Dead Horse Point
Thinking, dreaming of destinations and places where I would like to be, to walk and breathe in the world, few call to me as the canyons and mountains of Utah. Fueled by stories of wilderness and adventure from Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire
Aspens in Fall
This quick copy of a large color print from the trip to Utah made along an access road into Canyonlands National Park. It was late October and the aspens were alive with color and the palette was so unlike Pennsylvania that I could not quite grasp what I was looking at. Everything was foreign and strange. If I could only spends a few weeks or months there, maybe I could see more clearly.
“Go west Young man,” comes to mind.
Maybe do it on a Vespa???
After retirement?
It’s a fantasy right now. After retirement, who knows. I’ve stayed away from crystal balls and planning trips. Just taking things a day at a time.
Check back to Canyon Country as soon as you can……time and events have a way of catching up to all of us.
“Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere. Sometime in the middle of nowhere you find yourself.”
I’m doing volunteer work for Engineers Without Borders on the NW area of the Navajo Reservation. Glorious area. Abbey rides in my day pack.
Greg
Time does force a hard, relentless march. Would love to get back to Utah. I completely appreciate the idea of finding yourself in the middle of nowhere. It happens over and over when I’m riding the Vespa through some of the more remote parts of central Pennsylvania. Nothing like Utah but satisfying still.
I need to pull my Abbey books down and reread them. Desert Solitaire is always good medicine. And for the heart — A Fool’s Progress.
I wonder if I could pose a rig on Dead Horse Point? 🙂
You can ride right up to the rim and when I was there no railings or things preventing you from going over the edge. I could feel the abyss calling. Sort of scary knowing how easy it would be to take a few more steps…
It’s a whole different kind of light and atmosphere out there. I have to rethink things when I’m there. It’s like my perspective (overall) is altered somehow.
Yes, it is completely different from Pennsylvania. Kind of overwhelming at times.
Yes. Come on out our way.
Headed to Canyonlands for spring break. No scootering on that trip, but I bought a small trailer last summer and have been thinking that hauling the Vespa to national parks (Glacier, hopefully, this summer) makes sense as the speed limit is low and the vistas grand.
Scooterless, the trips my wife and I have made down to Utah (and once on in to NM and CO) have been wonderful.
Sounds as if you have a wonderful spring break in store for you and your wife.
I’ve thought a few times about getting some small trailer to haul the scooter behind the van when Kim and I travel. It will have to be a retirement investigation. Things are getting pretty intense at work as my retirement approaches on the heels of a big project launch. Wasn’t the best time to retire…
Highly recommended book, “One Man’s West.” I read it just last year. You might skip the first chapters which are about his working the deep mines around Ouray, Colorado, of interest to me having ridden the mountain trails up to those mines, but probably not of interest to you. Certainly the ranching and wild west part of his life would interest you. BTW I’ve done the White Rim Trail in Colorado by 4WD and dirt bike.
That’s for the tip on “One Man’s West.” I’ll add it to my reading list. I’ll have to do some investigation on the White Rim Trail. Not familiar with that.
OOPS. My mistake. The White Rim Trail is in Canyonlands Nat’l Park, Utah. You can see it from Dead Horse Point. Took my 3 days to complete the circumnavigation by 4WD, one long day at race pace on a big ‘ol Yamaha thumper dirt bike.
That sounds like a wonderful sojourn. Probably wouldn’t be a Vespa ride but a rented KLR would be fun.
I lived in Central Utah for 10 years before moving to State College. In those ten years I toured on two wheels almost all of the US west of the Mississippi. Parts of Utah certainly rank at the top of some of the most gorgeous places in all of our country.
I’ve not traveled much West of the Mississippi — mostly passing through states on I80 to get to Utah. And flew to California for work and spent an extra week there exploring. Amounts to nothing. But of all the places I did visit, central Utah was the best.
Deadhorse as in Prudhoe Bay? Or is there another one in Utah/Colorado?
Deadhorse Point is an overlook where you can see the Green River and look out over Canyonlands NP. It’s where the final scene in Thelma and Louise was filmed.
Deadhorse Point in Deadhorse Point State Park near Moab. It borders Canyonlands National Park.
Steve, you would make fabulous pictures in Utah. I hope you get to visit soon.
I’ve always hoped to get back to Utah with Kim. I think she would love the place. Just not in the summer!
The call of the west has always been strong with me. Draw a line from SW Texas northward the Yukon and Northwest Terriories of Canada, anywhere west of that line is where I want to be. While you might like to do it with a Vespa, I prefer a good 4-wd SUV with plenty of room for cameras in the back. I know, I have a tendency to carry more gear than you, and the big cargo space of the SUV just makes my photo-life easier. The next time I travel westward with my trailer, I’ll invite you to go along. Maybe we can rig the Vespa on the back of the trailer.
Fabulous photos and reminder of how much I love the west…
Before my late wife died we spent a weekend in Arizona. The dryness was overwhelming. If it wasn’t constantly sprinkled with precious water it was brown. Cemeteries were simply brown stones with flowers in pots as opposed to the park like settings I’m used to. I did my Grand Tour in my younger days circling the Great Lakes through the wild greenery of Ontario. My ambitions now are shorter and closer to home. Upstate New York is always colorful and remote and I still have a lot of it to see.
My experience mirrors yours as circumstance keeps me closer to home. But I’m content in the realization that I’ll likely never see all there is to offer here.