I started writing this before I left for the Grand Canyon, but didn’t get a chance to post it…

I grabbed some coffee and waited for my hotel room to be ready. Moab has a fun little main street so I walked around for a bit and found a bookstore. Looking for some very specific things–some they had, some they didn’t. Chris Isaak over the speaker the entire time.

“I listened to Chris Isaak pretty much the whole way to Utah.”

“Oh, well you’re probably sick of him then!”

“No, I love him, he’s great.”

“Yeah, you know, he’s just one of those 90s artists that holds up.”

I find a few things and head back to the hotel. A shower sounds good. I don’t usually go without bathing for even a day, much less a few days. I take the hot showers when I can get them.

A while later I wander around town a bit more and then pick a spot for dinner. A very delicious Mexican restaurant. But it’s thundering and lightening like crazy. I get desert to go. Vacation.

Right as I get back to my room it starts storming, big raindrops hitting the windows. I hang out and watch Hulu for a while. It continues storming the rest of the night.

At about 10:30 the hotel phone rings.

“Hi, sorry for calling you so late, but we wanted to let you know the City of Moab has turned off the water. We have water downstairs if you need it. You have maybe one flush left. It should be back to normal by morning.”

“Ok, no problem. Do you know why they shut the water off…??”

“Oh yeah, because of the floods. A pipe burst.”

What the heck. I hang up, throw on a sweatshirt, and run down to the parking lot to make sure my jeep is still there. It is. Thankful I’m not camping during this.

The next morning I wander out to get some espresso and breakfast. The streets are covered in thick, red mud. Backhoes all over the place scooping the mud into huge piles. Several restaurants flooded. People out hosing off the sidewalks and trying to get their places set back up. Apparently a 100-year flood.

I decide not to rent a bike. I don’t know (and don’t know that a ton of people know just yet) the kind of damage the storms did. Though I’ve been riding for a while, I’m not the best at it. Certainly not skilled enough for some of the more technical trails, and then the added technicality of a shifted landscape from a flood.

And it sounds stupid, but I miss my bike. MY bike. My first real mountain bike. I got it maybe my second year of college. A birthday gift from my parents and grandmother. I learned how to ride clip shoes with it. Learned all the Wolf River trails with it. It sounds so stupid. That inanimate objects become such a big part of me, but they are. Like little pieces I get to live this life with. And I guess because of that, they feel special to me. It’s why I have my tiny box of treasures traveling with me. In a special spot in my backpack.

And I felt horrible leaving it somewhere lost in Vegas. Like. Cried for a second about it driving down the interstate. Until I felt stupid. Like I abandoned a friend. Like Wilson floating away in Castaway. But I’m not deserted alone on an island. Just out alone on this journey. And insane, apparently. Anyway.

After breakfast I head to Canyonlands. I have a 1:00 entry for Arches, so I try to run through Canyonlands for about 2 hours or so to get back to Arches.

It’s about thirty minutes from Moab, so I’m driving through for a while, back down the road I drove in on. I enter the park and look over to the left–literally canyon lands for as far as I can see.

I park at the visitors center and walk over to the edge. The edge of the world! I couldn’t really believe I was seeing it. And standing on the edge. Amazing. It takes my breath away. Tears come to my eyes.

I keep trying to think of a better way to describe the feeling but I can’t yet. Like I don’t have the words. Not really like I’m crying. Or that I feel any very specific emotion that I can name. Just like electricity filling up my entire body until it pours out my eyes. Like excitement, but more peaceful. Just an energy and connection. Like chills, but deeper. Happiness and peace and amazement. Wonder. I don’t know.

I drive back through the park, do a tiny bit of hiking, and then drive back out because I’m about an hour away from Arches at this point.

When I get to Arches, the line is already filling up. Glad I got here a few minutes early.

The park rangers are literal angels. In every park. So very kind and helpful. They always tell any rules or things to remember and then “and have fun!” I love them a lot.

I drive up and around some of the formations to get into the park. Out at the first stop. Wander a bit, then back in to drive to the next notable formation.

Balanced Rock. Then back to the jeep to try to find some arches!

I drive a ways until I get to the sign: Delicate Arch Trail. Or I can keep driving a mile up the road to see it. I decide to hike this one.

I get out, sunscreen up, grab my gear, and set off. A ton of people on this trail. Down a gravel path, then up the face of a very flat straight run of rock. It’s strange to look up and just see people walking on the face of this enormous rock.

Once you get up the rock, the path becomes a bit easier and more varied. Down through some sandy paths, back up to the sandstone, round a path on the face of a mountain and there it is. You can’t see it until you get to the end of the trail. And it’s incredible. So happy I hiked this one.

So many people doing things you’re definitely not supposed to do. Or shouldn’t do. Climbing on the base for photos, running back and forth between the two legs of the arch touching it each time. I sat for a while and took it in. Then a few photos a little closer. But I did not go down to it. The whole thing feels like it should be preserved as much as it can be.

On the way back down I see a guy with a huge Tennessee flag tattoo on his leg.

“Hey, are you from Tennessee??” Yeah duh, obviously. Why would someone have a Tennessee flag tattoo as big as the moon on their leg if they weren’t from Tennessee….

“Yeah! We’re from Nashville!”

“Cool, I’m from Memphis!”

We walk the entire way back together talking. He and his wife are on a similar road trip, not as long, but to see several national parks. It was nice to have company on the way back down.

We get to the bottom and the three of us exchange numbers. I drive through the park a bit, then back out because I’m starving. I grab a very late lunch then head back to the hotel. I hang out around town a bit, but mostly a quiet night.

The next day I wake up for Durango, Colorado. When I decided I didn’t want to camp in Utah for four more days by myself, I added this stop. A very good suggestion.

It’s only about three hours away, which is one of the shortest trips I’ve taken recently, so I’m excited about that. I hit the road.

And for some reason about forty-five minutes in, I just start crying. Like bawling my eyes out. Not sure why. And at the same time, I know exactly why. A lot of things I guess. Going back down the same paths, just back down them again and again. How’d I get stuck here again? Pull myself out again. My jeep has a full recovery kit I bought mostly from Amazon. And I’ve been working on my own personal one. I guess I need to put that one together a bit more carefully.

I can’t shake it. I call Emily. Switch the music. All the things. It was rough.

I get in to Durango kinda early, so my room isn’t ready. I walk down to the main street. So many cute shops and restaurants. A little retail therapy to lift the spirits.

I walk into the first shop and the first thing I hear is Tom Petty:

The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you get one more yard
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part
Yeah, the waiting is the hardest part

And the end of the song. Thanks, Tom. Maybe offering some answers from the Universe. Feeling like I’m constantly waiting for something. Something. The next step. The next happiness. The next person. The next time I will feel better. Waiting for the grief to pass. Waiting to be on the river. I guess it is the hardest part. Trying to find contentment. A daily practice.

Everyone is so nice. So, so nice. Feeling a bit better.

The next morning I wake up and write a little. Then walk through town again. Then make my way up to Purgatory.

I bit of four-wheel driving through the San Juan Forest. Up the mountain for some exploring and back down again. When I was in a shop earlier in the day, Alanis Morissette was playing so I listen to her Spotify playlist.

I start driving down a trail and get a crazy view out over the trees and flowers and across to the mountains. I get out for a bit, take some pictures, get back in and “Thank U” is playing:

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

The moment I let go of it was the moment
I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it
Was the moment I touched down

How ’bout no longer being masochistic?
How ’bout remembering your divinity?
How ’bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out?
How ’bout not equating death with stopping?

Um. I just wanted to belt out “You Oughtta Know” and “Uninvited”…But I sat there for a second and listened while looking out at the mountains. It felt like a moment. I find myself being grateful for all of it. Another daily practice.

I was curious about the lyrics so I researched the song a bit. She wrote the song during a trip to India and had this to say about it:

“Basically, I had never stopped in my whole life, hadn’t taken a long breath, and I took a year and a half off and basically learned how to do that. When I did stop and I was silent and I breathed… I was just left with an immense amount of gratitude, and inspiration, and love, and bliss, and that’s where the song came from, you know.”

I do know.

I drove down and was feeling good. Some good calls with some good friends and some good sights and good sounds.

The next morning I walked downtown before things opened. Grabbed some coffee and a bagel and headed to the Grand Canyon.