Sunday April 20

Spent the day today in Arches National Park with the
PCC women, looking at arches, hearing about lesbian
love affairs, and the whole lovely day followed by
watching Brie and Jill taste 9 different beers at the
Moab Brewery. I love PCC people. I was pretty sore
all over from yesterday so I played chauffer while the
girls hiked. Tomorrow they are off to Canyonlands and
I'm headed to Salt Lake City. And they have the best
selection of car snacks I've ever seen.

Got back to the car at Arches and found a note on the
window from Joanne Casey who lives around the block in
Bristol. She didn't know it was my car but saw the VT
plates and an envelope on the passenger seat addressed
to Mary Sullivan (who lives a few doors down on Pine
St.).

It's been very windy all day. The mountains to the
west are covered in mist or blowing sand. And it's
getting cold. I packed up and reconnected the trailer
to leave quickly in the morning if the weather is gross.

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Saturday April 19

Just had dinner with Sherry, Michelle, Brie and Jill
from the PCC. Pretty cool to see them in Moab.
Tomorrow we're going hiking. They got here and found
that their reservations were at a place that was more
John Graham Shelter than Ritz-Carlton. So they madly
phoned and found a motel for tonight 30 miles back the
way they came. But they have a place in Moab for Sun
and Mon. Michelle wants everyone to know that, even
though she made the biggest stink there's at least one
other voyager who silently backs her up (only initials
please: SdG).

I rented a mountain bike this morning and rode Slick
Rock. Well, not the whole 10.2 miles. I crawled the
last 2. And walked many of the ups. The area is a
100 square mile sand dune which petrefied into rock
sometime in the distant past. No trees, very little
vegetation. Just hills of sandstone and a small patch
of sand here and there. I felt ok on the downs, even
the steepest, but going up the other sides, in
addition to being stamina sapping, there was always
the chance of tipping over backwards. I'm hurting
tonight but I did it.

Lots of souped up 4 wheel drive vehicles also parade
around the area. Their designated paths cross the
biking trails. They are pretty fun to watch as they
crawl up and down nauseatingly steep hills. I would
have taken pics but I didn't have the strength to
reach around the back of my biking jersey to get the
camera.

There's an old uranium processing plant just outside
Moab. The Department of Energy has closed it up by
burying it in hunderds of thousands of tons of sand.
And now, because of leeching by the Colorado River and
the discovery of deformed frogs, the DOE is going to
truck the whole thing to a different place. Your tax
dollars at work.

There's a full moon tonight and it is warm. I've got
the door open. The RV park is pleasingly quiet for so
many camping here.

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Friday April 18

Woke up to a chilly but beautiful sunrise (see sun
glinting off Toaster). Connected with three other
campers for shuttling to a trail head. An older
couple from Denver who voted for Ron Paul in the
primary and a very pleasant retired elementary PE
teacher from Maryland. The hike was an 1800 ft drop
into Monument Canyon, beautiful rock formations but
the lady Ron Paul follower was driving me crazy with
her constant lecture on what's wrong with kids today.
The PE guy and I had to sit in the back of her pickup
for the ride back up the mountain and I think she had
figured out that I wasn't a fellow traveller; she
drove around 20mph hairpin turns at about 60. I know
she was trying to throw me out the back.

Drove to Moab. The last 30 miles or so along the
Colorado River through a mini Grand Canyon. There
were a few rafters and white water kayaks and plenty
of water and rapids but the river looked almost too
muddy to flow. The campgrounds in Arches National
Park were full as were all the Nat Forest sites. I'm
in an RV park that had no trailer sites so I'm in the
tenting area and have had to put up the tent: official
rules, though I'm going to sleep in the trailer. The
sites are very close together, no vegetation. On one
side is a family with 4 kids under seven and on the
other, two families with 6 young children between
them. At this moment there are two babies crying.
The two french guys a couple sites down have
disappeared.

Biked into Moab to see about renting a mountain bike
for tomorrow. This is the world capitol of MB'ing and
the most famous trail is Slick Rock, ten miles up and
down a giant boulder. I think that it will be a lot
like the top of Mt. Abe on a warm fall Saturday but
I'm here and it has to be done.

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Thursday April 17

On the road again, la la la. Left Boulder this
morning in the sunshine with 3 inches of melting snow
on the ground. Labored over Loveland and Vail passes
in dreadful weather, snow, slush, wind, giant trucks
but eventually dropped back down to a more humane
altitude and rolled into Colorado National Monument
outside Grand Juction about 5:00. A red mesa with
numerous canyons carved into it. Very few people in
the campground. Met a young German couple who, for
the second spring, are delivering a new RV from South
Bend, IN to LA, paying only insurance and gas. They
get 3 weeks and 3000 miles to do the trip. It's a 21
foot, very fancy machine which, they say, would be a
palace in European RV circles where gas is $8.00 a
gallon.

Met a guy from Burlington who spends winters teaching
skiing in Breckenridge, CO and summers teaching
sailing in Malletts Bay.

Some things from the past two weeks:
At the Conference on World Affairs at CU I heard
Rachel Maddow who has a radio show on Air America.
She is very cool. She's been the token progressive on
some cable talk shows, usually does her show from NYC
but did it live from the conference for 5 days. I
went and saw her 4 times.

Saw the Slipstream-Chipotle Bike Team hanging around
in front of Boulder's most expensive bike shop. They
are one of two American teams invited to the Tour de
France.

I rode public buses a few days and everyone, college
students, old fogies, all say hello and thankyou to
the busdrivers when they get on and off.

Finally passed another biker. And seconds after got
smoked by six guys with matching jerseys.

Drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park and saw elk
and pronghorn sheep.

There are signs on classrooms in the new business
school building at CU designating which are still
available for naming (for a price, of course).

Discovered that there are 10 different flavors of Goldfish.

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Monday April 7

Haven't written much since I've been here. Days are
uneventful but very pleasant. Having a great time
with Steven and Mandy. As I have very few relatives,
mom, Kate, and a cousin I haven't seen since childhood
(mom had one brother, dad was an only child) it's
fortunate that Steven is pretty special, not only by
dint of being my brother, but also because he is a
very nice man.

The days are running into each other even more than
being on the road, but I'll try to remember what I've
been up to the last few days. Heard some great jazz
on Wed: two CU student combos with a couple fine
improvisors. Got the trailer repaired: the post that
holds the Toaster up when it's unhitched was too long,
kept getting bonked on odd shaped roads. Have been
doing a lot of bike riding. Still haven't passed
anyone except the old grey-haired guy on a mountain
bike. I came close yesterday. I was catching up on
the rider in front of me when he/she turned right.

I spent today at CU. They have a weeklong "Conference
on World Affairs" with gobs of heavy hitters. Heard a
concert and history of Bossa Nova with a guitar
player, Oscar Castro-Nuevas who played with Antonio
Carlos-Jobim and Gual Gilberto in Brazil 50 years ago.
Margot Adler of NPR talked at a workshop about
whether we'd survive an attack by extraterrestrials.
Much more interesting and down to earth than it sounds
(by the way, she is a Wiccan Priestess). Also there
was Terry McNally who who wrote and produced the movie
"Earth Girls are Easy." The last workshop was about
the fight between religion and science with "The Great
Randi" from Skeptic Magazine and a gay former Jesuit
priest, now an atheist and married under
Massachussett's new law.

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Monday March 31

There are exciting things to see even in the middle of
a SUV infested city. Walking along the streets of
Boulder I came upon a store called Now and Zen. And
in the window were these high tech meditation timers.
I couldn't tell if they bonged themselves or if you
had to do it manually. But please notice that the
clock also counts seconds. Again, I'm not making this
up.

Bought a new camera and mini bow saw. Met Steven at
the business school after his classes. It's a brand
new building with giant stone columns at the entrance
and the first room inside is a 3 tiered lecture hall
with a huge sign "Pepsico Classroom". There is as yet
no "Diet Bargs Rootbeer Faculty Lounge".

It snowed last night and the weather today is
atrocious. Cold and damp. And no better forecast for
the rest of the week. The sun is out and the
mountains are beautiful. Rode the stationary bike
while watching "The Hunt for Red October".

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Sunday March30

Snow on the ground this morning. We took a trip to
the Coleman factory outlet store. So many cool
gadgets. Bought some fuel and a reflector gizmo to go
on the lantern.

Heard from Hope who was out in the boondocks of Utah
and was at Lake Powell the day after I left. I'll try
to catch up with her this summer when she's in Oregon
for two weeks.

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