Wild Release

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Wild Release

Another of those nostalgia things

Baseball

Not the bigger, certainly, but the better canyon experience for the Coxes happened the day before they reached the Grand Canyon. Arches National Park lay to the south of I70 in Utah, near the border with Colorado. Wanting to visit Four Corners after they left Denver, they drove west on I70 and turned southeast on highway 128 in Utah.

The scenic road hugged canyon walls over the Colorado River, rose and fell one or two thousand feet constantly and demanded speeds around 45 mph - which Harvey the RV adhered to but locals did not.

Red rock monuments jutted up from the valley floor and acrched over occasionally into natural bridges. The canyon walls rippled beside the RV, which kicked its second carburetor barrel into operation on 7 percent grades.

Lateral striations layered the walls, forming a billion year old rosetta stone, which no one on board could read.

Late in the day, the RV stopped in Blanding, Utah. There were two RV parks on the south side of town, and J and D stayed at the one on the left, Kampark.

In the morning, Harvey rolled south again to Four Corners. Johnnie tried Navajo Frybread. It was alright, but then he's never been big on fried dough. Delphine found a refrigerator magnet or two, and off they went.

The big moment came a short while later at 12:15 p.m. as the RV droned down highway 160 toward the Grand Canyon. J and D stopped at a spot called Baby Rock beside an abandoned gas station at milepost 407. They retrieved a black plastic garbage bag from under the bathroom sink, unpacked both cameras and walked across the pavement to a sandy dirt road.

They took pictures of each other holding the specimen with the red rock in the background. Others of its kind gathered around for the event, and soon enough it was over.

A tumbleweed, taken from the deserts of Arizona in 1974, returned to the wild. Over the years since Johnnie and Delphine made their first trip out west, the little brush had suffered some damage. Most of the 28 year hiatus from tumbling passed in a 4 gallon pickle jar, and most of the damage occurred entering and exiting the jar. Still, unbroken in spirit, the weed made its first timid tumbles toward freedom.

Highway 160 ends at highway 89, and that one leads south to highway 64, which runs along the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. J and D followed the scenic road, stopping at the visitor's center and several places along the way to take pictures.