Thursday, September 29, 2005

Mesmerized by The Raging Current ...

Reading back on some of these entries, it strikes me that there is a peculiarly overt thread of quasi-religious fanaticism running through this travelogue. I suppose this is natural given that Caroline and I are, in some manner of thinking, on a pilgrimage, and no great pilgrimage can be complete without some amount of revelation, suffering, sacrifice, repentance and, potentially, absolution. It strikes me, however, that a true pilgrimage must involve a quest of some sort, a destination if you will, a purpose. I’m not sure whether the destination or the purpose are to be known or unknown at the outset of the journey. I suppose if the destination or purpose were unknown, it would be acceptable and, perhaps, even preferable, because it would allow it to be revealed at some point along the journey.

We are quite aware
of our destination, but the purpose of our sojourn on the road still remains mostly esoteric. It would be easy to write it off as merely a vacation, a chance to relax and recharge. And perhaps that’s what it is and no more. But it also is possible that our quest has something to do with getting our noses up off of the grindstone and looking around beyond the horizon and context of our workaday lives and glimpsing a larger picture of Life and Society that exists at the fuzzy edges of our day-to-day realities.

Just outside of Zion on Friday, the sun rose in the chilly morning air, shedding light onto the towering cliffs above and imbuing them with a neon radiance of electric crimson and p
sychedelic orange. The western peaks glowed like hot pokers thrust into the azure. We had read that the other “Epic” hike in Zion is a trudge to The Narrows, an area where the Virgin River has carved a claustrophobic serpentine passage into the Navajo sandstone at a depth of some 2,000 feet. The hike itself must be done mostly in the stream.

The night before our trek we had rented walking sticks at a local outfitters. The Virgin River was flowing at a relatively modest rate, spewing some sixty cubic feet of emerald water downstream each second. With a water temperature of just 55 degrees and a destination cloaked mostly forever in shadow, Caroline and I began the day with apprehension, wondering whether an early departure was the right thing to do. The specter of hypothermia lurked in those narrow passages, waiting to exten
d an icy hand to the unprepared and the foolhardy, park literature warned. Moreover, we wondered whether immersing the increasingly serious-looking gash on my leg in nonpurified water for five hours straight was really a wise thing to do. Nevertheless, we began our journey shortly after breakfast.

The air temperature had warmed somewhat by the time the park shuttle arrived at the tra
il head. We walked smartly along the first mile of hike on dry land on a path along the river’s edge. A robust-looking twenty-something couple vigorously outpaced us early on in the hike. When we reached the water’s edge, however, the youngsters had stopped dead in their tracks. They were engaged in an earnest debate about whether to continue. Caroline and I swiftly marched into the green current. The cold clamped around our feet and ankles like a vice and we grimaced as it tightened. The poor lad looked at me and asked, “how cold?”

“Just horrendously cold,” I grunted.

I placed the walking stick in front of me for stability because my feet could no longer feel t
he slippery baby-head sized stones that carpeted the river bottom. We left the vigorous couple at the bank. They apparently chose not to continue. About 100 yards upstream, we found ourselves wading chest deep through the frigid waters, which were so cold that Caroline could only let out little gasps when she opened her mouth to speak. The current, though listed at the Visitor Center as mild in comparison to early season flow rates, was deceptively strong, and it took strength and resolve to fight it.

But most unsettling was the
hypnotic effect of the water itself. While crossing particularly swift sections, we had to pay careful attention to focusing our gaze below the surface of the water to find secure footing. If you did not maintain this concentration, the eyes would fixate on the surface flow, and soon you would find yourself mesmerized by the water and becoming unsteady and somewhat seasick on your feet. This mental tug-of-war with the water made hiking the four miles against the current even more exhausting.

Hours later, cold, shivering and hopelessly wet, we found ourselves at “Wall Street,” where the cliffs towered two thousand feet above in a passageway that was narrow enough to be touched on either side if Caroline and I linked hands. We had beaten the crowds and beaten the river. The trek back seemed to take half the time. Along the way we met more pilgrims who would look at us with eyes wide with fear and ask, “How much farther?”

“You’re almost there,” we lied.


After our cold baptism in the Virgin River, we made our way to St. George, Utah, the third fastest growing city in the nation
and the location of Brigham Young’s Secret Hideout. For those of you who don’t know, Brigham Young was one of the founders of the Church of Jesus Christ-Latter Day Saints (The Mormons). According to some literature, Young particularly enjoyed the Mormon tradition of keeping multiple wives. Later, when the United States government used Bigamy laws as a way to hound the Mormons and emasculate the burgeoning power structure they had built in Utah, Young built a secret hideout at St. George, where he spent the winters in the community’s extremely moderate climate enjoying the offerings of his many wives. And who could blame him?

I have searched this land for a salamander to lick so that I, like those Mormon founders, may become addled and able to find a set of indecipherable golden tablets that will point my way to a fabulous winter home in a real-estate broker’s paradise. But I’ve had no luck so far.

Next stop: Fabulous Las Vegas—where no salamanders are necessary to partake in pleasures of the flesh. See you on down the road.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Danger Lurks Everywhere!

About 485 people were checking out of Ruby’s Bryce Canyon Best Western Inn as we attempted to hit the road. Because most were on European holiday, they were having trouble with the language and apparently were protesting the many add-on charges that had lifted their bill far away from the Triple A rate and into Rack-Rate stratosphere. The well-trained members of Ruby’s staff did not budge at these protests and instead insisted that the charges were correct, smiling pleasantly until each and every bus-riding tour member relented and signed the bottom line.

As we waited, I was able to post the previous day’s recollection, thanks to WiFi access in Ruby’s lobby. On the way out the door, the last throngs of European tourists were scrambling to capture photos of cowboys behind desks, booking trail rides into Bryce Canyon. I followed suit and was able to snap a photo of one of the poor pseudo-wranglers without protest.

The night before at Bryce, our hiking interloper, Manny, had confessed that he was terrified of being alone on the trail because of the potential for chance encounters with cougars. Apparently, the previous day at Zion, an effective ad campaign had scared the bejesus out of him to the point where he viewed the woods as an alien place where danger lurked around every corner. At one point in the hike I had pondered pulling the K-Bar USMC survival knife from my pack and menacing him just to ensure he wouldn’t try any funny stuff as we made our way down the isolated and virtually soundproof Peekaboo Trail. But he seemed so utterly spooked about the woods that I thought my plan would push him over the edge and we’d be forced to either have to drag him up the horrendously steep trail once he became utterly paralyzed with fear, or we’d have to report him as a missing person once he ran screaming blindly away into the rugged, hoodoo-infested maze that enveloped us.

Fear is all around. George W. Bush used Fear of The Unknown to ensure another four years of corporate profiteering for his friends and family. Ever since Nine Eleven, we are used to being frightened in this country. Even today while walking in the rock crevices deep below the rim, I was paralyzed with a momentary flash of fear that certain death would befall us if an earthquake were to suddenly occur and pour weighty objects down upon our heads.

What frightened me more as we made our way toward Zion Nationa
l Park was the paucity of restaurants in rural Utah. Those that did exist had weird hours and mostly were closed by the time we were able to finally negotiate past the human horde of Ruby Guests and get on the road. It wasn’t until several hours later that we finally came across a restaurant with hours that matched our schedule. About 80 miles before Zion, the neon lights of The Thunderbird beckoned to us like sirens in a lonely sea. I pleaded with Caroline to stuff my ears with wax so I could avoid the Thunderbird temptation, but it was too late. Inexplicably, I found myself parking out front. The sign announced that its baked goods were made by Utah prostitutes, known as “Hos” in the vernacular. They were proud of their Ho-Made pies, and I couldn’t wait to get my lips around a slice—but not before ordering a Ham and Cheese sandwich for me and an ersatz Denny’s Superbird sandwich for Caroline. After our "meals," as we ordered our pie slices, a busload of French tourists descended on the place, and this reminded me of the coolest thing I’ve heard in years. The night before at Bryce Canyon, Caroline overheard a French tourist talking to her friend about what they were seeing: “This place is like the music of the sun,” she said. And she was absolutely right. I wish American English allowed for phrases like that, but the fear of sounding stupid has erased any hope of lyricism for the time being in this country.

Zion National Park gave us a chance to face Fear head on, hand-to-hand, nose to nose. After arriving mid-afternoon, Caroline and I grabbed the shuttle and headed off toward Angel’s Landing, listed as one of the nation’s “Epi
c” hikes. Zion itself sits among towering cliffs of Navajo sandstone that rise thousands of feet from the bed of the Virgin River. Angel’s Landing is a five-mile round-trip hike that takes you quickly up and up and up, nearly two thousand feet. The last three-quarters of a mile is a heart-rate-raising steep and treacherous journey along a narrow razorback that’s only six feet wide, with an 800-foot sheer drop on one side and a 2,000-foot sheer drop on the other. A series of chains anchored to the rock give climbers an additional handhold. But stability is not the problem. Fear is the problem.

As I ascended toward the lofty destination, the sky darkened with a bruise of threatening clouds. The winds kicked up to a sustained 30-mile-a
n-hour gale. At a wide spot in the trail, a thousand feet from the summit, I cowered among the rocks and fished my wind breaker from my pack, taking special care not to lose my grip on the garment and on the single rock outcropping that prevented me from being carried away over the edge like a runaway kite. I continued climbing, trying with all my might to shake off the Devil’s shackles, which were filling my head with whispers of doubt and visions of doom. One foot after the other, on and on, higher and higher until ...

About 40 feet from the summit, the wind stopped completely. I lifted my head, which had
been braced against the buffeting gale. It was quiet and I was but a few steps away from the top. I took those steps with authority and marched out onto the wide ledge at the top, puffing out my chest and calling out a hearty greeting to the small handful of hardy souls who had ventured to the landing.

It’s amazing to m
e that, with all the liability laws in the nation and all the fear of lawsuits ripping through the viscera of Those in Power, a National Park has an activity such as the hike to Angel’s Landing, with only a mere warning sign stating that “Safety is Your Responsibility.” This is an obvious statement, and people accept it. Our rugged founders accepted this proposition from the beginning and we’ve accepted it ever since. Until recently. Now we have become a nation of scared little crybabies who are willing to do just about anything in exchange for protection by the Government. And this is what should truly frighten us.

See you on down the road.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Now I Know Why Germans Are So Friggen Happy!

Several hours after I had awakened the entire Capitol Reef campground, I awoke to the sound of rustling at the campsite next door. Three German women were waking up and breaking camp. I was breaking wind deep down in my sleeping bag. It’s hard to cover that up at daybreak in a crowded campground. When I crawled out of the tent, the German women grimaced at me. I waved cheerily and put the coffee on to boil. All of the people who were tucked in to their RVs with Direct TV dishes were still asleep, so I loosed another butt reveille in 4/4 time in hopes of rallying the camp. This time the German women didn’t look.

It’s a strange culture that RVs these days. As we were getting ready to drive out of camp, the American RVers came climbing out of their wheeled houses. Some of these RVs really are as big as houses, with La-Z-Boy recliners, washers an
d dryers, satellite televisions, Internet access and Puerto Rican man servants. The RV Captains gathered in the center of camp, clutching coffee cups and their wives, and wearing sweatshirts with logos or scenes from all the places they had visited. Some banded together to see if they could gain any traction with scandalous tales about the campground host that might spread all the way up to park headquarters—possibly freeing the way for one of them to earn the title of “Host,” with all the honors and benefits that come with it. Others gossiped about the camping habits of the other campers. One glared at me and muttered something to her friend about “farting.”

I’ve never published the word “farting” before. It’s a new experience. I wonder if the Internet has some kind of rules against using using the vernacular term for colon gas? But which term is worse: fart or colon gas? I’m thinkin’ that I’m in the right on this one, and for those of you who might try to argue that I take on a more formal tone, you're wrong. But I digress.


The other brand of RV
ers are those who have rented them. These people aren’t owners, but rather are the scabs of the campgrounds in the eyes of RV owners. Every time one of these rental RVs shows up in a campground, the RV owners gather to sneer and give a chilly welcome. The owners know that it’s impossible for someone to truly absorb the RV Culture if they merely are squatting in one of the coveted vehicles. They know that the only sure way to understand “The Craft”, as they call it, is to mortgage yourself to the hilt and buy one, or, better still, to sell your home, buy one and live the vagabond life until age, infirmity, poverty or total mechanical failure force you to move in with your children and live out the rest of your Autumn years in uncertainty and cloaked resentment.

This week, many of those in the rental RVs are European tourists. I guess these folks get several weeks of vacation each year, and they know how to use it, too. Here in Utah, thousands of Europeans and Asians have taken to the roads, making Americans a minority here in the leisure capitals of the West, because most of us Americans are at work. These foreign vacationers seem immensely satisfied, and who can blame them? Everybody should have
five weeks of vacation each year. Even our President thinks so; he’s been known to spend an awful lot of time in Crawford each summer, and this year he only gave up two days of his extended vacation to deal with the largest contemporary natural disaster America has ever known.

So I’m thinking we should all get five weeks vacation like our President and the Germans.
There is so much to see and so little time, and I think we would all be better people and better employees if a whole bunch of R&R were on the schedule each year.

We found ourselves in
a cavalcade of rental RVs on our way to Bryce Canyon. The narrow roads were scary enough in a car, but they must have been especially treacherous in an RV. My suspicions proved true. In a particularly winding stretch on a 14 percent grade, we saw an RV quickly pull into a turn out, ostensibly to let the line of 40 cars behind her get by. As we passed, I looked over to see the driver gulping down a handful of pills. I’m pretty sure what she was taking wasn’t Feenamint ...

At the Hell’s Backbone Inn in Boulder, UT, they serve fancy breakfasts. Every dish is tastefully prepared with organic ingredients. It is a Zen garden set up smack dab in the middle of Mormon country. Go eat there if you ever find yourself out here in the middle of nowhere like we did. Or if you need to post something to a blog. They don't mind a bit if you walk in stinking of camp. The WiFi access made the meal particularly satisfying.


Hiking in Bryce Canyon, a spectacular place, we came across a man from Pittsburgh named Manny. He worked as a tax accountant. He admitted that, being from the East Coast, he was slightly scared to be taking the hike alone. So he invited himself to tag along with us. We didn
’t mind. He was good company. Turns out he had come to the area a week before he was to run the St. George Marathon, scheduled for this coming Saturday. As we walked, Manny indicated his pleasure with the current Administration’s tax cuts and credits for things like energy efficient cars. He lamented the impending winter costs of natural gas. He stopped short of telling his political affiliation. I refrained from expressing my belief that George W. Bush is the Devil or, at the very least, a minor demon. Manny's marathon legs were good at climbing, and there was plenty of that—for a long way. We finished the hike in about two hours, 15 minutes, a full forty five minutes less than the park’s listed required minimum hiking time.

If you take nothing else away from this blog, remember this: Do not eat at the restaurant at Ruby’s Best Western hotel on the road to Bryce. Caroline and I enjoyed all of the fare the place had to offer in true, stuffed-to-the-gills buffet fashion. It was like eating at Furr’s Cafeteria, except Furr's has more entrees and doesn’t cost 40 bucks. Throngs of German vacationers seemed to be enjoying it though, which lends more credence to my theory that five weeks of vacation makes for more satisfied, happier people.

I’ll have time to post this tonight from Ruby’s main Lodge. Ruby’s was started in 1920 by Rueben and Minnie Sybett. It began as a guest tent that served toast for the Sybett’s friends. Nowadays it's a gold mine! The guy in the restaurant, the manager, told us that they serve 5,000 meals a day. Every day of the year! They have hotel rooms, a trading post, a store, pony rides, a rodeo, campgrounds and, oh yeah, they are located right next to Bryce canyon. That adds up to millions! Cha-ching! Why, oh why didn’t my parents move someplace cool and start inviting friends over for toast?

(It’s amazing how much WiFi access there is in this state. Keep checking back for postings.)

Auf Weidersehen!

Monday, September 26, 2005

Wilkommen from Capitol Reef, Utah!

Moab is a mountain biking and jeeping Mecca. It is filled with mountain bikers and Jeep drivers. You can easily tell the former from the latter by sight. Mountain bikers wear shorts and Teva sandals when they’re not on their bikes and they walk with a hip self-assuradness that says, “I can eat anything I want because I just hit the trails for four hours in the hot desert sun.”

In contrast, the 4x4 crowd seems to have a higher than average rate of cigarette consumption, big round bellies and hip holsters concealing camouflage colored Insulin pumps. These folks walk or hobble through town with a grim self-assuradness that says, “I can hit the IHOP any time I want because I’ve got my medicine and my jeep could roll at anytime and kill me and I’d sure hate to miss out on one more Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity before my Maker calls me home.” Or something like that.

With all the self-propelled and motorized Fat Tires out in the rocks, Moab isn’t generally known for its golf. And today, we found out that the Moab Golf Club takes itself about as seriously as mountain bikers and jeepers do. We had booked a 7:57 tee time weeks ahead of our visit. When we arrived at 7:30, we found ourselves standing outside the Pro Shop with several other groups, scratching our heads, wondering why the establishment was closed up tight as a drum. At just after 8, a bleary-eyed kid showed up, apologetically mumbling something about festivities from the night before and some sort of confusion about who was supposed to open. So much for the myth of Mormon temperance.

The course itself was beautiful, tucked among folds of red slick rock towers and cliffs. It was straightforward, with most holes showing up as subtle doglegs or long, wide straight-aways. But it was difficult to concentrate with the mowers running full tilt right next to several tee boxes and, in at least one case, motoring straight up the fairway into the line of fire. We played with a gentleman from South Africa who started out well but melted down as the round wore on. All told, it was a fun, yet uninspiring round of golf.

On the way out of town we loaded up with camping supplies and stumbled onto an errant WiFi network, which we used to quickly upload a post to this blog.

Several hours later we found ourselves in Capitol Reef, Utah’s “other” National Monument. Being the stepchild of Utah recreation areas, Capitol Reef encourages travelers to clamber into the many orchards that dot the property and pick all the fruit they care to eat at deeply, deeply discounted prices. All the peaches had been taken, and all that remained on the limbs for us were red apples. We declined.

Utah has an amazing amount of rock. It’s everywhere. It’s beautiful rock, but it’s rock nonetheless. With all this rock around, it was easy for me to understand why the early Mormon settlers took on several wives. You have to do something out there in the rocks, and procreating seems as good a hobby as any. It certainly beats the delusional thoughts that wracked the minds of Capitol Reef’s early founders, who gave the place its name because they said one of the rocks was reminiscent of the Nation’s capitol. Not only that, the rock created a barrier that made crossing nearly impossible. I really couldn’t see the Capitol in the namesake rock, but I did see forms reminiscent of Marshmallow Peeps, those delightful, brightly colored little mallow-birds that are so popular around Easter.

At Capitol Peeps, Caroline and I navigated a beautiful, yet narrow canyon. It was a good hike, and it included evidence of early bloggers, who had carved stories in rocks way up the stream bed. That night in camp I slept soundly. But at around 2 a.m. I heard the unmistakable creak of a cooler being opened. When I shown the light out into the night, a pair of shameful eyes glowed in the darkness. The marauding raccoon scampered away with a packet of hard salami slices, and I successfully woke up the entire campground securing our supplies inside the car.

“The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup,” I sang as lantern after lantern came on in tents and RVs all across the area.

Earlier in the day we came across a one-room cabin of one of the area’s earliest inhabitants. The man, his wife and 10 children all lived there, in a 10 by 20 foot shack. The boys slept out in the rocks. The littlest kids slept near the parents. The parents kept having children. Those rocks were doing their job.

And so it goes.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Don't Worry, It's Only an Advanced Trail, You Pussy!

Sunday is a spiritual time. I spent most of today praying that I would survive our ride on the Sovereign trail, which I guess is Moab’s only singletrack ride. Things were going pretty well at the beginning. Then things started to get tricky. Not out of control, mind you, but difficult. That was about a quarter of the way in.

“What kind of trail is this?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s rated as advanced,” Caroline said matter-of-factly.

Shortly thereafter, a merry band of bikers—a robust coterie of Spandex-clad men—came zipping up the trail behind us. We pulled over to let them by. They passed and then stopped right in front of us, whipping the Camelbacks from their shoulders and whipping out Power Bars and bananas. They stuffed these items in their mouths and chewed with mighty, purposeful, robust chews, chattering about the obstacles behind and the trail ahead. One let out a tremendous belch, a battle cry to let the Earth know that it was about to be conquered. As we watched them snake up the hills in the distance, they looked like swarming ants, zigging and zagging around and then bunching up in little groups, waiting for the lead ants to go off and come back with news of what lay ahead.

A ways down the trail I found myself curled up in the fetal position next to the trail, making all kinds of promises to God about how I’d repent for all of my sins and mend my wretched ways if He would just grant me the strength in my legs and the coordination to pick my way through the remaining rocks, drops and badly rutted trail sections. It seemed as though a summer of torrential rains apparently rutted out the trail in several areas, making it much more difficult than when Caroline had last ridden it a few years ago. About 12 miles later, we found ourselves back at the car. I was happy to be alive. Caroline was relieved that my whining had ceased.

Caroline is a Moab pro. She danced over the trail on her bike like a pixie at a German wedding ceremony. And for those of you who don’t know what that means, well, I’m here to tell you that it’s pretty friggen graceful. She never broke a sweat—but she did mostly drain her Camelback.

Back at the hotel, I fell into a deep slumber. I had these terrible dreams of Angels buzzing around my head, reminding me of the promises I had made. I dreamed I was riding down some of the smoothest singletrack on the continent. Then
my point of view zoomed out and I realized I was riding through the Slot Canyons of Hell on a singletrack trail that spelled out the word “Repent” in some of the most graceful penmanship I had ever seen.

When I awoke, I found that Caroline had taken it upon herself to clean up the bikes, organize our things and start looking over the itinerary of the coming days. I brooded in a sleep-soaked stupor.

With a few hours of daylight left, we made the drive into Arches National Park. Arches! Arches! Arches! That’s what you see there. Arches! I’m telling you. They’re everywhere, dotting the landscape like the forgotten promises of my Sovereign Repentance. We figured that we had timed things just right to be able to hit the Delicate Arch at around sunset, when the light would be most spectacular.

It was a brilliant idea, we thought, one that no one else would possibly think of. Why, the hike alone would scare most people away, we thought.
The parking area was full when we arrived, but we snagged a space because Caroline hasn’t yet used up all her favors with the Lord. I figure God’s favors are kind of like sick leave and you only get so many each month. I constantly have a deficit going, but I believe Caroline has amassed enough to be able to ask for five, maybe six, favors a day for the rest of her life. I’m the John Travolta character to her Olivia Newton John character in our own real-life production of Grease (we’re planning on a debut live in Vegas next month).

Now this is an apparently magical time of the year right now. Every German, Asian and British tourist is right here, right now, visiting exactly the same places as we are. And perhaps this is why our plan went awry. The trudge to Delicate Arch was fairly strenuous, meandering through desert and slick rock. Had only the typical fat, out-of-shape American tourists that we routinely happen upon be out here, we surely would have been alone; most would have given up early on in the hike. The last half mile included a treacherous walk along a narrow ledge with a several hundred foot drop off the side. And just beyond this thin rock walkway lies Delicate Arch. Our arrival time was perfect, the light in the west was just beginning to soften, bringing out the vibrant colors of the surrounding landscape.

“This is perfect,” I whispered as we rounded the last corner.

It was wishful thinking. We crossed the threshold only to find that about 200 people had gathered with with their tripods and professional cameras and camcorders and tiny digital cameras perched atop 40-pound professional tripods. They were all there. Waiting. To take that perfect photo. As if Kodak were offering a million bucks this week only for the best Delicate Arch photos, which are ubiquitous in this area. One poor soul wandered beyond the threshold of people to stand under the arch for a photo. The mob cried out in protest and ran him off. These people were gathered to capture a rock, not people. Then, in a millisecond, it was over: The light flashed to a perfect hue, the sound of a thousand shutters echoed off the canyon walls.

Caroline and I jogged away, intent on beating the crush of humanity back to the parking lot, where a traffic jam awaited in this pristine land. And in three months, in hundreds of houses across the globe, a single photo of the Delicate Arch will lie forgotten, tucked away in hard drives, CD ROMs, and shoe boxes full of photos stuffed on the top shelf of a closet, to be discovered again later and puzzled over as to why it was taken in the first place.


See you on down the road.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

The Fat Man Hits Moab; Moab Hits Back!

I can tell you one thing about Cortez, Colorado: It's got no shortage of ham! Caroline and I pulled into a little place on the main drag called Poppi's to grab a quick bite. The road had been long and hot. We had been on the road for hours, and we still had hours to go. Outside of Poppi's we found a great way for securing our bikes. The method ensured that it would take a thief hours or an Atom Bomb to steal them, and if the latter method were used, they'd be worthlessly radioactive anyway. But I digress.

Poppi's has a menu item called "The Ultimate Grilled Cheese." Boy am I a sucker for the word ultimate. And when the description said the sandwich included not
only ham, but bacon, and chedder cheese and pepper jack all served between two slices of Texas toast, well who was I to refuse? We dispatched the waitress to fetch one, and a plain old grilled ham and cheese for Caroline. Delicious! Bing-bang-boom! Ham in our guts and we were outta town! Cortez doesn't have a lot of things. But it does have tasty ham. Check out Poppi's next time you're in town.

Hours later we found ourselves in Moab. It was my first time. Caroline is a Moab pro. We quickly checked into our hote
l, a strange wood-clad affair called the Red Rock Inn. Everything in Moab is rock something. Red rock, slick rock, tower rock, balance rock—you name it, and they'll add the word rock to it and sell it to you.

With just a few hours of dayligh
t left, we took the opportunity to get in a short 16-mile ride. Caroline had chosen the easiest trail in Moab, which was good, I would later find out. Out on the Klondike Bluffs trail, we got a taste for slick rock and got to see some really cool fossilized dinosaur tracks. The three-toed tracks were right next to the trail and were well presevered. Looked like a meat eater. I was walking near the footsteps of kin.

That was all well and good until disaster struck shortly afterward. Now I'm big and sluggish on foot, but on a bike, well, you can imagine. I had been handling the slick rock pretty well, but then all of a sudden I had to go up this cliff thing. With a belly full of ham weighing me down, I couldn't quite get the momentum I needed, and before I knew it, I was down on the rocks with a shooting pain in the back of my leg. My
big chain ring had ripped me open stem to stern, with about a five-inch long gash that had three other gashes radiating away from the main one. The bleeding was incredible! Not to be branded as a wimp, I rode down the rock and attempted the climb again. Nailed it—though the back of my leg by this time looked like it had fallen prey to a real dinosaur.

Later on at the hotel, the towel got pretty soaked with blood. I hoped the maids had biohazard training or wouldn't get spooked and call the police the next day when they would come and make up the room. Nothing worse than finding a blood soaked towel, I always say.

I have proof th
at giants walked the Earth with humans a long time ago. I got this photo of a human footprint wearing a size 47 double D dress shoes in the same geologic member as that three toed dinosaur track. (heh-heh. I said "member.") It wasn't just a human, but a giant, like the one David smote back in the Bible days. Put that in your pipe and smoke it and tell me not to support the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools, Mr. and Mrs. Smartypants! Had I had the time and a half pint more blood, I would have chiseled the damned thing out of the rock and sold it for about a million bucks on Ebay. But since I didn't, I'm not tellin' you where I saw it. You best just leave it alone!

See you on down the road ...



Jesus is Watching You!

We hit the road at the cruel crack of dawn this morning. The car was loaded down with enough stuff to make seven of these journeys, but we wanted to make sure that we hadn't forgotten anything and we went for broke.I find it difficult to pack light anymore. The last time we took an actual vacation before this one, the town was destroyed in a terrible inferno and all that remained was what I had in one suitcase. And with the way disasters are hitting these days, the only thing that stands between you and disaster after you step out of the door to anywhere is a single roll of the Cosmic Dice. And when it comes up craps, that's all she wrote.

The people of New Orleans learned that the hard way. And they didn't make point again this time when Rita came calling. Lady Luck went to Texas and New Orleans crapped out again under five feet of water. If you wonder why that is, the Religious Right say they have the answer: New Orleans got punished because God has gotten tired of the Sin that soaks the streets there every day. That's what they're saying. Not that God flooded New Orleans so he could see how rich folk like Trent Lott and Pat Robertson would treat the poor and the afflicted afterward, so he could see for himself whether anyone actually learned anything about what Jesus had to say about the Golden Rule and humility and charity. Nope. God's mighty wrath was unleashed upon the poor in New Orleans because He's really pissed at sin and He wanted the barons of Big Oil to have an opportunity to make record profits this year as a just reward for all their good and decent acts of late.

Jesus is big business these days, and he's watching us. He's watching out for sin. Nowhere was this more apparent this week than just outside of Farmington, NM, where Caroline and I saw the likeness of the Biggest of the Big Guy's looming over a roadside Den of Iniquity. Just down the road, on the other side of the highway in Kirtland, there was a store selling sex toys for couples, its wares shamelessly advertised in bright day-glow colors, as if couples sex toys were as ordinary as April rains. Maybe they are in Kirtland, which could explain why that place had no billboard over it. But Jesus sees every which way, so they're not getting away with anything. They're only fooling themselves. Since they're out of the flood plain over there, we can only guess what type of disaster will befall that area in the days and weeks ahead. God's dishing out wrath these days like the Red Cross is dishing out relief checks. We were glad to leave dusty, sin-filled Farmington far behind. We didn't want to be around when all hell broke loose.

Okay, so I realize none of this has anything to do with vacation, other than since we've been able to stay away from work we've had more opportunity to read the news, and that's where we read about the Religious Right's latest shameful pronouncement. And we were able to drive through Farmington and see what the Religous Right is spending their money on these days. Billboards won't help much in New Orleans, except maybe for creating some high ground where people can escape the water while they figure out what they're going to do next. Having been through a disaster myself, I can say with authority that those peoples' struggles are just going to be getting started once the Media pull out and Katrina becomes yesterday's news. The Religious Right should be talking about God's mercy. Because that's what the people of South need most of all right now.

See you on down the road.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Gittin Ready from the Git Go ...

Counting down now to just a day before departure, it has dawned on us that we spent so much time actually preparing for our journey on paper that we haven't actually prepared at all. A horrid yellow sweat broke out on my forehead this evening as that revelation hit me like 175 MPH winds on a Galveston drilling platform. In fact, a fearsome storm has blown up here in the Atomic City as I sit writing this, a portent of things to come. I hope I'm wrong. But my mind takes little comfort in the fact that, on paper anyway, our trip will be highly successful, well executed and fun. Still, a day before departure seems like hardly enough time to prepare. We have laundry to do, supplies to gather, curses to spew ... ham to eat. And all of this has reminded me that, thanks to Texas' impending collision with Rita, gas prices are going to soar just as we pull out of the driveway and probably will continue to rise throughout the rest of our journey, only to subside once we return. But there's no shortage of gas here -- my colon has gone into overdrive now that I've realized there's a lot to do, but little time to do it. What time is it? No time to look back! See you on down the road.