Colorado/Moab Part 2: Where Was I?

When I last wrote for this blog I was sitting in a rented Ford Edge in Arches National Park watching the sunset with a bunch of photographers. Then I came home and got bummed out about being away from all that mad beauty and didn’t feel like writing about how awful it was to be back in real life, so utterly disconnected. So I posted some filler, good writer filler, but nonetheless… 

Now I will attempt to put myself back in that place, to recall without longing, where I was when I wasn’t here.So where was I?

I never finished writing about Estes Park, the climb up to Dream Lake on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in October with the sun shining and just enough clouds to make pretty pictures. It was our first day of hiking so we had to stop every fifty yards or so to take in the incredible mountain vistas and catch our breath as we panted noisily from the thinness of the air at elevations reaching 10,000 ft.

There were stunning lakes and trees, rushing streams, yellow leaves, colorful birds, pebbled paths, and some other folks enjoying the day. A light breeze, about 70 degrees, really couldn’t ask for anything more perfect. 

In the evening the elk gathered in the pastures to feed, the not so tiny young bumping against their mother’s undersides to get milk. They seemed unconcerned with the picture snappers lining up along the road standing sometimes within 5 feet of them while the sun turned the fields to gold as it set behind the mountains.

 Greg and I had come to Estes a few years earlier in the spring and weren’t impressed. I don’t know what the hell was wrong with us, but fortunately we came back and because there was so much we didn’t get to do this time around, we are planning to come back and stay for a whole week next year. The fall colors were lovely, we enjoyed our small hotel on the Fall River and found another great restaurant in “Ed’s Cantina.”

But this time around, after just one Saturday night and full day Sunday, we left for Moab,Utah on Monday morning.

We love Moab, though it’s not easy to get to, about an eight hour drive from Denver through curvy mountain roads, mostly highway 70, but that’s part of the attraction. You have to work to get there! And once you do, it’s like you’re on some crazy rock-walled planet, walking to the ends of the earth, seeing how explicitly a river formed a canyon. So how could that possibly be reasonably close to any airport?

Colorado River on Rt. 128 towards Moab

Our first digs upon arriving were at the Moab Valley RV Resort where we rented a small cottage. By small, I mean tiny, but it had everything we needed, including beds, a kitchenette, and most importantly, a toilet! It’s about the same price as a crappy hotel room in town (think Motel 6) but I love being in the campground without really having to rough it and it also has a pool and a laundry room which we’ve made use of when visiting in seasons when it was too hot to hike mid-day. 

View from Moab Valley RV Resort...seriously!

 We got in late Monday and headed to "Zax" for all you can eat pizza and salad which we were able to eat outside on the terrace on this warm desert evening. The town was full with half marathoners and whoever else has reason to come to Moab in October. With all of its parks and extreme sports, that could mean anybody, including Greg and I.

            After staring at the stars for a bit at our picnic table back at the camp we went to sleep with the windows open to let in the cool night air. Then Greg got up early and took the five minute drive to Arches for sunrise shots while I stayed back and enjoyed the kids and dogs and rocks and trees at the campground.

            Later on we hiked on a path named “Park Avenue” for its skyscraper sized red rock walls, taking both photos and video on another perfect weather day when, oddly, we were the only ones on this wide trail marked by cairns and loaded with small cacti, desert grasses, and twisted burnt looking trees. We’ve been to this same place on several occasions, but every time feels new and humbling and gets us into the proper mindset for connecting and acknowledging this ancient land that belongs to no one, but was fortunately preserved by the U.S. National Park Service.

            We then did a few of the more popular hikes, “Windows,” “Devil’s Garden,” (short version) and “Delicate Arch View” loving the strange formations but feeling a deep awe and reverence for every monumental rock that extends toward the sky and every pebble that rotates under our boots. This happens the next day when we head to Canyonlands and hike the “Grandview Point” in “Island in the Sky.” When we pull over to an unmarked stop and look out over the Green River winding its way through the canyon, we’re in touch with something extraordinary, like no place else on Earth.  

Unmarked pull-off in Canyonlands towards Grandview Point

 There are wonderful restaurants and side trips and fun places to stay I could tell you about here, but the heart of what happens when we go on these trips, is not in those details. It's a transformation of thought and presence and being that transcends travelogue. It's an awakening to an extraordinary past, an understanding of how small we are in the scheme of things, and a window,an arch, a bridge and a canyon that invite us to countless possibilities.
Greg’s way of staying connected is through his photos that he lovingly edits and perfects when we get home. For me, there is no photo that quite embodies the essence of being there and it’s the closest I get to feeling something spiritual. The god thing, I don’t really get, but being lost in nature is where I feel something mysterious, ancient, deep and connected. I haven’t quite figured out how to bring that essence back home with me yet and maybe I never will. So I guess I'll just have to keep going back!

There’s something out there and for me it’s a place. I just have to keep following that path and see where it leads.

           

All photos in this post were taken with my Nokia Windows Phone. Greg's are much better, trust me! Or better yet, get out there and take some of your own!

Colorado/Moab Part 1: Writing Here...

This is the first time I’m trying to write from the road. It’s harder than I thought because I have to take time away from vacationing to sit down and do it and somehow have perspective on what’s going on while it’s happening. To live in the moment and reflect and evaluate all at once is not such an easy task, like a photographer trying to take and edit and process photos all at the same time. Why photographers, you say?  Because right now I’m sitting in our rented Ford Edge at Arches National Park with the sun streaming in behind me, a panoramic view of the park and LaSal Mountains in the distance. When I look up from my computer, there are at least eight, no twelve, no twenty photographers in view  (Greg amongst them) all trying to capture this perfect light, what they call “the golden hour.” Writing while this is happening both puts me in and takes me out of the experience.

Though I always keep a journal whenever I travel, it usually gets littered with all the worries that cling to me when I leave home, so I’m trying to do something different this time, as in only write about the trip and get it publishable by tomorrow. It’s a challenge that I’m forcing myself to meet because one of my imaginary futures is that of a travel writer who writes while touring the world, all expenses paid by my wonderful insights, style, knowledge, and enormous and dedicated following.

In the real world, as in the one I’m living in right now, travel is a mixed bag. It gives me a lot of time I don’t usually have to sit around in a car or plane and think about things I haven’t quite worked out yet. Small issues, like what will I do with the rest of my life? Or why do I even think I can afford being on this trip right now? And because the sun has just set and the golden hour/15 minutes is almost over, I’ll backtrack and tell you how this whole trip started.

We left Buffalo on Saturday heading to Denver for a trek up to Estes Park for some strolling, scribbling and picture snapping (aka hiking, writing and landscape photography). The plane had some weirdness but I actually slept that deep sleep that only happens in the comfort of an airplane seat where you’re sitting pretty much upright so your head occasionally bobs forward like it’s about to fall off, startling you into wakefulness. But when the plane finally lands you get off fully rested (right?) and begin the search for your luggage which in Denver involves a long train ride to the baggage claim followed by crowds and confusion, hoards of lumbering sheep who are practically begging you to clock them in the knees with your suitcase as they hover close to the carousel refusing to move as you squeeze in to grab your bag weighing only slightly under the 50 lb. weight limit.

On to another moving vehicle, a bus to the car rental pick-up where the agent who couldn’t seem more disinterested asks how we are and where we’re going, then proceeds to skillfully hustle us into upgrading our vehicle to something bigger that will be more powerful, safer and more expensive for taking us into the mountains. I keep saying, “Budget, budget…” and Greg says, “But we really could use a bigger…” and we wind up with a full-size SUV that is quite nice but $125 over what we were planning on spending, a fantastic bargain by our crafty agent’s standards.

But we’re on our way, a mere hour and a half after landing at 4:30 and we get to see a few streaks of purple and pink through wispy clouds as we head up to Estes Park on a dark and winding road. This time of year in Colorado can bring any kind of weather, but one thing you can rely on when you’re at this elevation is an early sunset and a bit of time allowed for altitude adjustment.

We arrived at our small hotel called “Nicky’s Resort” at about 7:30 PM, a place we found on Expedia for $79 a night in an area where rooms can cost much, much more. But we read the 95% approval rated reviews, which we know can be fake, but in this case, we were in complete agreement with what we saw described on the Internet. The room was small, but clean, and  had a really cute knotty pine decor. We got the cheapest room with a king bed, but if you wanted to pay a bit more, you could get two queens, a fireplace, that kind of thing. We weren’t planning on spending much time in the room so what we got was fine and the location was perfect, quiet and off the road a bit, a short distance from town and Rocky Mountain National Park. The one negative thing we read about was the restaurant which was reported to be expensive and not very good, so we drove five minutes into Estes Park and had dinner at “Mama Rose’s,” one of the many good restaurants there where we enjoyed reasonably priced comfort food in a warm atmosphere with good service.

After a decent night’s sleep Greg left in the dark at 6:05 AM to get his sunrise shots while I stayed back and slept in until 8:30. It was a bit cold when I ventured out wearing my warm weather gear and discovered a lovely path of pine straw and pebbles next to the Fall River complete with the sounds of rushing water over rocks and aspens bright with yellow leaves dappled in sunlight.

That’s when I got it, the realization that whatever this costs money, aggravation or time-wise, is completely worth it. Not only did I need to get away, but I needed to come specifically here, to sit and stare, and dream and write, and reconnect with the beauty of the natural world.