How I Spent My Spring Vacation
-
It has been a few years since Jay and I went to the Grand Canyon and experienced for the first time that particular brand of peace and freedom that comes from basking in the ecosystem of the American Southwest. So this year we spent a week in Moab, Utah, a nice town situated right between Arches and Canyonlands national parks. Moab is a perfect vacation town, maybe a perfect town period. It's large enough to have a movie theater, but small enough to be able to walk to it from almost anywhere. It has great restaurants, from cheap Thai to haute cuisine. It has fun, friendly people, probably the friendliest grouping of humanity I've run into since Italy. And it's surrounded by red-rock mountains on three sides and the distant snow-capped LaSal mountains on the fourth.
You really don't need to do anything there. You can just wake up and go outside. The sparkling blue sky stretches everywhere and is a balm in and of itself. And one of the best parts of vacation is being freed from that pressure, that voice in the back of your head that is on 24-7, saying, "Don't forget to . . . You have to be there by . . . Remember to . . ." So Jay would get up early, eat the free breakfast at the La Quinta, and roam about town while I slept in. When I eventually got up, we'd have breakfast at the Jailhouse Cafe: chorizo scramble, blueberry waffles, veggie omelet. Coffee. Orange juice. Eating outside, watching other happy people walking down the street in their outdoor gear, on their way to something fun. A high percentage of restaurants in Moab close by noon or 1:00; they serve breakfast and then take off for their own good times. Good on them.
On Saturday we went to Arches. Arches is great because, like Canyonlands, it has lots of fantastic trails that are easy yet rewarding. We stopped first at the Park Avenue Trail near the park entrance. It's one of the most famous trails for its line of sharp, tall red rocks lining the valley like skyscrapers. Quite a few people were at the viewpoint taking photos, but once we went down onto the trail, we didn't run into a single other person till the very end. Incredible. We couldn't stop looking up. We couldn't stop looking down either, as the plants and rocks and patterns were just as amazing as the grand vistas. But although you can capture plants and rocks on camera, it's really impossible to photograph the openness and the general atmosphere, that magic way it makes you feel.
When we got to the end of the 1-mile trail, I realized I wouldn't be up for hiking back to the car by the same route. Although the trail was short, we spent a lot of time there taking pictures and staring at things with a look of stupor. So adventure number one, I did something I haven't done since I was a teenager: hitchhiked. Jay was skeptical, but the 30th car (or so) picked us up and drove us the short way to our car. Thank you, nice guys!
The next day we did river rafting through the area where they shot the movie Rio Grande. Big buttes. Then winding turns through small canyons. Pretty, but a little too slow. I would have enjoyed it more if it were an hour shorter in duration, but I did enjoy talking with my raft mates. I used to be snobbish about crowds and other tourists, but now they are one of my favorite parts of traveling. We rafted with a couple who had immigrated from the Netherlands and now lived in San Francisco with their two young boys. These boys were extremely outgoing and engaged, but in the nicest way possible. "I'm going to really like this!" says one. "This is going to be great!" says the other. While waiting for our ride back to the outfitters, I had a long talk with the mom about her experience of Americans. She loves them, thinks they're so nice. When her fellow Europeans complain that Americans are superficial, she says, "Of course they're superficial! You're standing in the grocery line---they're not going to tell you about their dying mother or fear of abandonment!" Preach it, sister.
Day 3 we went back to Arches and did the rest of the park. Every time you turn a corner there's more beauty. In the evening we went to the dinkiest movie theater I've ever been in and saw the film Hanna. Strange film but it won me over.
Day 4: Dead Horse Point State Park. Are you kidding me? It's a mini Grand Canyon. This was followed by a sunset Hummer tour in the evening back in Moab. The outfitter called it "special." It was special. We drove up the side of a red-rock mountain and then proceeded to drive up and down enormous . . . you can't call them mountains and you can't call them boulders. It's terrain. A terrain made up of vast and undulating hills of rock. At every stage I said to myself, "We can't be going there." And every time we went exactly there.
Day 5: Canyonlands National Park. The Hummer tour seems to have cured me of the fear of heights that has been building over the last few years. So I ran up and pranced around on the huge, high dome of Whale Rock like it was a playground.
Day 6: We made a smart decision and decided to drive up to Provo, about an hour south of Salt Lake City, where our flight was leaving from the next day. On the way we detoured down Nine Mile Canyon, a mostly unpaved 40-some-mile road that takes you to some ancient petroglyphs and some really adorable cows. Plus one cow that looked like the devil.
Day 7: We drove the hour to Salt Lake and had a super relaxing check-in. The day was a lot easier than the day we arrived, when we spent four hours on the plane and then four hours driving to Moab. A good lesson for us.
The heroes of the trip? My Keen sandals, which I wore almost constantly for a week through hill and dale and never gave me one moment of discomfort.
It has been a few years since Jay and I went to the Grand Canyon and experienced for the first time that particular brand of peace and freedom that comes from basking in the ecosystem of the American Southwest. So this year we spent a week in Moab, Utah, a nice town situated right between Arches and Canyonlands national parks. Moab is a perfect vacation town, maybe a perfect town period. It's large enough to have a movie theater, but small enough to be able to walk to it from almost anywhere. It has great restaurants, from cheap Thai to haute cuisine. It has fun, friendly people, probably the friendliest grouping of humanity I've run into since Italy. And it's surrounded by red-rock mountains on three sides and the distant snow-capped LaSal mountains on the fourth.
You really don't need to do anything there. You can just wake up and go outside. The sparkling blue sky stretches everywhere and is a balm in and of itself. And one of the best parts of vacation is being freed from that pressure, that voice in the back of your head that is on 24-7, saying, "Don't forget to . . . You have to be there by . . . Remember to . . ." So Jay would get up early, eat the free breakfast at the La Quinta, and roam about town while I slept in. When I eventually got up, we'd have breakfast at the Jailhouse Cafe: chorizo scramble, blueberry waffles, veggie omelet. Coffee. Orange juice. Eating outside, watching other happy people walking down the street in their outdoor gear, on their way to something fun. A high percentage of restaurants in Moab close by noon or 1:00; they serve breakfast and then take off for their own good times. Good on them.
On Saturday we went to Arches. Arches is great because, like Canyonlands, it has lots of fantastic trails that are easy yet rewarding. We stopped first at the Park Avenue Trail near the park entrance. It's one of the most famous trails for its line of sharp, tall red rocks lining the valley like skyscrapers. Quite a few people were at the viewpoint taking photos, but once we went down onto the trail, we didn't run into a single other person till the very end. Incredible. We couldn't stop looking up. We couldn't stop looking down either, as the plants and rocks and patterns were just as amazing as the grand vistas. But although you can capture plants and rocks on camera, it's really impossible to photograph the openness and the general atmosphere, that magic way it makes you feel.
When we got to the end of the 1-mile trail, I realized I wouldn't be up for hiking back to the car by the same route. Although the trail was short, we spent a lot of time there taking pictures and staring at things with a look of stupor. So adventure number one, I did something I haven't done since I was a teenager: hitchhiked. Jay was skeptical, but the 30th car (or so) picked us up and drove us the short way to our car. Thank you, nice guys!
The next day we did river rafting through the area where they shot the movie Rio Grande. Big buttes. Then winding turns through small canyons. Pretty, but a little too slow. I would have enjoyed it more if it were an hour shorter in duration, but I did enjoy talking with my raft mates. I used to be snobbish about crowds and other tourists, but now they are one of my favorite parts of traveling. We rafted with a couple who had immigrated from the Netherlands and now lived in San Francisco with their two young boys. These boys were extremely outgoing and engaged, but in the nicest way possible. "I'm going to really like this!" says one. "This is going to be great!" says the other. While waiting for our ride back to the outfitters, I had a long talk with the mom about her experience of Americans. She loves them, thinks they're so nice. When her fellow Europeans complain that Americans are superficial, she says, "Of course they're superficial! You're standing in the grocery line---they're not going to tell you about their dying mother or fear of abandonment!" Preach it, sister.
Day 3 we went back to Arches and did the rest of the park. Every time you turn a corner there's more beauty. In the evening we went to the dinkiest movie theater I've ever been in and saw the film Hanna. Strange film but it won me over.
Day 4: Dead Horse Point State Park. Are you kidding me? It's a mini Grand Canyon. This was followed by a sunset Hummer tour in the evening back in Moab. The outfitter called it "special." It was special. We drove up the side of a red-rock mountain and then proceeded to drive up and down enormous . . . you can't call them mountains and you can't call them boulders. It's terrain. A terrain made up of vast and undulating hills of rock. At every stage I said to myself, "We can't be going there." And every time we went exactly there.
Day 5: Canyonlands National Park. The Hummer tour seems to have cured me of the fear of heights that has been building over the last few years. So I ran up and pranced around on the huge, high dome of Whale Rock like it was a playground.
Day 6: We made a smart decision and decided to drive up to Provo, about an hour south of Salt Lake City, where our flight was leaving from the next day. On the way we detoured down Nine Mile Canyon, a mostly unpaved 40-some-mile road that takes you to some ancient petroglyphs and some really adorable cows. Plus one cow that looked like the devil.
Day 7: We drove the hour to Salt Lake and had a super relaxing check-in. The day was a lot easier than the day we arrived, when we spent four hours on the plane and then four hours driving to Moab. A good lesson for us.
The heroes of the trip? My Keen sandals, which I wore almost constantly for a week through hill and dale and never gave me one moment of discomfort.
posted by Anonymous at
10:30 PM
5 Comments:
Wow.
i'm so going on your next vacation with you. you guys choose the best places and have the most fun. don't worry! i don't snore too, too much!!
Yes, you must!! You can even bring Joe if you want.
i will consider that. he tends to bring too much luggage, so . . .
Gorgeous! Sounds (and looks) fantastic. Susan E
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home