My previous boss, Nancy, recommended the book Desert Solitaire, written by Edward Abbey. Abbey was a park ranger at Arches National Park in 1956 and 1957 (then Arches National Monument), and describes what it was like to work and live in Utah during that time period, a remote and beautiful place. I fell in love with the book, and fanaticized what it would be like to visit Utah while I was reading. Come to find out, much of Utah is still just as Abbey described it. Desolate, remote, windy, hot, and absolutely stunning. But alas, Arches is not the same as it once was. Maybe it was the National Park designation, maybe it was the newly installed well maintained roads, or maybe Abbey was the ultimate downfall. Describing Arches with such beauty that everyone wanted to see it. Who knows. But there are a fuck ton of people here now and I do not like it.
Our first hike was to see Delicate Arch, the most famous arch in the park and supposedly the most beautiful. Delicate arch is featured on Utah’s license plate, so you’ve most likely seen a picture of it. The hike there actually makes me very happy. I know from my research that the trail is exquisitely designed to hide the arch from view until the very end of the hike, where it is instantly exposed all at once. It’s a 1.5 mile hike straight up slick rock with no shade, no water, no benches, no nothing. Watching overweight families trying to scramble up the rock while bitchy kids complained made me oddly happy. Not everything that’s cool should be immediately accessible from a parking lot. You got to work a bit to see this beauty. And it’s obvious that most of these “hikers” are not prepared. I hear people asking “where is the arch?” while hiking. One person asked, “is there a bathroom at the arch?” Um. No.
Kristi and I get to our destination pretty quick to see there are about 50 folks just hanging out around the arch. Taking pics, absorbing its beauty, and guzzling water from the hike. We stand in line to take a pic with the arch. That was a mistake. Stupid arch. People love their damn arches. We stand for about 15 minutes getting frustrated with tourists taking way too long with the arch, snap a few pics, then head down. PS the hike down was way easier than the hike up.
Once down, we headed over to the Fiery Furnace overlook. We should have planned our trip a bit better, because the furnace would have been the best hiking option for us. A maze of rock fins and tons of canyons, this place looks wild! But, you need a permit go into this area, and some experience so that you don’t get lost. Sounds like hogwash to me…. I bet too many fat families got lost in the rocks so they had to shut it down. Kristi and I would have figured it out. We decide to leave the overlook and head to the Devil’s Garden, another area Abbey describes in Desert Solitaire.
Well going to the Devil’s Garden was a mistake. This was like, a highway of hikers. The parking lot was massive and completely full. We hike in to see Portrait Arch, another Arches staple. It was, well, another arch. Cool. I took a picture. We decide to hike back to the car and get out of this overcrowded people zoo. Right outside of the Arches boundary I can see the same damn rock features with no people… I do not understand this place. I go to pee before getting in the car, but Kristi and I hear someone throwing up in the pit toilet. I cannot image anyplace worse to throw up… The heaving sounds make me queasy, so we skip the pee break and just decide to leave. It’s hot, crowded, and smells of vomit.
Once we left, we decided to hit up Moab one more time to grab groceries. I’m glad we did! We found a cute little place called Moonflower, and it had awesome fresh local produce, and a plethora or organic snack options. We grab veggies, some sausage, peaches, and organic energy drinks and head out of Moab. I liked Moab. I could see myself visiting here again, but I’d skip Arches and stick to the BLM lands that surround it. We have the GPS set for Dinosaur National Monument, and start our drive only to realize our organic energy drinks are shit.
So, I made a mistake when putting Dinosaur NM in my GPS. There are two properties that fall within Dino NM, one in Colorado and one in Utah. The camp site I found was in the Colorado section, so that’s where we headed. We pulled up to the visitor center of Dino pretty late, and get out to see where we can see dinosaur paraphernalia in the morning. In huge letters, as soon as you walk up, there is a sign that says NO DINOSAURS IN COLORADO UNIT OF DINOSAUR NM. Crap. We continue on to our planned camp site in the non-dinosaur section of Dinosaur Monument. The site ended up being absolutely amazing. Alone up on a hill with tons of firewood around. We made sausage and kale over the fire, make cocktails, and listened to the Lore podcast while watching the stars come out over the valley below us. Life is good. Even without dinosaurs.
The next morning, we tour the non-dinosaur section of the park for a bit, then decide to drive over to the dinosaur section. It’s an hour and a half drive to get to the main area of the park, but we decide it’s worth it. And you know what, it totally was worth it! Walking into the visitor center was awesome, as it had tons of real fossils, replicates of other cool fossils, and lots of dino related things to purchase. Kristi of course goes buck wild buying things for her kids as I peruse the dino fossils around the facility. Once we had seen everything about 4 times, we hopped on the free shuttle to see the quarry.
So I didn’t know what to expect with this park, but the quarry was amazing! Apparently this area was discovered by a dude named Edward Douglass in 1909 when we saw some dino vertebrae sticking up out of the rock. He collected a shit ton of fossils for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History where they studied them. Now, a National Monument, the quarry was been preserved in situ. Basically, they exposed a bunch of bones in the rock, then built a building around it so that visitors could see the dinos in their final resting place. Pretty damn cool if you ask me, and definitely worth the drive.
After the quarry visit, we did an additional drive within the park to see petroglyphs, which ended up being pretty neat. The best one was a ginormous lizard that experts think took an entire month to create. We finish up the driving tour, then set our sights for Steamboat Colorado.
Yelp led us to Otto Pint, a cool little pizza place with tons of local brews. The place was dead, so Kristi and I sat at the bar and watched Olympic qualifier diving while sipping on beers. Well, cider for her, beer for me. When we got our pizza, it was like we hadn’t eaten in years. We both ate an entire pizza. You know, not like we can keep leftovers… We roll out of Otto Pint, and head into Routt National Forest to find a campsite.
Routt NF was very alpine for us at around 10,000 feet. The drive into the forest had a herd of elk and beautiful meadows. We found a random pull off with a fire ring and collected wood. The meadow proved to be perfect and cold, a big change from the desert we had been boondocking in.
The morning proved to be much colder than we anticipated, so we packed up quickly and headed into a nearby town to grab coffee and breakfast. The city of Silverthorne turned out to be an adorable mountain town that spoke to us. We got coffee and sat on a bench next to a fast flowing river. Kristi decides she could live in a little mountain town like Silverthorne… Maybe I could too. After food and coffee and calming views, we pack up and head to the Denver Airport. Kristi flies out in the afternoon, so I need to get her there at some point. Preferably before her plane leaves.
As we roll into Denver, we realize we have some time to kill. Kristi remembers there is a wildlife refuge adjacent to the airport (Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge), so we plug it into the GPS and head that way. It turned out to be farther than anticipated, but no matter. We’ll at least drop in and see some adorable prairie dogs! As we get to the front gate, we see that it’s closed, and two staff members are turning folks away. We pull up to find out that multiple prairie dogs have tested positive for the bubonic plague, so they closed the refuge. Apparently some prairie dogs had even died recently from it. Not good. We’re sad we can’t visit the refuge, but honestly it worked out because at this point we’re right on time to drop Kristi off. I say goodbye to my Utah buddy, and am once again saddled with the weight of being alone.
I decide to visit a Starbucks to get my bearings, use the bathroom, and figure out where in the heck I’m going next. I walk into a location near the airport only to find out they are having a barista competition? The place is packed, there’s a bouncer at the door, and I’m turned away. Cool. I really didn’t want to go there anyway, I’ll just sit in my car and use your WiFi…
I have an old friend that lives in Denver, and she has offered to let me stay at her place while I’m here. I’m initially pretty hesitant. This is a friend I was very close with in college, but I haven’t seen or really even talked to in years. But, she’s an amazing person, so I don’t think she’d want me to be in Denver and not hang out… So I put my social anxiety aside and give her a text, let her know I’m in town, and ask for recommendations of what to do while I’m in town.
I met my friend Jenn freshman year of college. I transferred from Middle Tennessee State University after one semester, and decided to go to the University of Central Florida. Actually, my mom decided I wanted to go to UCF, but that was fine by me. I was pretty apathetic to college at this point. So, I start at UCF in January for the spring semester, and my high school friend Aurora talks me into going to a GLBSU meeting. That’s the gay, straight, bisexual student union. Lot’s of letters…. So I go, but she’s historically a flake and didn’t show up. Typical. I already knew this was a strong option so I wasn’t upset. Just disappointed that I really thought she was going to show up… So I’m at this meeting, and it’s pretty cool. Very inclusive and volunteer heavy. I decide to sign up for an event to make toys for kids in foster care, and while I’m in line the chick in front of me turns around and says, “you look athletic, want to play floor hockey with us?” And thus Jenn was brought into my life. We called her Brunson, and me Manis to avoid confusion. We talk for a bit, and Brunson finds out it’s my birthday the upcoming weekend and I have no friends as I’m at a new school. So of course, in typical Brunson fashion, she creates a birthday party for me with her friends and the rugby team. A person she has just met. I have never felt so instantly loved by a friend ever. It was more than I could ever ask for. And to top it off, I got to learn how to play floor hockey, which I ended up playing during my entire undergrad and graduate degrees.
Fast forward to today, 15 years later, I’m feeling anxiety about contacting her. That was dumb, because as soon as we met up it was like we never stopped being friends. We talk for a bit, I take a shower, and we head out to a movie showing that she had tickets for. It’s called “Everything is Terrible,” and consisted of 90s and 2000s internet video clips edited to be incredibly fucked up. It was terrible and hilarious at the same time. I loved it. Why can’t Pensacola have more random things like this??
After the terrible movie, we hit up a speak easy named Williams and Graham. I love these types of bars, as they normally are a decent volume and have amazing drink selections. Again, Pensacola, get your shit together. We talk for hours over drinks, then decide we should go back to the house as Jenn has to work in the morning. Oh, right, people have jobs…
Back at the house I opt to sleep in my truck in the driveway. With 4 people in a small space, I don’t want to be in the way and more selfishly don’t want to wake up too early. I say my good nights and hop in the truck.
I wasn’t planning on staying in Denver too long, but Jenn is trying to get me to stay through the weekend to go camping with her and some friends. I’m sure I’ll figure it out in the morning.
