May 2, 2014.  Twenty-two years ago today, Brad and I married in the West Point First United Methodist Church and had our reception at the Sibley Horticultural Center in Callaway Gardens, about 20 miles away.  It was a grand — if prolonged — occasion (some of you remember it).  It has been an amazingly fine 22 years and this was a perfect way to celebrate our anniversary.

Let’s start with our farewell dinner last night.  We did indeed eat tacos outdoors in the circular bosom of our three Airstreams.  Richard fixed killer margaritas with some kind of fancy tequilla and salt imported from Africa (probably).  Anyway, I enjoyed them a lot.  Later we sat around the fire and had Utahan pies, s’mores and great jokes (what a natural combination).  Bill and Brad and I stayed up very late marvelling at the stars; billions and billions more than you can see in Atlanta.  Out here, the sky is the central character — painfully blue in the daytime, overpoweringly vast at night.  It’s hard to stay cemented to the surface of the Earth gazing into that expanse of stars, planets, asteroids, galaxies.

Everything in this area known as the Golden Circle (encompassing big swatches of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado) is comically breathtaking.  I have been forced to consult a thesaurus for more expostulations akin to “golly!”.    See if you can spot them throughout this post.  Visitors to this area would benefit from a few more such terms in the English language, just as the Sami language (of Norway, Sweden and Finland) has around 1,000 different words for reindeer.

Deciding to generally start heading East and towards home, Brad, Doris and I took the 124-mile long All-American scenic byway of UT Highway 12, past Bryce Canyon (see Days Sixteen and Seventeen) and on through the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument.  I was wrong in Day Twelve and a Half in thinking I had seen this “staircase” in a small segment of US 89 between Page and Kanab — rather, it is the name given to a 1.9 million acre expanse containing so-called slickrock canyon lands, prehistoric village sites, ranch land, arid plateaus, stone arches, mesas and a plethora of other unbelievable sights.  Hypers!  Every turn in the road slaps one in the face with a new vista surpassing the last.  The rocks vary in color and formation from deep red hoodoos as in Bryce, to stark white hoodoos and cliffs, to mountains of a greenish color, to an ugly gray sandish substance that lies in pyramidal mounds the foot of majestic cliffs of the same color, as if they were piles of slag left over from a monstrous manufacturing mishap.  Ouch!  This quadrad of scenes goes on for miles in surprising juxtaposition.  Then we entered the Boulder Mountain area, which took us up to 9,000 feet along an alpine ridge with vast forests of white aspens, dark green firs and remnants of snow on the ground.  Jeepers!  Just for fun, we followed a detour to a closed remote campsite.  The 6-mile dirt road at first was just beautiful — winding through tall pines with a flat sun-dappled forest floor covered with pine needles and edged by a swift rocky stream.  I considered cancelling the trip and just living here.   After about 3 miles of this idyl, around a curve, we were met with a 100-mile vista of more mesas and plateaus and the road turned into a dusty desert-like path leading down to a depleted but bright blue lake.  Finally, after a jaw (and Airstream) rattling drive on the rutted road, we came to four deserted campsites with no hook-ups for water or electricity and not a soul in sight.  Egad!  We managed to turn our 50-foot beast around and get back on the paved road, which lead us into Capitol Reef National Park.  Phew!

Capitol Reef National Park is similar in feel to Zion and Bryce, only more breathtaking in scope, if you can envision that — and with an overlay of Mormon history.  We visited an old Mormon farm community called Fruita, which was a green oasis of fruit orchards thriving at the foot of the colossal rock canyon walls.  We had homemade ice cream in a tiny house there and I bought a book telling the amazing history of the town and others similar to it that were literally put out of commission when the National Park Service established the Capitol Reef National Monument in 1937.

At 5:35 pm, we turned East on I-70, marking the official return-trip segment of our journey.  Tonight we are camping in Moab and will visit Arches National Park in the morning.  Then on to Vail.  When we get back on I-70 on Sunday, we’ll start picking up speed.   Amen!