THE CALL OF THE WEST

FROM A SANDSTORM TO A SUNSET. CROSS-COUNTRY JEEP TRIP LEAVES MYRAID MOMENTS TO REMEMBER

Author: By Raffi Kodikian, Globe Correspondent

Date: SUNDAY, July 26, 1998

Page: M1

Section: Travel

As I rolled through New Mexico, I frequently found myself on ``county roads,'' passing through the mountains and into isolated villages. Having high clearance and four-wheel-drive opened up a whole other part of the country to me, a part that I hadn (tm)t found in any tourist brochure or on any road map. I took advantage of this in New Mexico.

I was on a cross-country trip in my Jeep, answering the call of the road, as Jack Kerouac did years ago in ``On the Road,'' and celebrating my recent graduation from Northeastern University. The trip had begun from my parents' home near Philadelphia, and the sights and experiences had been many.

As I rolled through New Mexico, I frequently found myself on ``county roads,'' passing through the mountains and into isolated villages. Having high clearance and four-wheel-drive opened up a whole other part of the country to me, a part that I hadn't found in any tourist brochure or on any road map. I took advantage of this in New Mexico.

I traveled those county roads to a town called Truth or Consequences, where I spent the 4th Fourth of July weekend at a youth hostel perched on the banks of the Rio Grande. As I sat on the deck one afternoon, gazing at the mountain range across the river and noticing the lines in the rock, my lips curled into a tiny smirk. ``I can't believe I actually have the time to sit contemplate the pattern in a rock,'' I thought. With that, the smirk rolled into a full grin, and I started to laugh. I'm sure I got some strange looks, but I didn't notice them. I was too busy noticing the lines in the rock.

I arrived at White Sands the next day and found the campground -- basically a sand dune of a mile from the road. I lugged my gear across the sand to the site, where I just staked my tent down without setting it up, and dropped my gear so I could head into the park to take pictures. Not long after leaving, I noticed a rainstorm coming, so I headed back to camp to put the top up on the Jeep and throw my stuff under the tent.

On the way, I noticed the wind had started picking up. It wasn't long before sand was in the air, and I knew I needed to move. I started to run, but by the time I was halfway there, all I saw in front of me was a sheet of white. The sand felt like a sand-blaster on my bare legs, and I had lost my sense of direction.

I had to decide whether to lie down and ball up or move as fast as I could in what I thought was the direction of the Jeep. I opted to move, and when the wind let up slightly, and my legs could do it, I ran.

For all I knew, I could have been heading straight into the desert. But as I came over the top of the next dune, I could barely make out the Jeep about 50 yards away. Thank God.

When I got there, I realized that in my haste to get to camp and cover my things, I had made one stupid mistake: I had locked my keys inside. But what the Jeep lacks in security, it makes up for in emergency-accessibility. I unzipped the rear window and lunged in, sand and all.

I later spoke with a park ranger who told me that because of White Sands' location among the surrounding mountains, it rarely gets hit with storms of such magnitude. Lucky me.

I headed into Arizona, and in the days to follow I visited the Chiricahua National Monument, a husband and wife who hunt rattlesnakes and make gifts out of their skins, a small copper mining town set in the hills of the southern Rockies just north of the Mexican border called Bisbee, and Tombstone, site of the famous OK Corral gunfight.

I stopped in Tucson and shot pool at a bar near the University of Arizona. During the the evening I asked the guy I was playing pool with what day it was. ``The eighth,'' he answered. ``What day of the week?'' I asked. ``Tuesday. I like that question,'' he replied. ``It lets you know you're in a good place when you don't have to keep track of the days.''

I woke up the next morning at 5:20 a.m. in Picacho Peak State Park to the most incredible sunrise I've ever seen. I was in a good place.

I moved on to Phoenix, where, after dropping my Jeep at Pep Boys to have the tires rotated, I was supposed to meet some people to go four-wheeling. It was after picking the Jeep up, though, that I realized Pep Boys had different plans for me. About two blocks from the garage, the rear right corner of the Jeep dropped out from under me, and my tire rolled right into a bus stop full of people. The mechanic had forgotten to tighten up the lug nuts after rotating the tires. Luckily, a man waiting for the bus was quick enough to grab the tire before it ran someone down. That night, dinner and the hotel was on Pep Boys.

The next day I picked up my girlfriend, Kirsten, from the airport. It was great to have her with me, and she seemed to appreciate what a few weeks on the road and in the sun had done to me. We headed north to the Grand Canyon, where we spent two days enjoying one of the most visited and admired spots on earth. We then hit Las Vegas, where I won $7.50 playing blackjack (no calls for loans, please), and moved on to 120-degree Death Valley. My last few weeks in Southern heat gave me a considerable comfort advantage over Kirsten, who had left Boston just two days earlier.

We wound through the Sierra Nevadas and hit the coast at Pismo Beach, Calif. The Pacific was glorious, and we spent the afternoon in the Jeep exploring endless dune fields. That night we camped on the beach, and opened our tent the next morning to find a seal a few feet away.

That day was a tour de romance, as we followed Route 1 up the coast, through Big Sur, Carmel, and Monterey on our way to the hostel in Pescadero. It had been converted from an old lighthouse, and by the time we got there, it was dark and freezing. But when we heard they had a hot tub, we grabbed the last time slot for using it. We found the hot tub outside, perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Pacific. When the lighthouse spotlight spun around, we could just make out the waves crashing against the rocks below.

Our next stop was San Francisco, where we both visited family. The last week or so had been a whirlwind of gorgeous vistas, neon lights, scorching heat, and chilling shores, so it was nice to have a couple days to relax.

At the end of our stay in San Francisco, I dropped Kirsten at the airport, and started the trip up again with my Uncle Harold, a diehard urbanite. We headed to Yosemite for a couple days to relive a similar trip 15 years earlier. His friends are still amazed that I got him to sleep in a tent and chop wood. Wait till they see the pictures!

After a brief jaunt into Fresno, I dropped Harold off at the airport and headed north to a tiny town called Georgetown. There I joined 499 other Jeeps that were getting ready for the Jeepers Jamboree, a four-day 4 x 4 event that winds over one of the most difficult trails in the country, the Rubicon.

It's funny how things work out sometimes. I didn't have a reserved spot for the filled-up trip, but when someone canceled at the last minute, I was there to fill the slot. And later that night, I met a gang of guys and girls from Santa Cruz, whom I ended up spending the entire trip with. I was glad, because the idea of negotiating such a difficult trail on my own made me a little uneasy.

We spent 17 grueling hours on Rubicon the next day trying to get into camp, and I drove over some terrain that I still can't believe. But the following two days were heaven. Our camp was right next to a river that was flowing down through the rocks from the mountaintops in the distance. We were surrounded by trees, sun, and fresh air. We woke up, grabbed some food, grabbed some beer, went down to the river, and sat. At night, the people running the event helicoptered in a live band, more food, more beer, and the party continued. It was such an incredible experience that when we got up two days later to leave, I had to force myself to put the Jeep in gear.

Southern Utah is one of the most beautiful parts of the country. I hiked through Zion, then made the incredible trip to Bryce.

The road between these two deserves to be its own National Park. I even got the chance to do a little off-roading along the way, and ended up on the other side of the hills that flank the highway. I smiled when I thought how most people drive right by without having the chance to admire the other side.

Though the hiking wasn't as good in Bryce, the photo opportunities were plenty. But soon it was off to Arches National Park, where I did a little more four-wheeling on a dirt road that led deep into the park. Being a snake buff, I was excited to see my first rattler along the way, a footlong baby that I nicknamed Buzz because his tail hadn't developed into a full rattle yet.

In nearby Moab, I ended up meeting Eric, the owner of a 4 x 4 shop, and he gave me a four-wheel tour of the land that left my jaw sitting on the slickrock. From there, it was on to the green hills of Colorado. I spent a night in Telluride, and the next morning heard about a mountain pass called ``Tomboy'' that headed in the direction I wanted to go. It led me up into the snow and an abandoned mining town, where what was left of the buildings made me feel as if I were in an old Clint Eastwood film.

I arrived in Gunnison, Colo., for my last 4 x 4 event called ``All-F-Fun,'' with another friend I had met on line, Tony. Then it was on to Denver, where I spent a couple days with a friend I had worked with in Boston. Denver was great, but by the time I left, I was getting a little itchy for the road. On this trip, there was such a thing as too much time in the city. I headed north to take in Chimney Rock National Monument, Mount Rushmore, and the perpetual project that will eventually become a tribute to Crazy Horse. Then I pointed myself east toward the Badlands.

Upon arriving at the Badlands Visitor's Center, I called my sister to make plans to meet in Chicago. It turned out that I used the same pay phone my father had used during our family's cross-country trip 11 years earlier, when he found out his mother had died. I remembered him telling us the sad news, and turning the camper around to head back East for the funeral. I was 12 years old at the time, and Pop is shocked that I still remember.

There's not much to tell about the space between the Badlands and the Mississippi River. Corn. There was lots of corn. And when I saw that wide, muddy river, I realized I was back in the East! From that point on, it seemed like a race to get home.

I hung around Chicago for a couple days before picking my sister up and heading to Cleveland to see relatives. When we started seeing signs for New York, though, I mentally began to prepare myself for the return home. We still had Niagara Falls and all of New York to cross, but my two months of freedom were basically at an end. All that was left was the ``Welcome to Massachusetts'' sign, which would become the last picture in my photo album.

Halfway through New York, I began to do the math. In the last 10 weeks, I had taken 42 rolls of film, traveled through 25 states, back and forth through four time zones, and put 13,000 miles on the Jeep. I had spent only 14 nights in a real bed, under a real roof, and about as many days with the Jeep's top up. I had been to the lowest point in the country, and approached its highest peak. I had traveled through deserts, grasslands, mountains, prairies, swamps, rain, and a sandstorm. Over mud, dirt, snow, rocks, sand . . . through a river and over the woods.

And now I laugh when I recall my fears about this trip, that I might actually be bored. The excitement of the road is as obvious to me now as the bright lights of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, or the helicopter that buzzed my Jeep in Texas. As pure to me as the sunrise in Arizona, or the mountain pass in Colorado. As surprising to me as the seal at my doorstep in California, or my tire on the sidewalk in Arizona. As frightening to me as my jaunt over Rubicon in California, or my battle with the sandstorm in New Mexico.

My trip has been caked on my tires, dripped on my boots, and seared into my memory as one of the greatest experiences I could have imagined. And God willing, I'll get the chance to do it again.