at the back and cook on the little camp stove. We had a decision to make. Shell out $42 for one of the rainy campsites (a bit stiff, I thought) or for twice as much, grab a motel room that advertised itself as “Nice”?

We opted for the motel. It was lovely. Given that it was Sunday and Thayne is a small town, most establishments were shut, but a helpful gal outside the biker bar told us the other bar in town would serve us pizza. We had a couple of beers in the Pines Bar to wash down a frozen pizza. It was so hot when heated up that we both burned our mouths, but it didn’t matter. The rain had stopped and we had a good night in Thayne.

In the morning we saw three truckloads of the Budweiser Clydesdales rolling down Main Street. We rendezvous’d with Ben, Elizabeth, and Maisie at the Village Market, a surprisingly nice grocery store for such a little place. Their vehicle would prove nearly as easy to spot in the coming weeks as our van, because they had a bright orange kayak strapped to the top of it.

And so we were off for the last couple of hours’ journey to Grand Teton National Park. The drive itself continued to be gorgeous, especially in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

I may have given the impression in an earlier post that camping in National Forests is always free. Monetarily that is not always the case, although camping on public lands is free in the sense of being open to all. If you find a site, it may only have a composting toilet and there may be a fee on the honor system, but you are always welcome to camp there.

The point is, there is always someplace to camp, even if we didn’t take advantage of it. We would be camping for the next twelve nights: four each in three of the greatest national parks America has to offer. 

T. calls these "fingers of God."