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After the drive through the canyon we were offered our last chance for refuge in a motel.  The signs were still lit, Vacancy.  Our heads would come up and rest on the back seat of the car.  The neon lights told us we were safe and we had survived.  The colors red, blue and green from the lit signs were projected on our faces.  There was the El Rancho Motel, the Ed Coronado, and the Apache all willing to take us.  I could see the playground equipment, the swimming pool without a fence, the lawn chairs, a restaurant next door so you could get breakfast.  We had to keep moving and we weren't saying.  We were not on a family vacation.

The United States had 1.68 million miles of surfaced roads.  We were driving 230 of those from Phoenix to Clifton.  Those miles had as much drama as if the family was driving across the whole United States in one night.  We again claimed our section of the back seat.  The upholstery was made out of a stiff scratch material, possibly wool, that after three hours in the car made our skin itch.  It left impressions on our bare legs that looked like rows where cotton could be planted. I tried to pull my nightgown over my legs.  Candy wrappers were thrown on the floor.  We were driving the total distance in one and our car treat was a Hershey Bar with almonds.  I could smell the chocolate on my fingers after the candy was gone and the insider of the candy wrapper brought back the smell of the eaten candy.  We were on our trip through Arizona at night and this was our reward for being quiet, not asking questions, and letting Mom drive.  There were numbered markets every mile that let me know how close we were to Clifton and how much further we needed to drive.  I learned to read the road.

After leaving the Globe the last part of danger was Coolidge Dam.  Calvin Coolidge dedicated the dam in 1930.  The total drive around dam was .2 miles but once again we were given the strong warning that this took all of mom's concentration.  Her anger would have to wait to be picked up again in .2 miles.  The dam was built in the 20's.  It had the workmanship of the WPA, men out of work and with time.  Along the drive around the dam there were benches made out of stone.  With each bench there was a light that case yellow on the rock and water.  This could have been a place where you might want to kiss, fish or sit.  You could imagine yourself in a foreign country on a lake, not a made made bottled up body of water.  It seemed all the parts of the drive that my mother thought were the most dangerous were the most interesting.  Arizona became another country.

The flat desert reappeared.  We had not gone through three counties.  This was the time I thought it was safe to sleep.  We were more than half way and my mother's voice as she talked to my sister became calmer.  It seemed like we were going to make it to our grandmother's house.  This part of the desert gave Arizona its bad name; not even cactus grew here. If you were able to get out and walk it would be hostile, the ground littered with broken pieces of jumping cactus, rocks, and white limestone coming to the surface.  This is the desert we gave to the Indians and it became The San Carlos Indian