Martian Vacation: A Road Trip Told by Jack the Dog

I had plans for Christmas.

Dog park. Maybe twice. There are some very nice fluffy white dogs there. That was my entire wish list.

Two days before Christmas, a giant machine pulled up to our house. My humans — Alex and Julia — started running in circles, grabbing things, throwing them inside. Blankets. Bags. My armchair. A refrigerator full of things that smelled incredible. The machine was enormous. It had a bedroom, a kitchen, a dining area, and that greatest invention of human civilization: the refrigerator. Stocked specifically, I was told, to feed me on the road.

I was skeptical. But I got in.

We drove for an entire day.

I slept on Julia's lap most of the way. Warm. The hum of the road. The smell of the heater and her jacket and the snacks in the bag by the seat.

Then it got dark. And I woke up.

I looked out the window. The ground was red. Not orange-at-sunset red. Not dusty-road red. Deep, ancient red — the color of something that has been burning for a million years. Strange rock formations rose against the black sky, hunched and silent, shaped like creatures from a world that isn't this one.

I was fairly certain we had driven to Mars.

Morning confirmed it.

The air smelled sharp and mineral, dry in the back of the throat. The sun was already warm at nine in the morning, but the shadows between the rocks still held cold air. No grass. No pavement. Definitely no dog park.

Alex and I went out to investigate.

I am a purebred dog. A noble animal. (A Schipperke, if you need the specifics.) Not a mountain goat. But I discovered that morning that I love rocks. I leaped from one to the next with what I can only describe as considerable elegance. Alex was my assistant on this expedition. He seemed pleased to be included.

We spotted some actual mountain goats in the distance. I moved toward them to say hello. Alex had a different opinion about this. He is not always right, but he is in charge of the leash, so.

We stopped at Atlatl Rock. Ancient petroglyphs are carved into the sandstone face — images left by people who lived here maybe 2,000 years ago. Hunters, animals, shapes that no one fully understands anymore. I sniffed the base of the rock for a long time. Something about it felt important.

To reach them, you climb a metal staircase bolted directly to the rock face.

Alex carried me up the steeper parts. I allowed this. It was practical, not a sign of weakness.

At the top, the desert spread in every direction. Just wind, the smell of warm stone, and the faint sound of other hikers far below, their voices too small to matter.

We rested at the base of the rocks. Alex opened the backpack. I sat close to it. Very close.

The rocks here have their own strange furniture. Ledges, hollows, caves worn smooth by wind and time. Alex found one that fit him exactly.

He seemed to think it was built for him. I did not argue.

The White Domes trail winds through a narrow slot canyon. The walls shifted through burgundy and rust. I kept looking back at Alex to make sure he was keeping up. He was. Barely.

I got tangled in a bush at some point. My leash may or may not have been chewed through. Alex pulled out his phone for navigation. We found our way. These things happen in the desert.

Some rocks here have names. This one is called Piano Rock. Something about it made me stop. I had a theory about what lived inside. I investigated thoroughly. The results are classified.

On the last afternoon we climbed what the map called Crazy Hill.

I don't know who named it. They were right.

The rock under our feet was striped pink and white, like a cake baked by the earth. The shadows in the crevices had gone deep purple. The sky was the kind of blue that seems too saturated to be real.

Julia finally caught up with us. She is usually behind, trying to catch up, carrying the camera. She made it into the frame.

Then I found my house.

Windstone Arch. A natural opening in a sandstone wall, worn smooth as the inside of an ear. The rock glowed from inside. I stood there deciding where to put my bowl.

The last day we went looking for a canyon.

We walked a long time. The rocks changed shape around us but gave nothing away. I kept my nose down. Alex kept checking his phone. Neither of us was much help.

Then the sun touched the horizon.

And there it was.

Pastel Canyon. The walls soft pink and amber, the colors of watercolor paint left to bleed into paper. After days of violent red, the gentleness of it was almost a surprise. The air in there smelled of cool stone and standing water. Very still. Very quiet.

I led them there. I am certain of this.

We weren't done. My humans rarely are.

The next morning, we packed up and drove south into Arizona.

Watson Lake sits just outside Prescott, a small high-desert city about 90 minutes north of Phoenix. The Granite Dells crowd the shoreline — pale orange boulders heaped like something colossal dropped them in a hurry. The lake between them doubles the sky.

The water was cold. It tasted like stone and winter. We went in anyway.

And then we drove home.

The refrigerator was empty. My armchair was in its place. The dog park was still there, waiting.

But I kept thinking about that red light on the rocks. The petroglyphs. The silence at the top of Atlatl Rock. The canyon that glowed pink at the end of the day.

Some vacations take you somewhere new. Some take you somewhere deeper.

This was the second kind.

— Narrated by Jack. Transcribed faithfully by Julia.