The southwest region of the United State of America was not meant for modern human settlement. Much of it is desert: dry, rocky, hot and splendid. The Sonoran and the Chihuahuan Deserts are classic arid deserts that cover much of the Southwest low land and largest cities, while the high desert defines places like southern Utah and Colorado, where the altitude provides colder temperatures and snows in winter. Places like Phoenix have been grafted onto this forbidding environment, like a Mars landing site where some Earthlings have sought to recreate the place that they came from while others, like the Navaho, have tried to adapt to what is. The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy) recreates this choice on a planetary scale as humans begin a long process of colonizing Mars, after royally screwing up the Earth. Too many green lawns, golf courses, and swimming pools give an ominous warning of hardships soon to come. Water has been taken from the Colorado River to make the graft stick, but the Colorado is drying up (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River#Environmental_impacts).
For a visitor, this hostile environment can be enjoyed in all of its natural splendor without guilt. And splendid it is. My husband Phil and I set out by car from snow-crusted Minnesota in March 2015 to see for ourselves. We like to immerse ourselves in new places to the extent possible on short trips, so we decided on a car camping road trip of one month. We brought two mountain bikes, a large tent, a Coleman two-burner stove, plug-in mini-fridge, cooking stuff, sleeping bags and serious mats. Not like rolling up in your bedroll next to your donkey every night, but close enough for us seniors.
We planned a route that would take us through about eight national parks, starting with Big Bend in southwest Texas, and ending either at Mesa Verde National Park at the Four Corners or one of the southern Utah or Colorado parks. We also planned to meet one friend who had moved from the Twin Cities to Tucson, Arizona and Portal, New Mexico. Another old friend from my college days living near Los Angeles would connect with us in Desert Hot Springs, California. Nat Geo outlines a Southwest road trip (www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/road-trips/national-parks-southwest-canyons/) that I found helpful in planning ours. Their trip, however, did not include camping or biking.
Part of immersion road trips to me is to find songs or books to listen to about the place you are driving into. I started with some You Tube videos of southwestern songs. Those were quickly vetoed by the driver, especially the neo-hippie one by Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buQpcpQqdKo). Next we started on a couple of Tony Hillerman murder mystery audio books. We picked The First Eagle and Hunting Badger, which take place near the Mexico and New Mexico border. He is great at immersing his stories in both Navaho and Hopi culture, and in the landscape we were heading into. After those, we reread Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop. If ever I had thought about converting from an atheist to Catholic, this book would do it. Riding 1000 miles on a donkey into Mexico in the mid-1800s to restore the true church to the Mexican Indians isn’t my idea of a good time, but it is my idea of a noble and challenging mission. I have read or listened to this book three times now. It is one of the best American books of historical fiction, I think. the last chapter about the Archbishop’s preparation for his death is to die for (sorry!).
In Big Bend National Park there was only one campground open in mid-March–Chisos Basin, as the higher places were still snowbound. We sampled a picturesque hiking trail down the mountain and back. 
After our first camp meal and sunset, we noticed a nearby campsite where there was a huge telescope set up. The camper invited us over to have a look at the celestial bodies especially visible at high dry altitudes. He was also a Minnesotan, a science teacher, keen to teach us about the sky. He had driven down in one day to see the sky from Big Bend on a weekend. First, we were able to see the full moon with all its craters. Then he pointed out to us the Pleiades or Seven Sisters, visible on the upper right of the constellation Taurus. My granddaughter was born under Taurus. I had made her a winter hat with Taurus sewed onto a navy sky in beads, so I was already familiar with the general area.
The next day we drove down to the Rio Grande with our bikes in the back to dip into a natural hot spring We rode our bikes about two or three miles from where we parked the car to get to the river. The weather at river level was very hot and dry. After an hour- long walk along the northside river bluffs we changed into suits to join a few others in the hot bath. It was simple small cement block pool built to capture the hot water and allow for sitting. As we chatted with some of the other hot springs aficionados, we watched people swimming easily across the Rio Grande from the US to Mexico and back, with no sense of a national border being crossed. 
The bluffs on the Mexico side were high and forbidding. Ravens coursed along the bluff above the river, providing shadow puppet shows along the light colored sandstone. I laugh now–bitterly, of course–thinking about the idea of spending billions to build a hideous wall along this splendid natural wall already 50 feet high. Perhaps Mexico should demand we pay to build a wall on the lower US side, to keep the gringos from crossing over on a hot day.
Stupidly, I had not brought a water bottle from the car on the several hour excursion. As we rode our bikes back up a small hill to the main road after leaving the hot springs pool, I began to feel very dizzy, nauseous, and exhausted– a new experience for me. I stopped the bike and called out to Phil about my dysphoria. He came back and proffered his water bottle. I took a long swig and almost immediately began to lose the dizziness and nausea, but not the exhaustion. We rode the rest of the way up to the road and then I dropped the bike and lay down in a shaded spot along the main road while my hero went to get the car. Note to self: Keep drinking water when you are in the desert, even if you don’t feel thirsty.
Other states, other lives, other souls 