Dirtbag Writer

And Yet Another Desert Weekend

Posted on 11. Nov, 2009 by Writer in On Living

I am obsessed, thoroughly desert obsessed.  With all the money I have spent traveling nearly every weekend to the remarkably beautiful Utah desert I could have surely by now saved up for a year abroad.  My travel lust list is so long it almost stresses me out – so much that I have to add places I have already been to the list so I can check them off and make it look like I have actually been somewhere.

Sure there are so many places I would like to travel to but my heart is so solidly stuck on the red rock canyonlands of Southern Utah.  I can travel just a little over 3 hours and be in the most awe-inspiring, core-shaking wildest of places.  The desert either gets you or it doesn’t.  If it does your dreams will be filled with hoo doos, dizzingly steep cliffs, shadows of junipers cast on towering red rock walls, innumerable canyons… and you return again and again and realize there is no amount of exploration that can fulfill that desert hunger.

Arches National Park

I remember this story I don’t remember where I heard it or really any of the details, but a woman –a government official type– looked at a map of Utah and pointed to a spot in the middle and said, “That is it, there is nothing there.  This is where we will store all our that hazardous waste.”  She steps out of a helicopter in the middle of the land she thought was nothing and ready to destroy – but was completely taken aback at the amazing landscape around her and simple said, “I am sorry, I had no idea.”

Oh if I could only put into words what that desert does to me like the beloved Terry Tempest Williams in her book Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert. In RED, Williams finds the perfect words to describe the many shades of red in the canyon country of southern Utah, a place that she also cherishes close to her heart and fights with all her strength to protect.

“The Canyons of southern Utah are giving birth to a Coyote Clan – hundreds, maybe thousands of individuals who are quietly subversive on behalf of the land.  And they are infiltrating out neighborhoods in the most respectable ways, with their long, bushy tails tucked discreetly inside their pants or beneath their skirts… They understand that beauty is not found in the excessive but in what is lean and spare and subtle.”

~ Terry Tempest Williams from RED

Views From Dead Horse Point State Park

It really wasn’t until this weekend that something totally dawned on me.  Why don’t I just move there – I have no real job, expectations, or even desire to get back to Salt Lake City. Sure there is the dearly loved BF – but maybe we can find a way to make this distance thing finally work.  What if there was a way I could split my time between both places?

I find myself yet again in a state of change – one opportunity finishing and my next direction yet to be determined.  The idea of stepping out every day on to the trails surrounding Moab just fills me with absolute delight.  Winter in the desert – oh my.  I could get to know the area as much more than a transient guest –explore less-traveled canyons, befriend the locals, find seldom visited ruins, contribute more to the movements that are trying to protect this rugged yet fragile environment.

Backpacking in the Needles District of Canyonlands

Oh but will it lose its allure if I am to make the place my home?  Will it lose the overwhelming healing powers I feel when I visit?  So much to be decided.

The desert is calling me and I think I finally need to listen.

Tags: Choices, Utah