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.
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