It seems appropriate on Independence Day to celebrate the freedom of the American road trip.
We returned from one last week. Flying to Arizona and then using family there for base camp, we ventured into Utah to experience the Mighty 5, the name coined by the state for its five national parks. Arches. Bryce Canyon. Canyonlands. Capitol Reef. Zion.
We combined the time-savings flying to Arizona with the close quarters of the car, clocking 1,500 miles in seven days through Utah. We stayed in cheap motels. Ate meals at mom-and pop-style restaurants. Marveled at one-stoplight and no-stoplight towns.
We crossed fingers our rental car would be reliable through miles of steep mountain switchbacks, grey and red moonscape, and wind-blown desert. We counted the minutes between seeing other cars and wondered when we’d have cell phone service again. And we reaffirmed that 105 in the desert really is a dry heat.
We hiked 27 miles in the parks, experiencing Wall Street, the Watchman Trail, the Hickman Bridge, Balanced Rock, Delicate Arch and the Upheaval Dome, to name a few.
We saw the famous Mexican Hat and skirted Monument Valley, coming to a stop on a deserted highway, when I realized we were on the same road where Forrest Gump decided to stop running.
Jet transportation and our interstate highway system both allow us to transcend time. To wake up in one part of the country and go to sleep that same night cloaked in the soothing darkness of an utterly different landscape.
The best trips, wrote essayist and novelist Pico Iyer, never really end.
Indeed, this one probably won’t.
I’m Wester Wuori, and that’s my traveling Perspective.
