Ah, the Journey Mural. We stopped rather often after our night in Vegas. Probably had something to do with the fact that we stayed up 'till dawn in our hotel room after seeing Zumanity and walking up and down the strip a few times, checking out the different casinos and playing lots of video poker.... but more on Vegas at a later time. In any case, we were in Arizona, and we saw the signs for Chloride, which was in my book of Eccentric America. The mural itself is entitled, "The Journey, Images From an Inward Search for Self". I suppose this should have given us a clue of what to expect.... The book told us that Roy Purcell painted this mural, "using automotive paint bought for him by a freindly miner," and that "some of the images tower 75 feet above you," and that despite the fact that you have to drive 1.3 miles down a bumpy dirt road, "it's worth it." Getting into the town was sort of a journey itself. From the highway, it looks as though Chloride is only a mile away, but as you drive along the road to town, someone has set up little signs every tenth of a mile that say things like, "don't worry"..."you have reached a town." Not surprisingly, the town itself is a small artsy community; every yard has found art sculptures and twinkly lights. There are tiny little adorable bunnies everywhere with little fluffy white tails; I'm not sure if it was just young bunnie season or if Chloride is infested with dwarf bunnies. I wouldn't mind living in a town infested with dwarf bunnies; except when they dash across the road and fill your mind with flashes of burning in hell for running their tiny little fluffy tails over. We got to the bottom of the road and, after a mere 50 feet, figured out that it was no longer suitable for anything to drive on besides ATV's. So we got out to walk, figuring we could use a touch of excersize. Of course, it wasn't 1.3 miles, and the sun got to setting, which was gorgeous, but since John and I had gotten nowhere near the distance we'd intended to that day, it was a little nerve wracking. But the cute little bunnies guided our way up the hill through the rocks, and after the fourth time we were sure we'd gone the wrong way, we came upon the murals, which were most certainly not 75 feet tall. And we both looked at each other and said, "what the fuck is this hippie shit??!!" Apparenlty whoever was so obsessed with this guy's work had never lived in Berkeley, where there are hippy murals on the back of every third mini-market. The desert walk and sunset were quite lovely, in any case. More pictures of that to come when John posts them.... including the picture of the tadpoles we saw in the creek on the walk back, which inspired the next picture....