Night, as seen from the Arizona mountains.

This is what it looked like coming back from the wedding. Almost

Of course the wedding started about 30 minutes late, and right up until the last moment no one knew where the bride was.

The “Run away to Vegas” jokes flew thick and fast and the padre vamped for the audience and gave us all leave to stand and stretch for awhile.

She came rocketing in, and they dressed her in a manner that would put a firemen leaping from bed to boots or Batman’s hydraulic bat-pole cowl-and-tights-puter-oner to shame

And the padre actually blew the Lord's Prayer just as it hit that tricky, “forgive us our trespasses” OR the less fashionable and much less GOP-friendly “our debts” bit and we had to start again. And the bride's mom was freaking right out and strung tighter ‘n a cat gut racket because mere hours before the Big Moment there were no worker bees to be found, the flower hadn’t arrived yet, etc.

In other words, if you’ve ever had backstage passes to a wedding before, it was perfection.

We were deep in a national forest, in the green flocked mountains of the timbered desert, in Arizona. In June. Out of doors. In an earthen bowl that had been a muddy wash a few weeks before. The weather gods must've settled on favoring the new couple long ago -- and set many a butterfly to flapping in the Luzon Straight months ago to set in motion the flawless execution of a perfect day in the high desert.

6,000 feet up; an altitude that gives us sea-level types a slightly dopey, dreamy, fall-asleep-at-the-drop-of-a-hat feeling at all times.

It was 80...maybe. Slightly cooler and much drier, it turned out, than Chicago. Piercing, cornflower-blue skies, just enough clouds artfully tossed around like the Almighty's own throw-pillows to guarantee that we all know that we are being watched over.

As the guitarist started tuning up, and the background hubbub of suddenly busy photographers sent the subliminal signal that The Game was about to be Afoot...the sun obligingly dipped behind one of the tough, old pines that stood gnarled and proud behind the earthen altar. The tree was one of the few of us who didn't tear up even a little.

These are the mountains, baby. My soul's true home. Where odds are 6-to-5 and pick 'em that the table I'm sitting at right now (as of the time this was writtem) was milled from the kissing cousin of the tree I'm sitting under.

Where coyote and deer are like as not to be what you hear outside your window at night. Where you have to ask, "Do javelina eat these?" before leaving your gardinias out at night.

Where, "You got water? You need some water?" is the universal, non-denominational, pan-lingual greeting.

Fat Tire is the local microbrew, and not half-bad it is.

And the stars.

They're there in Chicago, and the gibbous moon the color of freshly husked sweet corn hanging eight-months pregnant over the lake is a sight to see. And the terrestrial borealis of the city at night lets you know that Man Was Here, and Man Kicked Ass...but nothing can rival the universe itself -- rampant, shameless with stars that practically tumble down the mountainsides and tangle in the trees -- eager as a new groom, and as spectacular as a new bride.

On the return trip...believe it or not, I'm traveling with the inimitable Steve Stone.

Again.

What can one say about former Cub’s announcer Mr. Stone that hasn’t already been said?

Well, how about that he’s reading a book called “Company Man” and has stopped at chapter 25. That he uses his boarding pass as a bookmark. That he wears natty, three-toned cowboy boots that I will wager, if he bought in Chicago, he might well have purchased at the terrific Alcala’s Western Wear on West Chicago Avenue (look for the plexiglass horse outside and the authentic shit scraper’s by the door.)

And he’s a nice, affable guy that I sat behind on the way out. Thanks to sheer luck, I had yet again stumbled on a windfall of sorts. The most non-fungible of all commodities -- a better seat on a crowded flight -- but through some freak of circumstance they let me bump up into first class for about what you probably have in your pocket right this minute. And that plunked be down right behind Mr. Stone and, yes, I peeked at what he was reading.

And weirdly enough, on the way back he was on the same flight. This time I ran into him talking Cy Young stats on his cell in the sheep-pens where were queue up, and this time he was back up in first class while I traveled in 21st century steerage, but with some interesting characters.

If I cross his path one more time, however, I believe it constitutes stalking.

On the return trip...after the movie (The odious “Wedding Date” which, while mildly appropriate, wasn’t worth kicking over $5 to rent the headphones. And really, if you can’t interpret bad, broad comedy without the sound on – AND make up a better alternate script in your own head – you’re not even trying. Me? I read Isaac Babel.) we opened the little shutter thingies and I could see that we were now jetting over broad, squared-off farmland now, quilted with huge, perfect irrigated circles, which meant I was 2/3rds the way home.

Over AZ, the geography is simpler to ID. The green ends everywhere in straight lines, and beyond that, desert. Inside the lines, tinier rectangles, each with a fleck of turquoise where the pool in sunk.

The same Western American Dream fractal -- a suburban Chicago lawn & backyard set in an eternally hot, blue summer day -- repeating endlessly in all directions; mile after mile.

AZ is filling up with Californians.

Down on the floor on Phoenix valley is about as desert as you can get. Temps in May routinely scream up over 100, and yet people water lawns and sculpt fairways and keep their swimming pools brimming as if they were living in a rain forest.

Greater Phoenix (for example) is now around 3-4 million. Over the next decade I hear it's supposed to jump to 10-11 million.

How? How is that supposed to happen without water? And without cheap gas? The conservative folks I know out there are happy for the business that the influx sends their way, but are deeply concerned that the tide of newbies will overwhelm their delicately balanced paradise and destroy it forever.

They have good reason to be worried. Unfortunately deep in their hearts I think they know the only thing that is likely to save them is what they have let themselves be conned into hating the most; strong, unambiguous Government Intervention coming down on the side of the environment and strictly limiting development, sprawl and “growth”.

The nice woman on my left, it turns out, is politically on my right. Waaay right. She's a widow and dating again, and came out the see Sean Hannity Live and In-person at the Dodge Theater to celebrate his radio station’s 20th year in the business (Guests include Matt Drudge...and there was a Very Special Video Tribute by Rush Limbaugh.)

Or, as my pal John used to say, “The things you see when you don’t have a helicopter gunship.”

She reads a Christian Book on Men and Women and how they need to learn the Languages of Love to talk to each other. She mostly talks golf and this-and-that.

I very delicately bring up Rush and Reagan and the Fairness Doctrine (“20 years? Yeah, that sounds about right. I seem to remember that was just before President Reagan did away with the Fairness Doctrine...”, and she gets a little quieter.

(One does not start lightly start what would surely become a Very Loud political debate (or shouting match) unprovoked, and certainly not on an aircraft, or with someone you have share elbow space with for another three hours. That way lies words like “disgruntled passenger” and “unscheduled landing”. “Custody”.

Even “CNN Headline News”, even though I’m not a missing pretty white girl.)

And she’s quite pleasant and very social, so I mostly listen.

Gently probe and listen. I am interested in people generally, and these days in what makes Moderates Republicans tick specifically. We all have our theories; I like to test mine.

Like the conservatives I know out West, and like the woman on my flight, in the end there is usually concern over the direction things are taking. Genuine alarm at what appears to be a situation that is very quickly running out of control. Maybe catastrophically out of control.

And, in the end, there is a high level of discomfort – sometimes bordering on the hysterical -- at even entertaining the idea that maybe – just maybe – it is their very own cherished ideology (“Government Is The Problem”) and media (“Sean Hannity welcomes Matt Drudge to Celebrate...”) that is causing the cancer that is killing them to flourish and run wild.

The capacity of the Conservative Mental Bundling Board to divide modern conservative ideology from the consequences of that ideology never ceases to amaze me.