Utah

John Wayne, Hoo Doos, and the Sturgis of Jeeps

April 3-13, 2003




    If I had to pick one area of the country for sheer physical beauty--after the Maine Coast, of course--so far it would have to be southern Utah. The mountains, high desert, and alpine forests just keep coming at you--various, changeable, surprising, and almost always stunning. Molly keeps saying, "it looks like it was painted on."

    Here, Mary and I pose in Monument Valley on the Arizona-Utah border (the picture was taken by a young man from Austria who knew his American geography--"You're a long way from Maine," was how he opened our conversation). The day we did the Navajo park loop was especially spectacular in that the weather kept changing, from sandstorm to rain to sun to heavy overcast. The "monuments" of Monument Valley were even more striking when bathed in patches of sunlight against the moving clouds. Here's what I mean--



    Monument Valley was an especial favorite of the great director of Westerns, John Ford (born Sean Aloysius O'Feeney in Portland, Maine, by the way) and one of Ford's regular actors, John Wayne. We rented one of Ford and Wayne's greatest collaborations, Stagecoach, the night we arrived and the kids could immediately identify the settings. John Wayne went on to star in a number of other movies set here, including She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, which we rented the next night (couldn't touch Stagecoach).


    Can't you just see John Wayne riding across this scene? He came to the Valley often, staying  in a cabin behind the Gouldings's Lodge which is still there (and was used as a set in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon). The cabin is now part of what is called a museum but is more like a shrine to Ford and Wayne. We really do love celebrities in this country and they don't get any bigger than The Duke.


   
    Long before now, I should have mentioned one of our best discoveries of this trip--XM Satellite Radio. For $9.95 a month, you get 100-plus channels of everything from fifties rock to classics to CNN to old-time radio drama, all without having to deal with the frustration of local stations fading in and out as you travel. All of us seem to like the Fifties Channel, Mary and I because it brings back so many memories (in fact, that's the name of one of the songs)--although Mary keeps reminding me that she was just a toddler in those days--and the kids just plain like the sound. Ben, for example, has become a big Little Richard fan, insisting that I turn it up whenever Long Tall Sally or Tutti Frutti come on.

    So you have to get the picture of us driving through this incredible countryside with The Platters, Buddy Holly, The Marvelettes, Marvin Gaye, The Moonlighters, Little Anthony and the Imperials, the Everly Brothers, or James Brown ("The Hardest Working Man in Show Business") on the box. Heaven definitely involves Rock and Roll.
    From Monument Valley, we went north and slightly east to the town of Moab  which sits almost exactly halfway between Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. Here's a shot in Arches which is another spectacular spot. But I have a confession--at about this point, all of us started to get a little "canyoned-out"; we'd been in this kind of country for almost a month and it had gotten to the point that the "oohs and ahs" were a little scripted.

I suppose the same thing happens to tour guides in the Louvre.


When we pulled into the RV Park in Moab (we've gotten pretty casual about these things--we hadn't even called ahead, but just drove into town looking for a likely campground), we noticed two things--1) all our neighbors seemed to be towing jeeps, and 2) the park was just about full which seemed odd for this early in the season. We soon found out why, on both counts.

    It was the beginning of the 37th annual Moab Jeep Safari and within a few days, something like 10,000 jeeps were expected in town. So what did we do with no jeep to go off-roading in? The only logical thing, of course; we rented a Hummer (with an expert driver--not me).

None of our pictures do justice to this experience; here we are about to drive up a 40% grade on rough bare rock. To put this into perspective, a steep hill where the signs say "Trucks Check Brakes and use Low Gear" is 8%. 40% is just ridiculous.



    The trail--you can see the tire marks--was called "Hell's Revenge" and wound through the mountains just east of Moab. As we started up the first grade, Molly looked at Matt the driver and said--totally seriously--"Have you done this before?"

    "No," he deadpanned, "I just got my drivers' license last week."










She looks pretty casual here, but wasn't so sure 15 minutes before. Note the spectacular country; do you think we can get Friends of Acadia to allow this on Mt. Desert?






This was a wonderful experience; now, of course, Ben has his heart set on a Hummer--and I think they're pretty cool, myself. I think the subliminal appeal is knowing you can drive up and over anybody else; it's a guy thing.

That night, we did a local institution--a boat trip up the Colorado at dusk, featuring a dramatic lighting of the canyon walls synchronized with a tape on the history of the region (from the Cretaceous to the Mormons--that's a lot of territory in an hour). The lighting was done by a truck driving along the canyon road equipped with powerful searchlights. It was neat.

    Earlier in the day, Mary had been in an outdoors gear store and, on a whim, got everyone a pedometer. This set off an orgy of walking and brought out everyone's competitive instincts. Here it is at about 10:00 PM and Mary and Molly are walking up and down in the RV to pad their steps total. For the next three days, the kids were never still, including running in place whenever nothing else was happening.

    The good news is that on a typical non-driving day, we seem to be averaging about four miles apiece,  No wonder we're sleeping so well.






Moab is what would have happened if L.L. Bean had invented Disneyland. It is outdoor crazed--jeeps, hiking, dirt bikes (a couple next to us in the RV park had come from the Seattle area to drive their dirt bikes on the Moab trails), mountain bikes, you name it. Here is a random shot in a Moab parking lot. I count six mountain bikes and two kayaks, and it's only April.


    Just a few more canyon shots (bet you're getting a little jaded too). Instead of spending the next day at Arches or Canyonlands, we took some local advice and visited Dead Horse Point, an area state park, instead. Good choice.




An incredible place; on a high mesa overlooking the Colorado and the snow-covered LaSalle mountains, this was one of the most spectacular spots we've seen on the whole trip.









    Mary and Ben on one of their more and more frequent height tests; I make it a dead heat. Mom's toast before we get back to Maine.




    Finally, our last stop in Utah, Bryce Canyon. One of the amazing things about the different canyonscapes we have seen over the last six weeks is the variety. Each has its own shapes, colors, size and mood. Bryce is no exception--it looks and feels completely different from any of the others with it's strange stone shapes (called "Hoo Doos") and brilliant colors. Again, the camera can't do it justice, but here's the idea--






    And guess what? Here we are again, headed down into the canyon on horseback; only this time, I managed to keep the shiny side up as we say about our Harleys.









On the road to Nevada, Ben and Molly concentrating on The Sims; wish I could claim it's quadratic equations. Yes, there is a seat belt; no, they don't get along this well all that often (why do you think we took the picture?)

   Next week, Las Vegas (after all), the Blue Man Group, and on to California. Stay with us!