Starting with an aside, I don’t actually think Interstate 70 is called The eye 70 in Utah but it probably will be soon enough because that is what it would be called in LA and what happens in LA seldom stays in LA. End aside.

The western part of Utah is in the Basin and Range Province and pretty much stands by itself (or stands with Nevada). The I70 sort of splits the rest of Utah: north of The I70 is in the Rocky Mountain Province, the skiing part of Utah, and south of The I70 is the Colorado Plateau, the mesa country, the canyoneering part of Utah. Up until this trip, Michele and I have spent all of our Utah time south of The I70 and the north side was an revelation to us, it is both scenic and interesting but, for me at least, it isn’t as additive as the Colorado Plateau.

Our original plan was to go from Price to Moab, but after spending last night in Price, we decided to spend the next night in Green River…at the Holiday Inn Express. Green River because Moab, the next place down the road, was more money than we wanted to spend, and the Holiday Inn Express because it is, strangely, a hotel that always seems to work for us. This Holiday Inn Express is not an exception. Although its location was bizarre, plopped down in the middle of nowhere, of all the places we stayed in Utah, this was the most suitable and the most anonymous (hmmm, maybe that should be the least personality). But, among other features, this Holiday Inn Express has a desk with two chairs and a walk-in shower.

The best thing about staying in Green River is that it gave us a chance to visit a small museum named the John Westly Powell River History Museum. The museum is small but John Westly Powell is a giant, probably the biggest historical name in this part of the world. Powell is best known for being the first European – actually, the leader of the first group – to run the Colorado from the Green River in Wyoming, through Glen Canyon and Grand Canyon to the Virgin River.

This little museum celebrates Powell and also celebrates what I would call the River Runner Life. It is hard to raft a river – any river, probably, but especially here – and not be strongly affected by the landscape as you float by. The quiet and the wildness are ever present and that has greatly influenced this museum. The Mission of the museum, or more accurately, the mission of the group behind the museum is Celebrating the significance of river history through the cultures and landscapes of the Colorado Plateau and their Vision is Ethical stewardship of the rivers, landscapes, and cultures on the Colorado Plateau.

Green River is less than an hour from Moab but they are in different worlds. Even before we got to Moab we saw large staging areas – for lack of a better term – with people unloading their off-road vehicles, getting ready for their off=road adventure. In a surprising way, Moab feels like a ski resort in that it is packed with young people, is vibrant, and it gives off the feeling that everybody is here for the same reason. But Moab has no snow, Moab’s skiing is off-roading and like skiing, off-roading requires a lot of special equipment, takes up a lot of space, and seems to be best enjoyed in groups. When I skied, I loved the comradery; now that I’m not skiing, I find it slightly off putting and Moab gives me the same vibe.

Of course, that is not entirely true, there are people here to hike and river raft, and there are people here to explore the two National Parks, Canyonlands, and Arches. Moab is crowded because Moab is the most famous town in this part of the world, and, as Michele said, they didn’t know where else to go.

The last time I was in Moab was just after Thanksgiving, before the lockdown, and it felt very similar to the first time I was there in the early eighties. Now it is unrecognizable. Like almost every ski resort I’ve been to or driven by recently, people in Moab are now buying condos like crazy. The town is packed. We stopped there for lunch at the Trailhead Public House &Eatery, I had an $18 burger, and Michele had a turkey burger with cranberry chutney, both of which were excellent. Then we got out of town, heading for Bluff with a detour through part of the Needles District of Canyonlands to see Newspaper Rock.

Canyonlands is broken up into three distinct areas that are separated by the Green and Colorado Rivers. I’ve been to the northern area, Island in the Sky, several times, but I’ve never been to the Needles District. Island in the Sky is the main show and the Needles always seemed out of the way, and it still is, so we end up only poking our nose in. People have been leaving their marks in this area for at least two thousand years, even before the Freemont culture, way before the Navajo peoples and up to, at least, C.D. Gonzales b 3 54.

Mike Iverson tells the story of a chance meeting he had with an petroglyph expert – or at least a guy who had been studying them for the last thirty years – while camping in the Gold Valley section of Death Valley. Mike asked him how could someone tell which were petroglyphs and which were idiot-glyphs. He answered “The longer I look at them the more I think they are all idiot-glyphs”. I’m inclined to agree.

What ever your opinion, Newspaper Rock is the best example I’ve ever seen. BTW, the dark brownish color on the surface of the rock is called desert varnish and it comes from infinitesimal amounts of iron and manganese oxide being deposited on exposed sandstone over a very long time. This area is the Indian Creek section of Bears Ears National Monument and it backs up to Canyonlands. It was one of the areas that President Trump had eliminated from the Bears Ears Monument.  

As the day winds down, we drive almost due south through Blanding, population 3,750 in 2010. This is rural Utah, red Utah, next to what most likely will be a permanent National Monument. In The Nine Nations of North America, Joel Garreau postulates that each Nation – read area – is distinctive because different groups originally colonized them with different cultures and subsequent settlers blended in with the original culture. That is why Boston and New York are so different or San Francisco and Los Angeles. The interaction between the very old, old, and new cultures in Blanding should be interesting.  

As we drive south in the sun, we run along the edge of a storm, but it is gone by the time we get to Bluff .