WE DISCOVERED THIS MORNING THAT OUR MOTEL in Ferron wasn’t a
normal motel after all. Both water
faucets produced hot water; and we had to share the bathroom with a couple of
hundred ants. We left earlier than usual.
Our Durango has been chafing at the bit for the last several days; she is not used to plodding along at forty-five miles an hour in the mountains. Today, on our way to Bryce Canyon, she was able to break loose on Interstate 70. Once we got off of the Interstate and headed south, we began to soak up some local color.
Because Butch Cassidy was born in Utah, his name pops up everywhere. Similar to the Midwest, where residents living within a couple hundred miles from Chicago claim that Al Capone used to spend a lot of time in their town, there are numerous places in Utah claiming that old Butch used to hide out, live, wench, steal, or drink in their locale. I don’t know how he had time to rob any banks or even engage in witty conversations with the Sundance Kid if he spent so much time in all of these places.
When we finally reached southern Utah, we found that there were around 28 million acres of interconnected state and national parks or monuments. The word “monument,” by the way, does not refer to a single-standing structure. Instead, the word monument in both Wyoming and Utah usually refers to a park or forest. Our motel, for example, is located at the western edge of Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument, a two million acre “monument.” There were no ants in the bathroom of the motel; and the faucets worked in the normal way, hot and cold. As expected, there was a Mormon Bible in our room. For some peculiar reason, however, we could not watch Monday Night Football.
We stopped by the visitors’ center at the Bryce Canyon National Park to watch a film designed to provide visitors with an overview of the unique rock structures which are misleadingly referred to as a canyon. Carole signed up for another Jr. Ranger program, and we signed up for a three hour bus tour tomorrow. In Yellowstone, the overview bus trip, run by good old Zanaterra, cost $71. The trip here is free.
On our way to our motel from Bryce Canyon, we read a sign overlooking a wide expanse of land that said that over 7,000 stars can be viewed from that vantage point. In contrast, in a typical rural area in the United States only around 2,000 stars can be viewed. The rub, of course, is that you have to drive through the mountains at night to get to that sign. Still wanting to view the stars, we drove out in the country a couple of miles from our motel. We had the best view of the night sky that we have had since we went to Tucson to see Haley's comet years ago. It was like being in a planetarium. The view of the Milky Way is not one we can get at home and is not something we will soon forget.
Our Durango has been chafing at the bit for the last several days; she is not used to plodding along at forty-five miles an hour in the mountains. Today, on our way to Bryce Canyon, she was able to break loose on Interstate 70. Once we got off of the Interstate and headed south, we began to soak up some local color.
Because Butch Cassidy was born in Utah, his name pops up everywhere. Similar to the Midwest, where residents living within a couple hundred miles from Chicago claim that Al Capone used to spend a lot of time in their town, there are numerous places in Utah claiming that old Butch used to hide out, live, wench, steal, or drink in their locale. I don’t know how he had time to rob any banks or even engage in witty conversations with the Sundance Kid if he spent so much time in all of these places.
When we finally reached southern Utah, we found that there were around 28 million acres of interconnected state and national parks or monuments. The word “monument,” by the way, does not refer to a single-standing structure. Instead, the word monument in both Wyoming and Utah usually refers to a park or forest. Our motel, for example, is located at the western edge of Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument, a two million acre “monument.” There were no ants in the bathroom of the motel; and the faucets worked in the normal way, hot and cold. As expected, there was a Mormon Bible in our room. For some peculiar reason, however, we could not watch Monday Night Football.
We stopped by the visitors’ center at the Bryce Canyon National Park to watch a film designed to provide visitors with an overview of the unique rock structures which are misleadingly referred to as a canyon. Carole signed up for another Jr. Ranger program, and we signed up for a three hour bus tour tomorrow. In Yellowstone, the overview bus trip, run by good old Zanaterra, cost $71. The trip here is free.
On our way to our motel from Bryce Canyon, we read a sign overlooking a wide expanse of land that said that over 7,000 stars can be viewed from that vantage point. In contrast, in a typical rural area in the United States only around 2,000 stars can be viewed. The rub, of course, is that you have to drive through the mountains at night to get to that sign. Still wanting to view the stars, we drove out in the country a couple of miles from our motel. We had the best view of the night sky that we have had since we went to Tucson to see Haley's comet years ago. It was like being in a planetarium. The view of the Milky Way is not one we can get at home and is not something we will soon forget.
Still never told me what color the ants were.
ReplyDeleteYou sound like Deniro in Runin: "What color is the boat house... ."
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