When winter really hits, there's nothing subtle about it, and I was running for my life now. As feared I hit snow near 7000 foot altitude around Monticello UT; in fact the Utah state highway snowplows were already working the road there. Let's face it: pulling a trailer in the snow is a fool's mission. I was relieved to get out of the snow by the time I was down to 6500 feet.
At Bluff UT, on the San Juan river, I was at the fork in the road: migrate from southwestern UT, using the Virgin and Colorado rivers, or use the Rio Grande in New Mexico. I chose the latter because I hadn't done it for years and I wanted to postpone going to the usual, hackneyed, warm spots in Arizona for as long as possible.
As always I looked forward to seeing ShipRock. It's a rival of Monument Valley, but not as popular. Monument Valley has been a photo cliche since John Ford's westerns of the 1940's. Why do people even go there and photograph it? But ShipRock has no park built around it, nor is there a campground or gift shop at its base. It has maintained its dignity, while everything else has sold out to the tourism industry. Besides, the geology is completely different.
But where was it? The sky was still stormy and visibility was poor. The temperature (in degrees F) and the wind (in mph) were both between 30 and 40. Frozen tawny tumbleweeds rolled across the deserted highway. Just then:
I had to smile. The Four Corners of the Southwest was far away. I was in the Atlantic, off the coast of Brazil on a wooden Man-of-War in the year 1804 or so. That is where the remarkable movie, Master and Commander, starts. The officer-of-the-watch thought he saw a ship in the fog bank. They beat to quarters, just in case. The captain, played by Russell Crowe, came to the bow and searched the fog with his brass telescope. Indeed, a deadly ship was espied, which the men named the Phantom.
At Bluff UT, on the San Juan river, I was at the fork in the road: migrate from southwestern UT, using the Virgin and Colorado rivers, or use the Rio Grande in New Mexico. I chose the latter because I hadn't done it for years and I wanted to postpone going to the usual, hackneyed, warm spots in Arizona for as long as possible.
As always I looked forward to seeing ShipRock. It's a rival of Monument Valley, but not as popular. Monument Valley has been a photo cliche since John Ford's westerns of the 1940's. Why do people even go there and photograph it? But ShipRock has no park built around it, nor is there a campground or gift shop at its base. It has maintained its dignity, while everything else has sold out to the tourism industry. Besides, the geology is completely different.
But where was it? The sky was still stormy and visibility was poor. The temperature (in degrees F) and the wind (in mph) were both between 30 and 40. Frozen tawny tumbleweeds rolled across the deserted highway. Just then:
I had to smile. The Four Corners of the Southwest was far away. I was in the Atlantic, off the coast of Brazil on a wooden Man-of-War in the year 1804 or so. That is where the remarkable movie, Master and Commander, starts. The officer-of-the-watch thought he saw a ship in the fog bank. They beat to quarters, just in case. The captain, played by Russell Crowe, came to the bow and searched the fog with his brass telescope. Indeed, a deadly ship was espied, which the men named the Phantom.
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Tom in Orlando