I recently wrote about the population of Arizona. This post was in contrast to the earlier posts about wilderness. Arizona is quartered by major Interstate Highways, but off of these heavily traveled roads are highways where it is still possible to drive for a long time without seeing another car. On some of Arizona's dirt roads, it is best to be prepared for trouble. If you break down it could be days or longer before someone happens along. As I have learned first hand, your friendly automobile insurance company will not dispatch a tow truck to help you out of being stuck in sand in the middle of a dry river bed. The contrast between six, eight or ten lane freeways and a dirt road is immense. Not just the technology gap, but the whole outlook on life difference. On the freeway, in most metropolitan areas of Arizona, you can get a traffic ticket for driving too slow. On a dirt road, you can get seriously injured by driving too fast, not to mention turning your tires into macrame.
As you speed along at 75 mph on the freeway, you can often look off to the side of the road and see a dirt track snaking off into the distance. Here is a quantitative illustration of the difference between the two worlds:
Over ten million people per year visit the Grand Canyon.
Sonora National Monument (you may never have heard of this one) has only 20,000 visits per year and it has a major freeway going right through it.
Coal Mine Canyon has such few visitors that there don't seem to be any records of how many people go there. (Now you ask, where is Coal Mine Canyon?) You will just have to read these posts in the future if you want to know.
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