Billy Connolly's Route 66_ The Big Yin on the Ultimate American Road Trip - Billy Connolly [110]
It was properly dark – not like the dark you get in your living room and to which your eyes eventually become acclimatised. Down there, my eyes never acclimatised, because there was no source of light whatsoever.
Having investigated my surroundings, I returned to my tasty little bachelor pad. About 150 feet wide and 400 feet long, the cave was quite a desirable little number, even though it reminded me of one of those rooms in which some mad bastard would hole up and plan the destruction of the world. I could imagine him sitting on one of the beds, cackling to himself and saying, ‘That’ll show them. That’ll teach them to fail me in my exams and make me a laughing stock. I’ll give them something to remember.’
Few people have slept down there on their own. Most guests come with their partners, but Pamela was back at home, which most of the crew seemed to find quite funny. They just skittered off and left me down there on my own. Sitting on the sofa, looking at the rocks all around me, it was hard to think that it had been like that for sixty-five million years. The thought did cross my mind that if anything went wrong, like the whole thing dropping by ten feet, they would never be able to rescue me. I would have given up the ghost long before they’d managed to drill through 220 feet of granite – no matter how many crackers and sweeties I managed to find in JFK’s stash. That was a dodgy moment, but pretty soon I started to relax. Before long, it was time to go to bed, so I slipped between the sheets. That’s when the one true drawback of the place struck me: maybe I was not alone.
Back in the 1920s, when these caves were first opened, they found two human skeletons. I could just about cope with that. But they also found the bones of a fifteen-foot-tall four-toed sloth – a prehistoric creature that was the ancestor of the three-toed sloth, which is ugly enough. They showed me a picture of it before they left me alone for the night, and it was kind of terrifying, especially as it was so tall. Lying in my bed, I couldn’t help peering around, staring down the dark wee tunnel to check if any big hairy monsters were coming to say hello.
Eventually I overcame my fears about monsters, and after reading my book for a while I turned out the bedside lamp and fell asleep. I slept wonderfully well. With no moisture, there were no creepy crawlies. Tarantulas, lizards and snakes that could have crept around in the middle of the night and given me a bite couldn’t survive down there. With nothing to tug at my bedclothes and give me the jitters, I slept the sleep of the just.
I enjoyed it so much that I decided I must come back, but next time I would try to convince Pamela to spend the night down there with me.
Emerging into the bright Arizona desert glare, I bumbled eighteen miles down Route 66 to Valentine. This section followed the path of the old Beale Wagon Road through a dusty, sandy landscape. I was a long way from the interstate again, seeing Route 66 as it had been at its inception in 1926. Although the road was very rough in parts of Arizona, lots of terrific sections were still intact, particularly the infamous Oatman Highway, which crossed the 3,550-foot Sitgreaves Pass via a series of tight hairpin bends next to sheer drops. Regarded as one of the highlights of the entire 2,278 miles of Route 66, it lay an hour or so ahead and I couldn’t wait to see it. But first I had an appointment at another wildlife sanctuary.
Keepers of the Wild is a refuge for abandoned pets and showbiz animals. The vast majority of the animals are seriously dangerous and had been donated by their terrified owners. Others had been seized from people who had abused them. Compared to what they’d been through, the animals were now in heaven. One of the sanctuary’s jaguars used to roam around a notorious drug dealer’s back garden and was seized by the Drug