PHOENIX -- Motel signs don't spell out "VACANCY" here. They say "PRAY FOR RAIN. " The letters on the marquee are as large as they can be for a small space.
It's as if, in desperation, the owners want God to be able to see the letters, as well as mortals who drive past on their way to a glorious vacation at a resort or spa such as The Golden Door.
Residents in this part of the country are accustomed to long droughts. This one, however, is a double whammy, and then some.
This is big country, where nothing seems to happen in a small way.
I am bursting with superlatives about my first visit to Arizona country, but I feel pangs of guilt for seeing the beauty and magnificence of nature, so different from the Pennsylvania hills we know and love, when the largest wildfire in history is destroying acres and acres, including hundreds of homes and animals.
There are many horse farms near Phoenix, which I never knew. You pass them often, and you wonder how they survive the heat. It brings to mind the cowboy and Old West movies I saw as a child, with riders on horseback climbing the craggy desert mountains.
The films could have been made here. Some probably were.
I felt such sadness reading about one man who, when forced to flee his home as the fires approached Show Low, did not know what to do with his three horses, so he simply opened the gate of his corral and allowed them to run for their lives.
I want to know if he found them and if they survived. I never will.
There are so many stories like that, and during my visit, I read them every day. The front page of The Arizona Republic had story after story, picture after picture of the destruction:
"Two Towns Burn" was one headline, and "250,000 acres and counting."
I sat comfortably in air conditioning, sipping my coffee, trying to relate to what all those people must be feeling just about 150 miles away.
I swam in my hosts' swimming pool, ate grapes and drank juice, took nice showers and slept in a comfortable bed. I saw a Diamondbacks' baseball game and also a professional women's basketball game, Mercury vs. Lynx.
I went to the movies and saw "Minority Report "with Tom Cruise. A great escape, it made my brain work.
At the same time, acres similar to the very neighborhoods I was passing were burning. From downtown Phoenix, some smoke could be detected, but people went about their routines, seemingly accustomed to the threat.
I wasn't. How do they do it?
Of course, how do you wake up to temperatures of more than 105 almost every day of summer? Actually, I am more uncomfortable when it is 90 degrees and humid in Pittsburgh.
As advised, I sipped water often to avoid dehydration from the 110-degree temperatures. I marveled that so much beauty could be destroyed. It made the fires seem even more menacing.
Even if the fires were elsewhere, they were close enough.
I suppose God's country is wherever you want it to be ... the mountains, the seashore, the desert. Sometime this month, monsoons in this part of the country will create both relief and new havoc in a paradise where a message at the top of Camelback Inn says "where time stands still."
I suppose it does. The weather, however, is a different matter. Fires do not remain still, even if time seems to. They rage.
I'm told the July monsoons and lightning can be quite dangerous, and yet they are being anticipated with great hope because the drought has been long and suffering is great.
Dust, ash and driving rain will be welcomed. How odd is that?
Fires, as we have all read, are part of Arizona summers. This is the worst, the combination of two fires set by careless and possibly criminal behavior. It adds to the tragedy.
Horses, dogs and cattle are being rescued and kept at the Navajo County fairgrounds in Holbrook. Many families were separated from their pets when they had to make quick decisions in evacuations. One family packed up a van with two dozen chickens and turkeys sharing space with their three children.
It's another way of life, and you can feel the tragedy when you see the awesome beauty being destroyed by leaping red and yellow flames of forest fires.
Pray for rain in Arizona.
On a happier note, I'll share the Pittsburgh connections, and there are many, and why I went to Phoenix, next Sunday. Promise. Write to Barbara Cloud at bcloud@post-gazette.com.
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