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 as easy as it sounds.
Why not just grab a Rand-McNally and choose the most direct interstate highway? Folks, that's not how it's done, especially after rereading the first part of volume 1 of the abridged version of Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History. He gives a lot of emphasis to the clash between civilizations and the volkerWanderung of famous tribes through history. (Umlaut on the o.) My head filled up with romantic mush about the volkerWanderung of the snowbirds.
But it's not complete mush. A full-time traveler, who thinks of his lifestyle as a serious profession, needs to see a drama in his seasonal migration. That's a completely different mindset than a vacationer who is aiming for standardized, tourist-industry entertainment. How then can I do the best possible job at this, this autumn?
The cause of most of the vexation is that there are only three large rivers that head south in the Southwest; there is a lot of high altitude land between these rivers. Going to the Virgin River (near Zion and St. George UT) and then following the Colorado River south used to be my standard route. But it's hard to find something new.
Thus it was so pleasing this morning when Coffee Girl and I got into arroyo wanderung, something you just can't do in Colorado, since the streams there have water in them! We left right from the RV door and stumbled onto an interesting area. The best part of the hike was walking an arroyo up to its "source".
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 as easy as it sounds.
Why not just grab a Rand-McNally and choose the most direct interstate highway? Folks, that's not how it's done, especially after rereading the first part of volume 1 of the abridged version of Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History. He gives a lot of emphasis to the clash between civilizations and the volkerWanderung of famous tribes through history. (Umlaut on the o.) My head filled up with romantic mush about the volkerWanderung of the snowbirds.
But it's not complete mush. A full-time traveler, who thinks of his lifestyle as a serious profession, needs to see a drama in his seasonal migration. That's a completely different mindset than a vacationer who is aiming for standardized, tourist-industry entertainment. How then can I do the best possible job at this, this autumn?
The cause of most of the vexation is that there are only three large rivers that head south in the Southwest; there is a lot of high altitude land between these rivers. Going to the Virgin River (near Zion and St. George UT) and then following the Colorado River south used to be my standard route. But it's hard to find something new.
Thus it was so pleasing this morning when Coffee Girl and I got into arroyo wanderung, something you just can't do in Colorado, since the streams there have water in them! We left right from the RV door and stumbled onto an interesting area. The best part of the hike was walking an arroyo up to its "source".
Comments
Because they SEE them.
8 % of the male population is color blind for red and green. Let people have their pleasure in color seeing and stop harping upon them for their simple pleasures, even that you cannot share them.
m