Saturday, November 26th, 2011
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011: 2011 Trips, Colorado Plateau, Regions, Road Trips.
Day 8: Page to Silver City
Highlights: Moonscape
The night before, I had finally come out of the backcountry, me and my truck rattled to a pulp by washboard roads, looking for a campsite somewhere along the highway at the south end of the Escalante country.
I kept driving a few miles and trying turnouts, each leading to worse and worse washboard, until I finally came to the last turnoff before the Colorado River and Page.
It was a bizarre moonscape unlike anything I’d seen before, and the sun was rapidly setting. I drove up and over the rolling clay hills as night fell, and nowhere could I find a place to pull off and camp. Finally I came to a side road down a narrow canyon, and shortly encountered a flat wash where I could pull off, but it looked to be a put-in to Lake Powell, and it was a depressing place to camp. So I drove back to the highway and continued to Page, where I found another cheap motel on the “Street of the Little Motels.”
Then in the morning, before starting for home, I came back to the Smoky Mountain Road below Mustard Point and took these pictures.
Saturday, November 26th, 2011: Uncategorized.
Life has taken me to some spectacular places, introduced me to some unusual people, and taught me some memorable lessons. In the past, I’ve shared my personal stories about these trips, characters, and insights in the form of email dispatches I wrote to close family and friends. Plus, before social media, I regularly engaged in impassioned email dialogs on the issues of the day.
Now, on Facebook, whenever people pick up a hot topic and start sharing quotes from Einstein and the Dalai Lama, I definitely want to add my two cents. But my take on the world is pretty unconventional, and in many cases, if I try to comment without adequate explanation, misunderstandings are liable to proliferate. Social media just don’t allow in-depth communication.
Hence Dispatches: Status, Commentary & Reports from the Field. I’m not sure where it will go, but I’d like to start out with some stories that may help explain where I’m coming from.
Enjoy, and let me know what you think!