Well Dear Reader, I made it a little over two days without a shower, but now I am happily ensconced in a faux campground replete with showers, a pool, laundry facilities, and Wi-Fi. I will not avail myself of the pool (too many children and we all know what that means), but I’ve taken a shower and it felt so very good. Now that I’m all shaved, showered, and FDS’d, I’m sitting in the A/C and waiting for my clothes to get clean. It didn’t take long for me to start sweating again after my shower, but the bonus is that I can take another one. And another one if I want. I know I’ll take one more before I leave, for sure.
Yesterday, after I left the Starbucks in Twin Falls where I last posted, I made my way south, through Salt Lake City and Provo to camp at Utah Lake. The drive through SLC proved harrowing as there were 50 mph winds and a dust storm (and I hit it during rush hour) and with it fairly low visibility. I was very happy to not have taken the top off the Jeep. I have to say, Utah drivers are insane. Didn’t seem to matter that dust was flying and cars were being blown about on the interstate—they still zoomed along at 85 mph.
I had to get off the freeway for a while, just to take a break and regroup. It’s a little unnerving when the hood of the Jeep gets hit by a gust hard enough for it to strain against the rubber straps that hold it down.
I’d had a text conversation with my brother, who just happens to be in Denver this week. He had read my blog about staying in scary Idaho and recommended I sleep with a gun rather than with a hunting knife. I ran that foreign thought around in my head for a bit. I’m not much for guns, but still, I worried for my safety, and there was Cabella’s, so what the hell. I pulled off to have a look.
For starters, even the smallest guns run $350, far more than I wanted to spend (yet, I asked myself, what is my life worth?) I looked around furtively, not really wanting to engage with a salesperson, and decided that since I’d not handled a gun, let alone pulled a trigger, since I was a kid (seriously, I had a rifle when I was 12 but that’s another blog) I’d probably be better off just staying at less remote campsites.
So here I am in Moab, practically in suburbia, in a family campground full of children, but unarmed and feeling safer.
I spent the day driving to Arches National Park—I took the top off the Jeep since the temperature seemed to be hovering around 80, and cranked the stereo, happy to be on the road. Happy to be headed to AROHO.
Pamela Helberg 