Page, Arizona
I'm taking a break from writing this morning. Instead, I have a fascinating newspaper article to recommend.
The New York Times is far from my favorite paper. But sometimes they create outstanding articles. The Pigeon King, from today's NYT Magazine is an example. It is an extremely long, yet fascinating story. I read it while eating breakfast. I'm sure you will enjoy it.
Torrey, Utah
Oh boy, what a grand day we had yesterday. It started with a liesurely breakfast at Escalante Outfitters. We met some interesting pepole there. Especially a young girl from Boulder, Utah. She told us that although we shouldn't drive on unpaved roads this week, that the Burr Trail leading from Boulder was paved for the first thirty miles. Part of it she said was "as good as it gets," and she advised us to stop at mile 11 and go hiking.
But first to get to Boulder, one must travel highway 12. That road also contends for the title "as good as it gets". Driving that stretch of road with Jen was actually my main vision for the purpose of this whole trip. It didn't dissapoint. LIke me and Dave and Libby before, Jen was enchanted by the journey.
Then we took the 60 mile side trip recommended by that girl on the Burr TraIl. We stopped at mile 11, and found a slot canyon where we could walk between vertical walls 500 feet high as the width of the canyon decreased from 50 feet to zero. In there, we met a local family with children. I think they were probably Mormon. In any case they were very nice pepole and very talkative, so we enjoyed meeting them. Their teenaged daughter was climing the walls and exploring the caves barefoot.
Eventually, we got to Capitol Reef National Park. I showed Jen the area called Fruita that Libby and I thbough one of the best camp sites on our entire trip a few years back. A herd of 12 mule deer ignored us as we passed through. Then, Jen and I took a hiking trail that leads up 1000 feet to the top of the mesa at Chimney Rock. The exercise felt good. A bit more than normal exercise was necessary because our boots each picked up five pounds of mud. We made it 2/3 of the way up, but then turned back because the sun was about to set and the temperature was dropping rapidly (from 45F to 0F in the night.) If we had stayed up there another 90 minutes we would have seen the spectacular full moon rising.
I think it fair to say that the entire day qualifies "as good as it gets"
Today? We will drive through Monument Valley towards Page, Arizona.
Pictures? I'm letting Jen take all the pictures this trip. I'll get a copy when the trip ends, and I'll post some of the best ones here.
Escalante, Utah
The first time I visited Bryce Canyon, I walked down the trails to the base of the hoodoos. It was enchanting. I loved it. When I visited there with Dave and with Libby a couple of years ago, I decided not to walk down because I feared getting out of breath and not being able to hike back up. Since then, I've been going to the gym and working out, and I'm in much better physical shape. Just the past month I worked out 30 times with that hike specifically in mind. So, imagine my surprise when i heard from the ranger that the trails were open but only to people wearing ice crampons!
I'm the guy who takes pleasure telling my sailing friends that I hope to never directly experience snow again. Well, I get an F for properly anticipating the weather conditions for this trip. it was -3F up on the rim at Bryce yesterday morning. My crocs do not support ice crampons. Yet by the end of March it will be much warmer and tourist season will be in full swing.
On the other hand, the white snow added to the red rocks and the blue sky made for scenery even more beautiful than in the summer. Bryce was spectacular. We have no cause for complaints. Most important, Jen is enjoying it.
We spent last night in Escalante, Utah. This is a tiny community that caught my fancy before. It is an enchanting place and it looks like a delightful place to live. We stopped in the post office. The postmaster asked where we came from, but he knew the names of all the locals, and the names of their relatives, and no doubt all their family secrets. Such is life in a tiny community.
My ambitions to tour some of the most beautiful rods, such as the Devil's Backbone and the Water Pocket Fold are shelved, because the roads are not plowed and covered by three feet of snow. Jen and I are scheming alternate plans as we go.
Kenab, Utah
Well, yesterday was quite a day. We started in Las Vegas under a beautiful blue cloudless sky. We then drove to Zion under worsening conditions. By the time we arrived at Zion, the weather had closed in. Snow and clouds covered the sky and some of the cliff tops in the park.
But we were not deterred. There were very few visitors to the park, so we were allowed to drive everywhere. The parts of the canyon we could see were as beautiful as ever, and Jen was impressed.
We went to the weeping wall; one place in particular I wanted to share with Jen. As we got out of the car, the rain turned to sleet. No matter, we dressed warm and did the tour.
We continued on to the river walk; the furthest point you can drive, and then on foot to the furthest place you can walk without walking in the water. Now mother nature favored us. Halfway up the walk the rain and sleet stopped and the sun came out. It would have been the perfect setup for a rainbow, except as I just realized, the bottoms of deep canyons are not the best places to look for rainbows.
The final part of the tour as we drove in the car up the wall and through the tunnel to the high elevation part of Zion was really spectacular. When Libby and I were there in May it was hot and dry. This time, half the rocks were covered with snow. It was extra beautiful.
Evidence of the greatness of the day: Jen took 300 pictures. I think she liked it.
What about the Kiss principle. Well, Libby is sometimes better at forethought than I am. She forethought that Jen and I might need to do laundry on the trip. So she put in some capsules of laundry detergent in my toiletry bag so that we could avoid buying detergent on the trip. This morning as I brushed my teethi, I was shocked by a horrible taste in my mouth. It seems that my toothbrush punctured the skin of the detergent capsule. Yuck. Libby's help didn't accounty for the Kiss principle.
Las Vegas, Nevada
I declare this trip a success already. Traveling with Jen is a pleasure.
Man oh man is this place impressive. I challenge any political or economic system in the world to produce such extremes of excellence. Even though most of what Las Vegas is does not suit my tastes, I greatly admire the skill of how well they do it. Free enerprise (capitalism if you prefer) and most of all vigorous competition, bring out the best of the best. If you're not the best here, you wither and die quickly.
Our plan was to spend one night here. But the first night turned out to be very cold and rainy. We started shopping for shows too late. So we stayed a second night. During the day we toured the strip and we snaggged tickets to Mystere Cirque Du Soleil.
The Mystere show was amazing. All throughout I kept wondering how they loacted, recruited, and trained such marvelously athletic performers.
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