Spotted this evening off by deck:
Why wilderness? . . . Because we like the taste of freedom; because we like the smell of danger.
–Edward Abbey
The routines and crises of life have interfered with my goal to set down the details of this trip.
The particulars of life quickly fade from memory, and it’s only the high points that remain. But, of course, life is in the details. So for now, I’ll skip Capitol Reef, the aspen trees around Boulder, the striking yellow-headed blackbirds, the orange and peach-colored spires of Bryce Canyon, and the amazing Highway 12 stretched somehow between rock islands hundreds of feet high. I may be back to try to capture some of that, but for now, I’m going to move forward to at least hit the highlight of the ten days before the specifics of that experience are lost.
Fast forward to days nine and ten. Our last days of wilderness adventure. We are in Zion National Park. The previous day we had been introduced to the Park and its new propane gas shuttle system. We had stared out the windows of the loud bus, crowded this Memorial Day weekend by babies in strollers and people who had probably asked at some point where they could buy an E Ticket.
But my elitism emerges here. Those people are entitled to see the staggering beauty of these canyon walls too. I suppose. We were able to get away from them easily enough, choosing a strenuous hike up to a hidden canyon, gaining 900 feet and a measure of peace and quiet. On the way, we had walked along ledges a foot wide with sheer drops of many hundred of feet, looked down on the backs of soaring ravens, and heard frogs making noises that one would think could not possibly come from so tiny a creature.
I remember waiting on this hike for one little brown-haired girl, maybe 8 years old, as she edged along the long rock ledge, eyes wide, expression determined. She carefully held onto the iron chain secured to the rock wall, and with teeth clenched, carefully put one foot in front of the other. I offered a few words of encouragement and, from the look on her young face, I decided that she had, at this young age, found her passion. She suddenly aged and morphed in my mind into the Arches ranger we had left behind.
All of this was prelude, however, for the next morning.
We rose early and put on the clothes and shoes that we had brought specifically for this hike. (After ten days, the only clean clothes we had left anyway.) We put our cameras in freezer-size ziplock bags and boarded the bus for the Temple of Sinawava, last stop all the way up the canyon. In front of us on the bus sat a young couple with their rented walking sticks and fleece sweaters. Seeing these two, much more prepared for this hike than we were, caused a few moments of doubt.
We left the bus behind and walked along the Riverside walk, to the end. We looked upriver, where we could see, even from here, that the canyon was narrowing dramatically.
Although I have wanted most of my adult life to hike the Narrows of Zion, I must confess that I had at this point a few doubts. There is no trail; the hike is, for the most part, in the river itself. The water of the Virgin River was cold. Very cold. And, since it was still early, the air was cold too. But the adrenalin was pumping. Although cold, I knew nothing would turn me back.
We looked through the collection of walking sticks that had been deposited at the river’s edge. I chose one about my height, strong enough, I hoped to help me walk against the current. And then, we were off.
It’s not unusual for me, when I look forward to something for so long, to suffer a letdown. The marvels of this place did not allow that this time. Walking thigh deep in cold rushing water through this wonderland, the adrenalin flowed for six hours.
The 2000-foot high walls ahead of me continued to squeeze the river into its famous narrows. After about an hour, the black and red rock walls moved closer together. We crossed the river perhaps three dozen times, always looking for the best footing, moving at a slow pace to make sure that we did not do something stupid to bring this adventure to a crashing end. I fell twice in the stronger current, catching myself with my hand on a nearby rock each time and avoiding a tumble, backpack and all, into the cold water.
On the way out (this was an out-and-back hike), we saw few people for the first hour. The water was at times ankle deep, at times thigh deep. A couple of bad steps made it waist deep. We went slowly, drinking in the contrast of sheer rock walls and crystal clear water. After hiking for perhaps two and a half hours, we came to the junction of Orderville Canyon. Orderville is perhaps fifteen feet wide, joining the main canyon from the right in the midst of the most spectacular section of the hike.
We hiked up Orderville for a few hundred yards, found a large rock to have a snack, and soaked in the sun that was finally able to shine down from the narrow crack above. Thawing made re-entering the water more difficult, but we decided after perhaps a half hour to move on.
We retraced our steps out of Orderville and continued upriver for perhaps another thirty minutes. Thankfully, we saw few other people in this section, most folks being content to reach Orderville and turn around. This was also the most difficult hiking, as the canyon walls narrowed to perhaps twenty feet, forcing a volume of water through much less space. The current and depth increased noticeably.
Finally, still wondering as I always do, what was just around the next bend, we reluctantly turned around and made our way out of one of nature’s masterpieces.
The canyon country of southern Utah and northern Arizona, the Colorado Plateau, is something special. Something strange, marvelous, full of wonders. As far as I know, there’s no other place on earth much like it, or even remotely like it. . . . Despite the best efforts of a small army of writers, painters, photographers, scientists, explorers, indians, cowboys, and wilderness guides, the landscape of the Colorado Plateau lies still beyond the reach of reasonable minds or unreasonable representation.
Edward Abbey
After becoming something enamored of our blond, enthusiastic guide at Arches, we left the park for new adventures.
Over the course of next day, we saw from Dead Horse Point State Park incredible vistas of the Colorado River cutting its rust-colored path through the plateau. We took a side trip down a dusty road to see Newspaper Rock, one of the most amazing collections of Anasazi petroglyphs in the entire Southwest (Among the questions that sprang to mind standing in front of this ancient, decorated rock: Why exactly were they, thousands of years ago, painting pictures of men with antennae?) Down below the town of Blanding, we turned West on Utah 95, and for the next two hours and approximately 100 miles, we did not see another car in either direction.
This was the isolation I had hoped to find on this trip. As we drove along, the sun beginning to dip toward the horizon in front of us, I finally felt for the first time the spiritual side of this place. It’s strange, and perhaps it should be a bit disturbing, that I can only feel that in isolation. But there you have it.
We cut around mountains on twisty switchbacks and climbed red plateaus. We never saw another car. Just before sunset, we stopped at Natural Bridges National Monument. A gentle breeze was blowing, and the sky had turned bright crimson. After a peaceful, quiet, and isolated drive through the park, stopping at the overlooks to see the giant stone bridges cut by eons of flowing water no longer there, we headed down the road again.
As the darkness began to settle in, we approached our destination: Fry Canyon. The jack rabbits repeatedly darted out in front of the car, causing us to yell each time. OK, causing ME to yell each time. But there was never a thump. That’s how the whole Fry Canyon experience was: A little surreal, sort of like those dreams where scarey things keep happening, but where I am able to wake up before any real damage is done.
We finally reached the parking lot of a store converted into a sleeping place. I say sleeping place, because “bed and breakfast,” which is the phrase used in the advertising, is misleading enough to warrant FCC attention. Or maybe not. They offered us a bed and they offered us breakfast. Perhaps that is all that is required to qualify.
The store, in the 1950s, had served uranium mining camps in the area. Needless to say, it was no-frills. After pulling into the parking lot, I sat in the car and braced for the news that did eventually come: We were too late for dinner.
It’s interesting, looking back, that my initial reaction to this place was so negative. I guess I was just tired and hungry and needing a recharge. Looking back now, Fry Canyon stands out as a highlight.
We checked into our room, which was maybe twice the square footage of the bed it contained, and tried to figure out how to get the air conditioner to work. The details of the problem are irrelevant, but had something to do with the fact that the room was so small that the air conditioner couldn’t cool unless the window was also opened. A circulation issue of some type. But, I wondered, if you’re going to open the window, what’s the point of having the air conditioner on? In any event, after a dinner of roasted peanuts and water, consumed sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall two feet away, we retired.
In the morning, I realized the room had no TV. It had no phone. It had no clock. I believe it had one lamp. It had strange soap in the shower that made me think I had some dread disease until I read the wrapper I had torn off of it and learned it contained poppy seeds. Poppy seeds it was leaving sprinkled all over my body.
I later found out the whole place was powered by its own generator and was connected to the world only by a satellite phone. It was only then that I began to really appreciate Fry Canyon.
Because we had driven in at night, I had failed to recognize just how secluded this place was. Other than the dozen or so people staying at the “Lodge” and the man and woman in charge of cooking us breakfast, it was a safe bet that there was nobody around for at least fifty miles. No one.
At breakfast, the cook, a fellow named Jim, struck me immediately as a character worth getting to know, if only I was a morning person or the hour was later. Much later. I did my best over my coffee to make what conversation I could, and tried to figure out what would bring a man out into this deserted place to cook breakfast for a mere dozen guests every morning. I never did figure it out.
At some point, Jim, talking to an older Native American man named Joe sitting at the bar, got on a harangue about the damn liberals who wanted to get rid of the Glen Canyon Dam. I bristled. He had all kinds of good come-backs, he said, for these troublemakers who were looking for new arguments now that they couldn’t protest the Vietnam War anymore. “Try this one on for size,” he said to Joe. “If you’re going to return Glen Canyon to its natural state, give it back to the Indians. How ya like that one, pal? They want things the way they used to be by blowing up the dam, let’s make Glen Canyon the way it really used to be. Injun-owned.” The Native American nodded over his scrambled eggs.
Before we left, Jim told us how to find some Anasazi ruins down a four-wheel-drive road. We thanked him and departed. Twenty minutes later we were slowly making our way past a road of dirt and rock (not gravel; rock, as in “boulder”) toward mysterious, hidden cliff dwellings. When we got to the spot on the edge of the small canyon where we could see bricks that had been stacked neatly into the walls of dwellings thousands of years ago, we felt like no one else had ever been here.
Alone, accompanied only by swifts darting out over the rocky outcroppings, it seemed as though this mysterious sight was uniquely ours.
There is something unnatural about walking. Especially walking uphill, which always seems to be not only unnatural, but also so unnecessary. That iron tug of gravitation should be all the reminder we need that in walking uphill we are violating a basic law of nature. Yet we persist in doing it. No one can explain why.
Edward Abbey
After the rafting trip, we drove toward Moab. Along the way, on a rough road near Cisco, we spotted two tremendous golden eagles sitting on the crest of a nearby hill. Their forms stood out sharply against the blue sky behind them. We pulled over and watched them (“premature eagles,” no doubt, based on their size, we joked) for perhaps twenty minutes before driving on.
Moab is an interesting place, a town in transition. If one looks hard enough, there are still signs of the rough and tumble world that Abbey describes so well in his writings. But it also has a softer, artsier side to it now. Art galleries are sprinkled along Highway 191, which serves as its Main Street. Mountain bikers are everywhere, and the town caters to them. We had some of the best food of the trip in Moab. The two worlds, polar opposites, seem to coexist nicely in this place. That is at least the impression one gets from the surface of things.
The next morning, after stopping off at the only grocery store in town to buy a styrofoam cooler and a few turkey sandwiches, we headed toward Arches National Park, just a few minutes outside of town.
Not being a descriptive writer by nature, it is at this point that my skills fail me. The red and orange sandstone spires are otherworldly, and really must be seen to be appreciated. This strange landscape provided the real jolt that I was hoping for on the trip. As we drove along the main road to our first trailhead, I felt like I had entered a cosmos where the expected rules of color and form simply didn’t apply.
Because the day was early and the air still cool, we made the decision to start with the premier hike: Delicate Arch. We drove to the beginning of the trail at Wolfe’s Ranch, packed our cameras and water bottles into the daypack, and started off across the rock.
The hike was pleasant, traversing first red dirt and then climbing slickrock slopes and hugging sheer cliffs. Hanging gardens appeared toward the end of the trail. Cairns, those familiar rock pillars that serve as trail markers, were distributed along the sharp climb across a rock face.
And then, we came around a bend in the trail, and there is was: Delicate Arch. It was immediately obvious why this is a favorite. The arch is situated, seemingly precariously, on the edge of its own amphitheater, a bowl, really, and hangs out over a drop of many hundreds of feet. The snow-capped La Sal Mountains, far off in the distance, form the perfect backdrop. We spent perhaps an hour at the Arch, snapping the obligatory pictures and trying to burn the sight into our memories.
We did many more fairly strenuous hikes throughout the day, seeing almost all of the major arches in the park. Arches with names like Navajo, Partition, and Skyline. Late in the afternoon, seeking a respite from the intense heat, we retreated to the truck and drove toward Klondike Bluffs, a remote and seldom-visited section of the park. We made the half hour drive across the desert floor, across a rough but drivable road. We were four-wheeling, we bragged to ourselves. Then, at the turn-off toward the formations, we were stopped by boulders three times the size of our truck. Could this possibly be the road? How could a truck possibly climb up forty-five degree angles across these boulders?
At that point, we spotted a jeep making its way down the road. I got out and walked toward the driver, a father with his three children in tow. He explained that yes, the road looked like that for several miles, and no, he wouldn’t recommend that we try it in a rented Chevy Blazer. As if we needed to be convinced. We backed down, out of his way, and then reluctantly made our way back across the desert floor the way that we had come.
The last hike we did in Arches, which took place the next morning, actually, was the guided tour through the Fiery Furnace, so named because from a distance of many miles, the red rock spires look like flames shooting out of the desert floor. The National Park Service does not allow unescorted hikers into this section of mazes without a permit and a good talking-to. The guided hike fills up quickly, and we had been forced to wait until the second day to get our spots.
The guide was a petite blond woman of perhaps twenty-five, with fair skin and pale blue eyes. She arrived at the trailhead in her green Park Service uniform and immediately began brushing her teeth. After the initial surprise of watching a pretty young woman in a uniform spitting toothpaste into a cactus patch, we began the hike.
During this hike, which was as interesting and noteworthy as the guidebooks said it was, I was reminded of a truth that would pop up several more times during the trip: I don’t like people. Well, let me be more specific: I don’t like groups of people, you know, crowds. Especially out in a wilderness, which is, almost by definition, about isolation and solitude. But we had thirty people traipsing through this wonderland, including a group of rather immature and loud Virginia Tech students on a field trip. They provided me with a reason to pull against Virginia Tech sports teams for the rest of my life.
I moved toward the front of the line to get away from the ruckus and to get closer to the guide, whose enthusiasm and knowledge of her environment were much appreciated. At one point a tiny frog hopped across the path. “Oh my god!” she explained. “We don’t see many amphibians out here!” Her excitement was contagious, and we nodded with respect as we passed the frog.
Toward the end of the hike, the guide has a little impromptu discussion about everyone’s favorite experiences in the National Park System. This was her world, and she was rightly proud to hear that others appreciated it. During the discussion, someone rudely said: “It must be nice to get paid for doing something like this.” They may have meant it kindly, as an expression of envy perhaps, but it was inappropriate.
“I’m a GS-5,” she replied without hesitation and without a hint of bitterness. “I get by.” The questioner was effectively silenced.
She had made decisions in her life based on her passion for the outdoors. Her boyfriend was hundreds of miles away and they had no idea how they were ever going to get together. She had little in the way of money or material possessions.
She was here because this place contained surprising amphibians and hidden arches. She was here because she loved this place.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Southwest for me is how natural and human history come together in a single landscape. Ancient stories and new ones are all woven together into the tapestry that is the Southwest.
The Colorado River is a fine example of this. The many strata of exposed rock, layered one on top of one another, line the river and force one to try to squeeze into one’s limited human brain such concepts as geologic time. The millions of years that are represented in the sandstone and metamorphic rock are almost comprehensible if you stare at the evidence long enough. The geologist’s explanation of uplifts and faults almost starts to crystallize into something that makes sense. Almost.
And yet, human history is a part of the landscape too. We saw our first petroglyphs and pictographs on the first day of the rafting trip. These strange and mysterious paintings of the Anasazi people would become a recurring attraction throughout the trip, all over Southern Utah.
After floating lazily down a calm stretch of the Colorado River, watching the swifts fly out from their mud houses beneath the rock ledges, we had a chance to stretch our legs with a side hike into McDonald’s Canyon. The destination: Petroglyphs, in a rock amphitheater, a few hundred yards from the river.
The attraction of this rock art for me lay in its mystery. The Anasazi had created this artwork, perhaps two thousand years ago, on the walls where they lived and worked. Human-like creatures with headdresses and earrings appear in some. Animals resembling big horned sheep can be seen. Strange wheels, suns, stars, and moons occasionally appear in white on the red walls.
There are no easy answers for the questions these drawings inspire. Is it art? Or to be more precise, was it intended to be art? Or is it more like a newspaper, containing stories of the day? Or simply graffiti, created by the hooligans with their versions of spray paint cans? No one knows. And, of course, that’s the source of the attraction, for me anyway. I am left to speculate about such things, and in the process, to engage my imagination in ways that the modern world does not allow, or at least encourage.
I have strayed from my point. More on the Anasazi later.
It is not just ancient human history that the canyon contains. It is impossible to float down the Colorado without thinking of John Wesley Powell, the one-armed Union General who explored this River one hundred and thirty years ago with his band of not-so-merry men. I thought of Powell as we rounded the bends in the river, not knowing what was coming next.
Our guides were two young guys who clearly loved the river. Ken, a goateed college student with a quick smile and a gaze that locked onto you when you spoke, was in charge. Jerry, perhaps nineteen, was the easiest-going, slowest moving, least stressed person I have ever met. What Jerry and Ken lacked in knowledge they made up for in earnestness.
As we rounded a bend in the river where Cottonwood trees provide a bright splash of green to the browns and reds, a huge bald eagle sat on a branch hanging out over the river. It’s hard to describe a bald eagle without using the expected word: Majestic. I had never seen a bald eagle in the wild before. I snapped pictures like the goofy tourist that I was. Before we pulled the rafts out of the river the next day, we would see two more bald eagles. Count them as a highlight.
In a discussion about eagles, Ken, our source for authoritative information on this river trip, explained that “premature bald eagles” were actually much larger than their adult counterparts. We all stared at him dumbly. I waited for someone to correct him by saying “immature,” but no one did. Instead, someone asked: “What do you mean, they shrink when they get older?” Ken assured us that that was so. “How can that be?” the person persisted. Their skeletons can’t shrink . . .”
It’s interesting that river guides, rather than resorting to text books or scientists or even the Discovery Channel, rely instead on each other, apparently, for scientific and historical information about the river. It’s like that old game of gossip. By the time these little river factoids get retold several times, they can no longer be trusted as containing anything like scientific truths.
After a lazy day of floating, we stopped at a camp site on the Utah/Colorado border. It was only 3:30 in the afternoon, and the sun had not yet dipped behind the canyon wall behind us. The heat seemed to be intensifying. We all sat on the rafts for a while waiting for the sun to drop.
Soon I became antsy and left with my partner to climb the cliffs surrounding the campsite. We made our way up a steep incline, perhaps 200 feet, and carefully made our way along the rocky ledges. A flash of bright blue passed in front of us, a bird the startling color of the sky on a perfectly clear afternoon. We would later identify it as a mountain bluebird.
We continued climbing toward the upper ledges, which hung out over the river. Along the way, we heard a the song of the canyon wren, with its beautifully descending notes. And we saw a mother raven with two smaller ravens perched on a narrow ridge on the side of the canyon. There was life in these dry rocks and the sandy, cactus-studded hills. We reached the edge of the rocky overhang and sat, looking down 150 feet at the muddy water swirling below us and downriver at the magenta sky.
That night, after a lazy, silly evening around the campfire that included jokes, stories, and an indescribable game called “Butt Darts,” we went to our tents and went to sleep.
I awoke to the bright light outside and assumed it was morning. A canyon wren nearby was singing. I heard a hum near the back of the tent that I later concluded must have been a hummingbird. I looked at my watch. 1:30. It was not morning. I looked out of the tent and saw the almost-full moon lighting up the canyon and understood that I, along with the other creatures of the canyon, had been tricked and amazed by the bright white light pouring over the canyon wall.
The next day we had a terrific campfire breakfast and set out for the major rapids of Westwater Canyon. Rapids with names like “Skull” and “Sock It To Me.” The rapids were further subdivided into features. “Skull,” for example, included the “Rock of Shock” and the “Room of Doom.” They provided a sufficiently thrilling ride. We all screamed and got wet. One of the guides exited his raft involuntarily in the middle of Skull but held on to his oar with one hand and managed to pull himself back in.
Perhaps I am getting older. The rapids were fun, but, as it turned out, the trip wasn’t about the rapids. It was about the bald eagle perched in the Cottonwood and the canyon wren fooled by the moon.
Preface: This journal is actually from a trip several years ago. I’m posting it now in case it has anything helpful for a friend moving out West.
Survival Hint No. 1: Stay out of there. Don’t go. Stay home and read a good book, this one for example. The Great American Desert is an awful place. People get hurt, get sick, get lost out there. Even if you survive, which is not certain, you will have a miserable time. The desert is for movies and God-intoxicated mystics, not for family recreation.
–Edward Abbey
The idea for the trip had been hatched seven months earlier in California’s dusty Mohave desert that is Joshua Tree National Park. Who would have thought the desert could be so beautiful, so compelling? We were overwhelmed by the stark landscape of cactus and rock, and, as a result, planned a full ten days in the Utah desert for the following Spring. The time had finally arrived.
Friends and family didn’t get the appeal. “Ye of few vacations finally take one and you’re going to the desert?” they would ask. “What’s in Utah, exactly, other than Mormons?” I wasn’t quite sure I understood myself.
For reasons related to airline fares and rental car drop-off fees, the trip began with a full day’s drive all the way across the state of Utah, from Las Vegas to Grand Junction, Colorado. 500 miles in our rented Chevy Blazer. It was a long time to spend on an interstate, but it was the last time we would see one for nine days. We would make the slow return trip on back roads, including one stretch of almost a hundred miles where we didn’t see another vehicle in either direction.
An hour or so outside of Las Vegas, the road dipped into a dramatic canyon. The sign read “Virgin River Canyon.” The Virgin River. There it was. Noteworthy because somewhere upriver from here, somewhere out there along its liquid journey through the dusty desert, it cut The Narrows of Zion National Park. Really, the only must-do adventure on the entire itinerary, and planned for the very end of trip. We would see that river again, later, up close.
But for now, we were motoring quickly past St. George, Pintura, and Cedar City. To break the monotony of the drive, we stopped along the way at the seldom-visited Kolob Canyon section of Zion National Park. Kolob Canyon is north of the main part of the park, and accessed from a completely different direction from the overrun Zion Canyon. After buying a fifty dollar National Park Pass that we would use four more times in the trip, we drove into the Canyon. The red, majestic walls if the finger canyons rose around us as we drove along the several-mile red road into the canyon. They are called the Hurricane Cliffs, if one cares about things such as names in the presence of such overwhelming beauty. Two red-tailed hawks soared on the thermals above us. The first pictures of the trip were taken at several stopping points sprinkled with junipers.
After having driven on the black asphalt for five hours, this brief side trip reinvigorated us, and we returned to our truck and drove on. We would return to Zion nine days later for the most memorable adventure of the entire trip.
A few hours later we stopped for lunch in some small town the name of which I don’t remember. Interstates will do that to you. The exits all look the same, the towns all look the same. Even the people start to look the same. Names become a blur. Once we finally made it to the back roads of Utah, I would note and remember the names of towns, even the names of washes and gulches. But this was just Some Town On the Way.
At least the diner was one of those places that the locals frequent. A good sign. We took a seat in a booth and pulled the menus out from the metal rings holding them. Those metal rings also held mimeographed booklets of corny jokes and stories for your reading pleasure. One was called “Alzheimers for Old-Timers.” Every paragraph contained at least one misspelled word.
After looking over the menu, I looked up and noticed two tables over, in front of me, four men sitting at a table. The two men on one side of the table wore military uniforms. I couldn’t tell exactly which branch, but it looked like the Air Force. On the opposite side of the table, an older man, perhaps late 40’s, and a younger man, perhaps late teens, sat listening.
I could hear most of the conversation. The son looked unsure of himself. The recruiter was doing all of the talking. He smiled a lot under his blond crew cut. The military man sitting next to him didn’t speak at all, and looked generally uncomfortable. I couldn’t see the father’s face from where I was sitting, but I noticed that the recruiter was looking more at the father than at the son as he spoke.
“It’s like laser tag at 1200 miles per hour,” the recruiter said at some point with what I took to be feigned enthusiasm. “The biggest adrenalin rush I’ve ever had.” The recruiter smiled and raised his eyebrows, looking carefully at the two men across the table for some sign that they had taken the bait.
After perhaps twenty more minutes of descriptions of the joys of military life, I heard the recruiter say, “Well, what will it be?” The moment had come.
This was his decision, and maybe the best option he had. What opportunities does a boy have out here in the desert? This surely looked to him as a chance to get out, a chance to have a life away from the dust and the poverty.
The boy nodded.
“Great,” the recruiter said, quickly offering his handshake and pulling out paperwork, almost in the same motion. They went into a backroom of the restaurant together, just the boy and the recruiter. Several minutes later the recruiter returned to the table, presumably leaving the boy to read the document and contemplate the future. We left before he returned.
We drove on, trying simply to get where we needed to be. Along the way, especially after exiting I-15 for I-70 heading east, the landscape became breathtaking. The red cliffs rose on both sides of the highway, and stretched out in the distance. A sign just before Fremont Junction warned ominously that it was the last stop for gas for 100 miles.
We stopped at a scenic pull-off east of Green River and looked out into the canyon country stretching on into the distance for what seemed like forever. The multi-colored buttes and mesas stood just shy of the horizon.
A Native American woman had her wares, jewelry and pottery mostly, spread out in neat rows beneath the “no soliciting” sign by the lookout. Beautiful, etched pottery that we would have bought if we could have figured out how to pack it for the next nine days without destroying it. We didn’t make any purchases, and regretted it later.
We arrived that night in Grand Junction and began packing for the upcoming two-day rafting trip on the Colorado River.
It’s a trip that has come together much faster than any other I’ve ever taken. Ten days ago I vaguely thought I might take a mid-summer trip somewhere. Ten days from now, I leave for the Galapagos Islands.
That may not seem terribly short-notice to people for whom the whole carpe diem thing comes naturally. But my version of carpe diem is a response to a too-fearful, too-cautious upbringing. Which means I generally seize the day only after a great deal of careful planning.
I generally research all the details of my vacation destinations for months, picking over the details carefully and learning everything about the place I am visiting. That’s my way. And yes, it does tend to drive certain others a little crazy. Call it a running battle.
Yellowstone last summer? I knew the names of the wolf packs and where they were most likely to be seen. Glacier the summer before? I knew not just which hiking trails to take, but which off-trail detours were most likely to include bighorn sheep.
Ditto Grand Canyon rafting, Great Barrier reef snorkeling, Costa Rican rain forests.
So I’m feeling a little underprepared, even with the dozen or so Galapagos books I was carrying last Friday as I emerged from the Richland County Library.
Maybe this way is better, a step in the right direction to full carpe diem fulfillment. We’ll see.
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