atoms into suns

[Disclaimer: I know it's poorly written. It's a draft, written late at night. Forgive me.]

Look! I have content!

Several years ago, my husband and I were living in Phoenix. We had been attracted to Arizona by reading Edward Abbey*. Abbey was sort of the Bard of the American Southwest and wrote a lot about Arizona and Utah. I'd read Desert Solitaire, a book he wrote about his experiences as a ranger at Arches National Monument (now Arches National Park) a few decades ago.

We decided one August to visit Bill's family in the Denver area, and while we were there decided to leave a few days early and take the scenic route back home. We got up Sunday morning, stopped at a farmer's market on our way out of town to load up on fresh bread, homemade pasta, and a case of succulent, juicy Colorado peaches for the trip. Then we headed west on I-70. We saw soaring mountains, deep valleys, and all the wonders of Colorado. But the real goals of our journey lay ahead.

We camped that night outside Moab, Utah. Moab is now known as an outdoor mecca, especially for mountain biking, but also for hiking, rafting, and most anything else. But my first knowledge of Moab came from Edward Abbey, so I still had my delusions. He'd warned in his book about how Arches had changed since Desert Solitaire was written, but really, how much can rocks change?

We woke up in our tent, got dressed, and headed into Moab, excited to finally see the legendary Arches NP.

We arrived at the entrance to the park on this Monday morning and were surprised to see a line of cars leading up to the gate. Why were all these people here on a Monday?

We drove into the park... following a line of other cars.

There is one paved road through the park, with turnoffs here and there to the major sights. So we followed the line of cars, and pulled off along with all of them. We all hopped out of our cars, dutifully took pictures, hopped back into our cars, drove to the next turnoff, and repeated the process. Some of the stops had little hiking loops, where everyone went together like pilgrims circumambulating a shrine.

I should interrupt here and explain something.

I hate assembly-line tourism. I like to see things, not to be guided along. I like to do things at my own pace, without hand-holding, without paved trails, without hordes of other people. So this experience was a certain type of hell for me. If I subscribed to Dante's version of the Inferno, this would have been a circle past the opportunists, past the carnal, past the gluttonous, and somewhere between the hoarders and wasters and the heretics.

This was a dream, being destroyed by people trampling on the cryptobiotic soil so they could get just the right angle for their vacation pictures. (Don't even get me started on the people trampling the cryptobiotic soil.)

Bill and I looked at our map of the park again and noticed the dotted lines of rough tracks leading to isolated parts of the park. We drooled, we hungered, but we knew that although our SUT (Sport Utility Tempo) had been many places most SUVs fear to go, it wouldn't be able to handle those trails.

At last, we reached the last stop. This one had the biggest parking lot of all -- and it was overflowing. As we were dragging ourselves out of the SUT for one last shot at southwestern beauty, something interesting happened.

A car pulled up, and a young man with an Australian accent rolled down his window... and asked us for change.

Change?

A beggar from halfway around the world asking us for spare change from the window of his sports car?

As I stared at him searching my brain for a response, he explained that he needed change for a $20 bill so he could pay the campground fee. While we checked our pockets, something else happened.

This man suddenly went from being a weird tourist... to being a zealot. His eyes bugged out, his hair stood on end, and he finally burst out, "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful??" He raved, he ranted. He explained that he'd been traveling for the past two or three years and in all of Australia, Asia, and North America this was the most awesome, beautiful place he'd ever seen. He was going to stay in the campground for a few days just to soak it all in. To meet people. He used the word "godsmack"** as an adjective -- I thought it was just the name of a band.

He didn't understand when I shrugged and said, "It's okay..."

After a few minutes he headed toward the campground. We handed him a few peaches and wished him well, like one would appease a raving street beggar. We edged away and headed toward the trail.

The trail. Ten feet wide, handicapped-accessible, paved with crushed rock and covered with billions of footprints. We got to Landscape Arch, one of the centerpieces of the park. We snapped our pictures, dodged tourists, and hid our melancholy at the spectacle, trying to appreciate the beauty despite the humanity.

Then came another turning point. Off to the right we saw a sign: "Primitive Loop." It also listed dire warnings about the difficulty of the trail, practically promising death or dismemberment to those who dared go on.

This is the sort of thing I love to see.

We headed off on the Primitive Loop, and found bliss.

We were alone.

No one followed on the singletrack trail, and for the majority of the way we saw no one. We followed the trail over sandstone fins with steps cut into them. We came upon monoliths watching guard over nothingness. We walked along the slickrock and under arches, into slots, imagining that we were the first to see them. We scrambled over rock fins mashed together like a stack of pancakes on its side. We ran out of water. We giggled, played, scrambled, chased, hiked, and acted like two-year-olds on a jungle gym. We walked through drifts of sand that had covered the trail, swallowing it up with its disuse.

As we finally reached the trailhead again, we had to restrain ourselves from accosting the sheeplike tourists who didn't brave the primitive loop. Our eyes bugged out, our hair went wild, and we found ourselves muttering "godsmack" while people edged away.

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*Abbey once aptly described Phoenix as "the blob that ate Arizona." Unfortunately, it was our best bet to find jobs, so that's where we went.

**Yes, I now know it's actually "gobsmacked". I didn't know that then.