On The Road

Ok. What's wrong with this picture. Larry and I leave Seattle for the sunny Southwest. No sooner are we in Utah than it's raining and snowing while the rainy Northwest is seventy and sunny! Oh well, you take what you get.

We're taking a couple week sabbatical to go for a Tiki Tour of the sights, both Anasazi and scenery, of the desert Southwest. Larry and I are high school buds who took off traveling together when we were seventeen. Now we're at it again fifty years later. Some things aren't the same.

Driving through eastern Washington, through part of Idaho into Utah, hammers home the point... that most of the American West is vast vacant tracts of.... nothing. Sage brush, coyotes, Jack rabbits, and Red Tail Hawks cruising the skies for a meal of unwary mouse. Small towns are sprinkled here and there with a small city wherever there is a reason for one. Out here there's not much reason.

In places like Moab, where the Colorado River has carved down through the layers from the high plains, the landscape goes from deadly boring to dramatic within a few miles. Our firs stop with anything to see is Arches National Park just outside Moab. The $10 lifetime National Park Pass for seniors has to be the best bargain in America!

Don't let the damned Republicans mess with things like this. They'll have our parks either sold to, or run by some snake crony. Our National Parks, DNR (Department of Natural Resources), Forrest Service, Department of the Interior, State, County and city parks are national treasures meant for the enjoyment of all. Not profit for the few. Get out the pitch forks and torches.