Occupation of Independence

A big part of the art of camping is stepping away from the 'looked over', and wandering amongst the 'overlooked'. The best way to do this is to camp where the scenery is subtle or mediocre in the immediate foreground, but more promising in the distance. Naturally that provides the incentive to go for a walk, right from the RV's door. But you still go with low expectations. You have to try to be interested in what there is to see, and you have to look for ways to experience it beyond mere 'looking'. Usually, the surprises are on the positive side. In that spirit Coffee Girl and I took off on a day that was supposed to be dreadful, but in fact, was delicious: what a luxury it is to leave the wide-brimmed sombrero at home, and welcome the sun's warmth onto my face, while enjoying the bracing chill. We encountered the thinnest lamellas of sandstone that I've ever seen. They were fragile and nearly exfoliated.

As my travel-blog friends took off this morning I had plenty to exult over. If they hadn't been here in Moab, which they had a lot of experience with, I might have blown through town without even stopping. The area is best for tourists and vacationers, not full time travelers. A camper would have to love crowds, fees, and restrictions to feel comfortable here. It is also over-rated as a mountain biking mecca. There is too much loose sand in much of Utah. So I deferred to Mark and Bobbie, resulting in superb locations and hikes. OK, I admit it: the scenery was 'breathtakingly beautiful,' but more for the topography than the "red" color. It isn't "red"; it's red-brown, terra-cotta, the same color as a cheap clay pot. Why do people make such a big deal of the color? Off they went to southwestern Utah to warm up, while leaving me here, wondering about how to dignify my autumn migration by heading downriver, some river, any river. It's not