Land of Dancing Distances

Arizona (113,909 sq. mi.) is not the largest state in the U.S.A., there being five others larger: Alaska, 586,400 sq. mi.; Texas, 267,339 sq. mi.; California, 158,693 sq. mi.; Montana, 147,138 sq. mi.; and New Mexico, 121,666 sq. mi. There are forty-four states in the Union less richly endowed with claims on Earth's surface. To name a few: Colorado, 104,247 sq. mi.; Arkansas, 53,104 sq. mi.; Illinois, 56,400 sq. mi.; Michigan, 58,216 sq. mi.; New York, 49,576 sq. mi.; Oregon, 96,981 sq. mi.; and Hawaii, 6,454 sq. mi. Such land areas measured in terms of thousands of square miles are confusing to one whose ownership of a portion of Earth is limited to a small city lot. Figures such as these cause the same bewilderment that possesses an honest burgher who drives home from work at a dashing thirty-five miles an hour only to read in the evening paper that a jet has done it again ripped off a speed of a thousand miles an hour or more. Once you get around our state a couple of times or so, though, those formidable thousands of square miles become familiar and friendly. It's an easy land to come to know; it's an easy land to come to love. Witness the testimony of the thousands and thousands of newcomers who have joined us in the past decade (third fastest growing state in percentage of population growth during the decade 1950-1960, a big decade for Arizona).

Arizona is a big land; but not big and empty. Arizona's terrain is so diversified in its configuration that no matter where you travel, north-south, eastwest, you'll find few tedious miles to dull the eye, few boring vistas to make you wish you were some place else. This makes for excitement in travel, as so many thousands of pleased visitors find each year. The next bend in the road may reveal the unexpected. As the miles unfold, the scenery changes; and therein is the spice that always makes a journey enjoyable and memorable. There is hardly a single approach to the state that does not have something dramatic to offer the motorist, something to make you understand what som unknown writer meant when he wrote a long time ago that Arizona was a "land of dancing distances." Suppose you are coming in from the north on Alt. U.S. 89. You are greeted by the flat Strip Country and there in the distance is the brooding bulk of the Kaibab, the "mountain lying down." Up the face of that dark mountain the road takes you up and up so gradually and easily you hardly realize you are climbing. The bare, almost lifeless Strip Country (except for a green patch of farm here and there) gives way to cool pines. When you approach the summit, a friendly sign will To direct you to a roadside rest area and a view point. You will be well rewarded if you heed the admonition of that sign and pause for a few moments. From the view point, you see country you have just traversed and far in the distance is the shimmering curtain of color in cliff and mountain that is Southern Utah. You should know more about this country, so big and flat and endless, for it is full of human history - the story of the Mormon pioneers, Indian depradations, the coming of the first telegraph line into the area. The Kaibab has many surprises for the attentive traveler. State Route 67, beginning at Jacob Lake, takes you to the North Rim of Grand Canyon, something no well-traveled person should miss. The drive is delightful, deer-peopled open meadows, aspen aisles, age-old forests green and rich in the sun. All of this then the Canyon, indescribable.

Along Alt. U.S. 89, on leaving the Kaibab going south, then comes up with one of its biggest surprises. You wind half way down the mountain and suddenly, at the turn of the road, you are confronted with the magnificent expanse of House Rock Valley, over which, in the dancing distance, stand in everlasting vigilance the fabled Vermilion Cliffs. Here before you is a big, lonesome country, fantastic in coloring. Throughout all the

miles your eyes behold there are, perhaps, two hands-ful of people, a few scattered bunches of cattle, and a herd of buffalo.

You have now entered Arizona on Alt. U.S. 89. Where you stop to view the House Rock Valley pan-orama, you have scarcely driven sixty miles, but what interesting and unusual miles they have been. So it is with nearly every highway and byway which brings you into the state.

There is U.S. 93 coming from the north which offers you sweeping views of Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, and a rolling, hilly terrain that looks like heaps of chocolate ice cream flowing into each other under the hot sun. There is U.S. 66, from the east, revealing to you the immense distances of the Navajo Reservation and that wilderness of colored land we call the "Painted Desert." Newly-designated U.S. 89, from Kanab and Utah in the north, offers you Glen Canyon, a quite considerable offering, to be sure, with its steep canyon walls, its muddy river, and its teeming activity of men building a dam.

Come in, if you wish, from the east on U.S. 60.

First, you pass through the White Mountains, high and cool and filled with lakes and trout streams, then you descend gradually through a forest region, and then almost without warning you take a curve in the road and there before you, almost startling in its size and color, is the mighty canyon of the Salt River. The highway, a masterpiece of construction, carries you in and out of this canyon with ease, but, curiously, speed-ing has never been a problem here. There is too much to see here to pass through hurriedly.

The post cards and picture books make much ado about our more famous scenic shrines Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Oak Creek Canyon, etc., etc., from here to doomsday and rightly so. Let the traveler, though, follow his own whims and fancies along our highways and byways. We promise him a pleasant journey and the greater enjoyment of discovering for himself, without benefit of the pointing finger of a travel guide, a treasury of scenic surprises and enchantment which we know will be pardon us, dear reader, we tried hard not to use the term, but none other seems so appropriate breathtaking!

NOTES FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS

OPPOSITE PAGE

BACK COVER

A Cowboy's Christmas Prayer

I ain't much good at prayin', and You may not know me, LordI ain't much seen in churches where they preach Thy Holy Word, But You may have observed me out here on the lonely plains, A-lookin' after cattle, feelin' thankful when it rains, Admirin' Thy great handiwork, the miracle of grass, Aware of Thy kind spirit in the way it comes to pass That hired men on horseback and the livestock that we tend Can look up at the stars at night and know we've got a Friend.

So here's ol' Christmas comin' on, remindin' us again Of Him whose coming brought good will into the hearts of men. A cowboy ain't no preacher, Lord, but if You'll hear my prayer, I'll ask as good as we have got for all men everywhere. Don't let no hearts be bitter, Lord. Don't let no child be cold. Make easy beds for them that's sick and them that's weak and old. Let kindness bless the trail we ride, no matter what we're after, And sorter keep us on Your side, in tears as well as laughter. I've seen ol' cows a-starvin', and it ain't no happy sight: Please don't leave no one hungry, Lord, on Thy good Christmas nightNo man, no child, no woman, and no critter on four feet I'll do my doggone best to help you find 'em chuck to eat.

I'm just a sinful cowpoke, Lord-ain't got no business prayin'But still I hope you'll ketch a word or two of what I'm sayin': We speak of Merry Christmas, Lord-1 reckon You'll agree There ain't no Merry Christmas for nobody that ain't free! So one thing more I'll ask You, Lord: just help us what You can To save some seeds of freedom for the future sons of man!