CORTEZ,Colo.—After a couple weeks on the road, you start to miss your home and you long to get back. Maybe that's why all those ancient Indian cultures have stories about an eventual return to our place of origin.
It's great to look upon an unfamiliar landscape with wonderment and think about what it must have been like for the first inhabitants to view such things for the first time. Were they awestruck? Terrified? Inspired? Did they move on, or did they feel like they had found a place to put down roots and begin a new life?
At Mesa Verde National Monument, the ancient people migrated away from their pit houses on the mesa tops and built marvelous civilizations in the sides of cliffs. These ancient people were masterful weavers, but as time went on, as their civilization aged and matured, the things they were once good at suffered in quality. Like many of the ancient people—like their contemporaries, the Fremont, to the north—their civilizations mysteriously disappeared around 1300 A.D.
When we started our journey a couple weeks back, I was sick and weak, and my creativity was suffering badly at the hands of the same old routine. Despite the difficulties of getting on the road at the tail end of the Crippling Mystery Illness, we decided to forge ahead, because, we reckoned, we'd be better off in the long run for having abandoned our familiar place for a while and heading out to parts unknown.
As much as mankind has changed and "evolved" over the years, we have retained our faiths and superstitions. The ancients had their Kivas and boogeymen; we have our churches and demons. Here in the White West, our modern-day shaman are telling us of a time when some mysterious occurrence will come and pluck the righteous from this world and transport us to a new one where we will never know tears or shame.
Perhaps the Ancient Ones already went through such an experience 700 years ago. And perhaps they will return with wisdom to teach us, or to simply look around their old homes and realize that what they left behind was inimitable.
It only takes a little while away before we begin to realize that our homes contain the most valuable of human possessions. In these places, no matter how humble or ornate, we store our hearts, hopes and dreams. And these are things that are always worth coming back to. Dreams are always best in your own bed, and food always tastes best when eaten with your own spoon.
For the time being I'm content to stick around the hearth, but just as sure as the sun rises, we'll see you on down the road again sometime soon.
PANGUITCH, Utah—Sometimes you wish for something so hard that you wonder whether it's ever going to happen. The problem with that, though, is usually by the time you get to actually live out your fantasy, you've built up such high expectations that the reality of the whole experience can't possibly match what you've built up in your mind and the whole thing ends up being a letdown.
That happened to me one Halloween when I was a kid. I had been dreaming about eating a whole bag of candy corn—not just the regular candy corn, but the kind with the brown chocolatey layer on the bottom. Being the candy-corn-deprived little monster that I was, I schemed for weeks about how to acquire some black-market confections. Through a little subterfuge, a lot of heavy bartering and calling in a few markers I was owed, I eventually got my chubby little fingers on a bag and feasted like a crazed rodent who had come across a store of ergot-tainted wheat in a Pilgrim grain cellar.
Of course, my vomit was brown and felt like boiling acid on the wrong way back up my gut pipe, and I sure did have a lot of explaining and penance to do after my misadventure. Needless to say the whole experience was a let down, and even today I eschew candy corn on All's Hallowed Eve.
But that happened a long time ago and far, far away from Panguitch, so I'll get to the point now before I start weeping again and require some more sessions with a therapist.
Just around the time I started riding a mountain bike, I had stumbled across a description of a marvelous Utah trail that wound its way through an orange-and pink-landscaped dotted with dramatic hoodoos. To me, the ride was like the Seven Cities of Cibola and I was a modern-day Francisco Vásquez de Coronado waiting to discover the mythical land.
A couple years later I learned that the trail had a name through a chance meeting with a stranger. The trail was called "Thunder Mountain," and the stranger explained to me that Disneyland's Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster had been inspired by the landscape through which the trail meandered. The trail itself starts just miles outside of the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park, and the terrain was rumored to be similar. While on vacation walking through Bryce, I couldn't help but think to myself more than once, "wouldn't it be cool to bike here?"
I became more obsessed with the trail and started researching it. I came across a few washed out photos that indeed confirmed its existence. Later I discovered where the trailhead was. Finally, on our first real out-of-state biking trip several years after I had first heard whispers and rumors of the trail, we made plans to stop and ride it along with several other epic "must-rides" out there. But a bizarre twist of fate prevented us from following through.
A few years later another mishap made us miss out on conquering Thunder Mountain. These near misses made my desire to ride the trail even greater than they originally had been, when the story of Thunder Mountain first stirred in me the excitement of a well-told campfire tale.
So when we planned this trip, we built in an iron-clad guarantee that we would ride Thunder Mountain at long last. The night before our ride, I tossed and turned in my sleep, realizing that I had built up expectations for Thunder Mountain that were so high that reality couldn't possibly match them. Would the ride be a giant letdown, I wondered? What if its "most-difficult" designation made it entirely too hard for me to ride and I ended up bashed and bleeding at the end?
The alarm rang too early and soon Caroline and I found ourselves at the crack of dawn riding up the dim canyon into a frigid morning down-canyon headwind on a relentless climb toward the trailhead. Caroline had eaten two big bowls of cereal before we left and I had eaten my fill as well, using milk that had been traveling with us for days in a cooler. Near the trailhead, Caroline hurridly made a dash for one of the porta potties along the way. A bad case of dairy gurgle-belly had turned her weak and greenish looking in the face.
Would this be another curse to stop us from reaching my personal Seven Cities of Gold? Not today. A herd of pronghorns skipping across the sagebrush in the colorful morning light inspired us to go on. We laughed in the face of the mad cow who was snorting and pawing the ground in front of us in an attempt to keep herself between us and her calf; she was like a horrible gatekeeper bent on turning us back from a journey into a mystical land visited only by Gods and Heroes. She failed in her mission.
As we turned onto the singletrack, we suddenly knew that no amount of mental preparation or anticipation could compare to the ride we were about to have. The trail was manicured like Paris Hilton's toenails. Amazing pink hoodoos rose here and there around every corner and provided more bling to the ride than an entire store full of gold chains, diamond rings or ruby tooth implants. Around each corner I kept thinking that I was looking at a movie set. The surreal landscape was so unusual, I kept thinking that if I crashed into one of the hoodoos, it would bust open to reveal paper maché and chicken wire.
And, of course, it wasn't just a ride up and a coast down through some nice scenery kind of ride, either. We earned our views with ups and downs, and by picking our way through a few hairy technical sections and cheek-puckering switchbacks. It doesn't get much better than that.
Thunder Mountain was everything we had hoped it would be and more! It certainly ranks up there among those "must-ride-before-you-die" rides. And as if riding through a land that inspired Walt Disney wasn't enough, the final mile back to the trailhead is a ripping downhill that gives every bit as much of a perma-grin as a ride on one of Walt's old roller coasters. Best of all: it's free and there are no lines!
Everything in this area seemed to have some pink in it. My ass cheeks were pretty pink from the saddle sores I have acquired during days and days of riding, while over in Bryce Canyon—again thick with German tourists as the Euro continues to wallop the dollar in its exchange rate—we saw ruddy faces wet with sweat climbing up out of the broiling canyons at midday. Obscene utterances sound even dirtier in German.
One unfortunate woman had hiked down to the bottom of one canyon wearing flip-flops and managed to badly turn her ankle. She sat under a ledge in the shade waiting for help to arrive. On our way up the steep switchbacks, we watched a Park Service crew maneuvering a Stokes Litter on a single big wheel down to the bottom so she could be carted back up to the rim. That ride would have been like a recumbent bike ride through Thunder Mountain, only probably a lot scarier!
Poor woman. I bet she'll wear sensible shoes the next time she visits a National Park from now on.
Our day ended with a vist to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes state park in southern Utah. Although it was about a million degrees outside, we were desperate for a shower after driving for several hours in our smelly Thunder Mountain bike clothes. Every commerical campground, RV Park and flop house along the way turned us away when we showed up begging or showers. Well, can you blame them?
I mean, Caroline looks normal and everything, but in my biking jersey and shorts I looked like some smelly, dirt-stained blueberry hybrid that had escaped from a genetic experimentation facility operated by the Latter Day Saints somewhere in the foothills of rural Utah. God only knows what would happen to me if you added water.
Thankfully, anyone can walk into a state park or national monument, so our entrance fee got us a long-anticipated shower and a visit to superheated peach-colored dunes as an added bonus.
Yep. Anticipation sometimes leads to letdown, but we've not seen that happen these past couple weeks. Thank goodness for dreams and aspirations, because they become the stuff that paves the elusive road to fullfillment.
See you on down that road!
SEVIER, Utah—Native Americans shaped the character of this landscape, with the early Fremont Indians carving a mysterious swath of history through the region.
Contemporaries of the Anasazi to the South, the Fremont people settled in Clear Creek Canyon near Sevier, Utah, from about 400 to 1300 A.D. Like many ancient Indian cultures, the Fremont mysteriously disappeared, probably migrating from Earth with extraterrestrials once astrological signs indicated that Native Americans would be subjected to a never-ending string of raw deals at the hands of the White Man who would later despoil and poison the landscape on which they depended.
At Fremont Indian State Park located in present-day Clear Creek Canyon, there is little talk of extraterrestrials in official exhibits, but visitors can learn about the extraordinary story the Fremont believe led to the emergence of the their people from the underworld to the Earth. In fact, if you're hardy enough, you can see the emergence story for yourself etched in stone for posterity. On an unauspicious boulder just east of the Visitor Center and Museum, the Fremont creation story sits largely unchanged by time as a petroglyph hidden from direct view.
The Fremont believed that their ancestors shared the underworld with throngs of The Wicked. But they knew another world existed because they could hear walking on the roof above. The Fremont dispatched a hawk, an eagle, a swallow and a shrike to find a way to the Fourth World. The first three birds returned exhausted and without good news. However, the shrike was able to fly higher and higher, resting on branches and cliffs as it climbed. The shrike returned after a very long time and told the Fremont people about a hole in the sky through which they could pass to the Fourth world.
They planted a river reed, which was completely hollow on the inside. They climbed up inside the reed to the Earth. Unfortunately, The Wicked People also began to climb up through the reed as well. The Creator jointed the reed to stop The Wicked People from moving upward inside it, but soon The Wicked started climbing up the outside of the reed. The Fremont knocked down the reed and assigned the eagle to watch the hole to ensure that The Wicked would not reassemble the reed and climb out.
Unfortunately, they didn't knock down the reed fast enough, and a substantial number of The Wicked had a chance to settle in what is now Park City, Utah.
The Fremont emergence myth petroglyph is carved on a rock that represents one of the joints of the reed that was toppled back during the old times. The wavy line on top represents the crack between the Third and Fourth Worlds, and the thick vertical line represents the reed.
Elsewhere throughout Clear Creek Canyon the rocks are filled with petroglyphs (rock etchings), pictographs (pigments painted on rocks), and in seven instances, pictoglyphs (a combination of etching and painting).
The modern-day Hopi have claimed ancestry with the Fremont and share a similar emergence tale with the ancient people. The White Man claims an ancestry with The Wicked People and has forsaken gifts endowed by the creator like clear running streams, endless herd of buffalo and a sense of shared fate and mutual obligation toward preserving the Earth in exchange for Pepsi Cola machines, Hello Kitty lunch boxes, and the dog-eat-dog selfishness that has established itself as the downside of Capitalism.
According to legend, the Fremont and their extraterrestrial brethren will return one day to enlighten the people of the Earth after the great cataclysm foretold by the Aztecs and scheduled for 2012. Hopefully when the Fremont return, we will know enough about their culture to blend in so we don't get scorched by their Laser Cannons of Salvation.
A few miles down the road on the way to Panguitch, our next stop, we came across the original Big Rock Candy Mountain, celebrated in song and story:
"In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, you never change your socks
and the little streams of alcohol come trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too
You can paddle all around in a big canoe
in the Big Rock Candy Mountains"
As could be expected, The Big Rock Candy Mountains are not a pleasant place for tourists to ponder and enjoy. Rather, a huge trading post has been plopped at the base, and a short walk to the bottom of the mountains must be braved through a cloud of foul garbage stench so thick that you need a machete to cut through it. It's like that lake of stew had started trickling out of the outhouses.
Next door, groups of larger-than-average people hopped aboard smoke-belching OHVs and traveled hither and yon across the expansive off-road network that the proprietors of the Big Rock Candy Mountains Resort had created.
Just down the road, the 'dozers were cutting shelves into the landscape for new developments of trophy homes in this river-kissed valley. Billboards urged passersby to get in on Phase 1 of honest-to-goodness country livin'.
As we drove away, we felt compelled to come up with our own lyrics to the optimistic hobo song that had been commercialized so effectively:
"In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, you'll drive your ATV
then stay at some foul gyp-joint where nothing's ever free
The gas prices are all higher and the garbage stinks like sin
The erosion churns and the forest burns
people wriggle all around like a farm full of worms
in the Big Rock Candy Mountains."
See you on down the road!
PARK CITY, Utah—Park City is like a carnival for the rich, but with much worse traffic. That didn't matter to us, though: we aren't rich and we didn't come to drive.
Instead we found ourselves in a charming basement condo owned by a wonderful young couple who had lived in Park City during the salad days—when every square inch of land in the region wasn't being scraped clean to build super-sized condominium establishments or 22,000-square-foot rustic log McMansions to be occupied by out-of-town owners for a couple weeks a year.
Thank goodness we met Tom and his wife first before running into the snooty hoards who have come home to roost in Park City, lest we would have packed up our belongings and fled far, far away. Well, that is, if we had been able to get through the traffic.Each morning the streets of Park City jam up like the colon of someone who eats only Wisconsin cheese curds and maintains a constant state of dehydration. Cars idle on roads for miles and miles, waiting for a chance to crawl into the city so their out-of-town occupants can serve the ritzy residents and see to their every extravagant whim.
We spent our first morning in the Old Main Street district, recoiling in horror at the weekly crafts fair that sets up shop there. We watched throngs of people hovering around crafts booths looking for something to spend the spare cash on that was burning a hole in their pockets. Children in Izod or Abercrombie were encouraged by their parents to throw dollar bills on the ground at the street fair and then use their boat shoes to stomp on the hands of any of the service-sector denizens who reached for the green mannah. One woman with a sweater wrapped around her neck (it was 85 degrees for God's sake) harangued her child for leaning on a downtown railing.
"Don't touch that, Spalding! It's been touched by poooor people!"
Okay, so maybe that's an exaggeration, but the downtown scene was gross.
Our thoughts immediately turned to the wonderful biking trails we had heard so much about. Tom was generous with his time and patient with us newcomers. He invited us to accompany him on his evening ride—a marathon climb and singletrack tour around the myriad ski areas that tower above the town.
Some 2,000 feet or so above the Main Street area, we rode past the very hip copper roofed compound that ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson uses for a winter retreat. From this cool-aired vantage point, it was easy to see the future development plan for Park City: Develop every single square inch, high and low, anywhere you might be able to offer ski-in-ski-out condos for any resort.
It was a plan enviable for its simplicity, and the assorted Greed Heads calling the shots seem to be following it to the letter. One development we rode past had added a 50-foot gondola to provide its tenants with true walk-less access to the slopes, even though the housing complex was about as slope-side as it gets. I guess it's difficult to walk in ski boots when you're only in them three days a year.
During the peak season, these high-end temporary homes fetch $400 to $2,000 a night. But interestingly enough, at this altitude, the roads have little traffic. Here in the heights of Snootyville, the roads are private, and signs alongside them warn cyclists or unwitting interlopers that they will be arrested for trespassing. Up here at least 60 percent of the residences are second homes, so there are few people at home during the summer. The roads in this exclusive area of the forest were a strange contrast to morning rush hour down below.
I had no idea where we were as we zipped around with Tom. A positive aspect of all the development is that property owners are putting in new trails like crazy, apparently to fulfill code obligations. Spiraling down a long stretch of singletrack we stopped to look at a mega-resort that was being carved into the landscape. Our guide said construction had started surprisingly recently, given the state of completion the resort was already in.
Our high-altitude tour with Tom ended with a raucous downhill through thick fields of tea roses and other wildflowers—hillsides of lush plants that soon would be nothing more than a memory once the bulldozers had made way for a new set of condos. The concrete cancers that were spreading across the landscape were not much more than a blur as we raced back down toward Park City. Because of the climbing we had endured earlier, the ride was an excellent warm-up for the next day.
Every town has its "signature ride" and word of Park City's Mid-Mountain Loop Trail has spread through every corner of North America. Of course we had to try it. Not just a little taste, but the whole buffet. Unfortunately for us, Tom had to work the next day, so we would be on our own. Thankfully he gave us some hints about the ride that would come in handy later on.
Here's a little word of advice for everyone. If you happen to find yourself in a new town and you're planning to ride trails that you've never ridden before, be sure to take a look—a good look—at the trail map and carefully add up the mileage. Caroline and I neglected to do this and we underestimated the Mid-Mountain Trail. Oh, our ride would probably be only 14 miles or so we reckoned after a cursory glance at the map, and since the guide says it generally follows the 8,000 foot contour line of the peaks, it had to be relatively flat, right? Oh, and all those trails Tom treated us to were so flat and smooth. They must all be that way, right? We'd be back at our comfy condo in just a couple hours, we figured. Right?
Wrong!
We quickly found out that "roughly following the 8,000 foot contour line" meant a lot of pedaling up and a lot of riding down on narrow exposed trail, much of it peppered with sections of sharp triangular rocks. A false move here could mean a long plunge over the side.
Oh, and one other thing: When selecting a trail in a new town that you've never ridden before, it's probably not a good idea to choose the route that has no possible bail-out points. Like it or not, we were committed to the whole ride once we reached the point of no return.
Some seven miles into our ride, Park City was a speck off in the distance below. We realized that our 14 miles was probably going to be more like 17, possibly more, and that our easy coast on smooth singletrack was not going to be all that easy.
One other thing: If you're riding unfamiliar trails in a new town, be sure to bring enough food to last much longer than you might think you'll need.
Once the realization that our ride was going to be an epic marathon that would also require a nice long ride on pavement back to town, we decided to take a little snack break. My Clif Bar looked like the pile of bear poop we had narrowly avoided about a half mile earlier, and it certainly didn't taste much better than what I would expect bear poop to taste like.
Fortunately, I had a lot of water, or so I thought. Somewhere around the 10-mile mark, my Camelbak started to run dry. Thank God for Tom! He had told us about a nondescript concrete restroom that had been erected by a private development called The Colony (I'm not making that up). Although the road through the development would have gotten us arrested had we decided to bail out there, and although signs in the woods warned us that vicious sheep hounds would rip us to shreds if we ventured off the trail into the private livestock areas, the restroom had a long-necked faucet that was just perfect for filling a Camelbak bladder, and the water coming out of it was cold and tasty! We were thankful that The Colony had spared no expense on anything.
With a new full supply of water and a renewed sense of hope, I was ready to finish out the ride. Of course, I never counted on the steady uphill section for the next four miles or so that would put the final trail tally near the 20-mile mark. Even though I wanted to hop off my bike, throw it over the edge of the cliff and stamp my feet like an angry little baby, the Good Lord blessed me with a hallucination that helped me get several more miles behind me.
In this dream state, I saw friendly German women in long skirts and braided hair, wearing those white hats that look like those ones you used to fold up with newspaper when you were a kid. These friendly German women would come zigzagging out of the woods with huge steaming platters of tasty pancakes held high above their heads.
"Pannakuchen! Pannakuchen! Pannakuchen!" they would cry on their serpentine quest to deliver their delicious ration of expertly prepared quick breads.
I'll tell you one thing, brothers and sisters, there just ain't enough German maidens delivering pancakes out there in America these days, and certainly not out here in the West. Rides like this one made me miss Minnesota.
Our epic ended back at town five-and-a-half hours later with 27 miles on the old odometer and a quarter-inch coating of dust on my legs and cranks.
We had a friggen blast!
We celebrated that night with some of the best sushi I've ever eaten at an incognito little place in a delapadated old strip mall away from Main Street called Sushi Maru. We ate like champions!
Park City's trails live up to their reputation, even though the town does not. We made fine friends there and we will be back again for more rides, even if we forego the ambience of the rest of the place.
See you on down the road.
SOUTHWEST IDAHO—Sometimes life can get difficult after days and weeks on the road, but not nearly as difficult as life must have been for the crazy bastards who started the westward expansion some 165 years ago.
After a later-than-planned departure from Boise, we found ourselves struggling slowly down US 84 toward Utah. It's surprising to find out new things about another person after living with them for quite sometime, but the road seems to pull new and exciting experiences out of even the most mundane interactions. And sometimes these new revelations aren't always so welcome.
For instance, how was I to know that Caroline had never before in her life encountered "Easy Cheese"—Kraft's ingenious method of aerosolizing processed American cheese into a can that has a handy applicator tip? And how could I have known that such a small can of road-snack pleasure could lead to such discord?
The late start had left me hungry for lunch, but with a schedule to keep, we had no time for a sit-down meal. Instead we nibbled on nuts and berries in the car along the way like Romulus and Remus long separated from their she-wolf's teat. Although sustaining, such natural comestibles are not nearly as satisfying as a large glob of aerosol cheese on a Triscuit cracker. So of course I began demanding that Caroline uncork the Easy Cheese and start it flowing like the mighty Snake River.
After fumbling with the "easy-open" cap, she managed to squeeze about a half a pound of the tangy yellow ambrosia into her lap. The mishap also snapped one of the tongs off the applicator tip, meaning that any attempt to draw a sunny smiley face of cheese onto a cracker would end up making the Triscuit look like it had suffered a mild stroke. Everything on one side of the face was drooping.
Not only that, but our supply of "natural" sodas ended up tasting like water in the bottom of a can dredged up from a cattail-chocked slough near the banks of the Snake River that had been previously spat into by someone chewing stale Copenhagen. So much for road snacks this day.
Just as I was bitching about our misfortune, a sign for Glenns Ferry and the historic Three Islands Crossing for the Oregon Trail distracted me from what was sure to be a 10-minute treatise on rotten luck and gypsy curses bestowed upon my family several generations earlier.The excellent Three Islands Crossing State Park told the terrible tale of pioneers risking it all trying to cross the expansive Snake River with their families and Prairie Schooners weighted with everything they owned, including, in some cases, children or elderly persons stricken with the Cholera. The fortunate found passage to the other side; others lost everything. Some of the relatives of the unlucky apparently still live in the community of Glenns Ferry, like the little waitress who served us a delicious patty melt after we gave up all hope of sticking to our schedule and resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be reaching Park City well after dark.
After learning that Oregon Trail emigrants spent most of a year eating biscuits and old bacon, our road snacks of nuts and berries and bacon-flavored processed American cheese spread on a festively woven cracker—all washed down with a cold funky-tasting soda—didn't sound so bad after all. It's staggering to think that thousands ventured west in creaky old wagons without cell phones, iPods or Igloo coolers. It amazing that no emigrant dined on Doritos or Lean Cuisine microwave dinners, or called Sunday a success after filling a crock pot full of Little Smokies and a bottle of K.C. Masterpiece just before Nascar on television. Compared to our ancestors, we are a nation of pathetic weaklings.
The museum at Three Islands Crossing also told the terrible tale of how the U.S. Government cheated the Shoshone-Bannock Indians out of their lands and forced their members to march for 500 miles to reservation land. A similar thing happens on a smaller scale today that the Government likes to call "extraordinary Rendition," a euphemism for injustice just like "relocations to reservation land" or the "Indian Child Welfare Act." Like the historic sanctioned mistreatment of Native Americans, people don't like to talk much these days about the sanctioned mistreatment of new "inferior people" under the auspices of the War on Terror. But I digress.
Although I tried my best at the Three Islands Crossing museum, I could offer no consolation to these unwitting players in American history.
The Three Islands Crossing is a testament to True Grit, and each year during the second week of August, the community of Glenns Ferry turns out to re-enact the treacherous river crossings. According to the woman at the museum, some years the players are successful, other years they aren't. And like the emigrants of old, sometimes oxen or mules drown when wagons overturn. We were sorry that our timing for our trip did not coincide with the annual spectacle.
The patty melt and tater tots in the small bar and grill near Glenns Ferry's main street worked their magic, and soon we found ourselves 50 miles to the southeast and off the interstate traveling through rural Idaho. Here farmland dominates the landscape, and homes and farms have changed little since they were first built 100 years ago. Massive fountains of water spew from the craggy volcanic cliffs high above the Snake River valley, cloaking the landscape with lacy liquid doilies of fertility. Ski boats zig and zag up and down the river while registered Herefords graze lazily on emerald fields of grass.
This is Mennonite Country out here on Highway 30, home to robust-looking peaceful folk. In Buhl, Idaho, we stopped in at a local dairy for a late-afternoon milkshake. It was rich and creamy. Perhaps a little too rich and creamy. Soon we found ourselves driving into Utah with queasy bellies awash in butter fat, wishing for a strong cup of coffee or a two-hour nap.
Somewhere along the way we came across a scene that seemed to echo our sentiments for the day. A rusting old car and several submerged pieces of farm equipment lay abandoned in a sea of what could very well have been natural soda pop. There was no explanation for the mysterious watery graveyard, just the steady twittering of red-winged blackbirds in the bright, hot sunlight.
As we made our way to Park City, we thought seriously about getting a milkshake at every milkshake establishment we passed. And in this region of the country, they were as common as 3.2 beer. I bet Caroline that I could down two more shakes before I erupted with an dishonorable discharge. She bet I could only muster one. We wondered what fraction of one we could down if we asked the shake vendor to add a half a cup of chopped onions? Unfortunately we'll never know.
The darkness concealed the snootiness and rampant, out-of-control development of Park City, but we would soon discover those things along with miles and miles of fabulous biking trails later on.
For now we were content to sleep the sleep of weary emigrants after a very, very long day.
See you on down the road.
CORTEZ,Colo.—After a couple weeks on the road, you start to miss your home and you long to get back. Maybe that's why all those ancient Indian cultures have stories about an eventual return to our place of origin.
At Mesa Verde National Monument, the ancient people migrated away from their pit houses on the mesa tops and built marvelous civilizations in the sides of cliffs. These ancient people were masterful weavers, but as time went on, as their civilization aged and matured, the things they were once good at suffered in quality. Like many of the ancient people—like their contemporaries, the Fremont, to the north—their civilizations mysteriously disappeared around 1300 A.D.
As much as mankind has changed and "evolved" over the years, we have retained our faiths and superstitions. The ancients had their Kivas and boogeymen; we have our churches and demons. Here in the White West, our modern-day shaman are telling us of a time when some mysterious occurrence will come and pluck the righteous from this world and transport us to a new one where we will never know tears or shame.
