road trip USA

Utah and all that jazz

Southern Utah is THE most beautiful place - it seems to be one long progression of canyons, escarpments, buttes, wet and dry rivers, and is mostly very sparsely populated. It's a very easy driving experience, and a very beautiful one. Many of the local menfolk still look the part - OK, they step down from a truck rather than a horse, but they've got the boots, denims, unbuttoned leather waistcoat, hat, and sometimes a neckerchief. One even had a sidearm in a leather holster, which I thought was taking it a bit far, but on closer inspection it proved to be his cell (that's a mobile phone, Mum).

The town of Moab is one of the most striking that I've seen, nestling in a valley between 2 long red cliff faces, and the Colorado river ensures a welcome supply of greenery in the landscape. It's relatively highly developed for tourism, but remains attractive.

People come not just for the 2 national parks nearby, but also for off-roading in the desert, hunting, camping, and climbing on the plethora of vertical cliff faces in the area. Unfortunately, in the otherwise relatively upmarket Moab Valley inn, I get the room above the hotel laundry, and despite my protestations that evening, and the following morning, they are producing noise and vibration on an industrial scale at 6-15am underneath my bed. Add to that the fact that their wifi doesn't work, and I'm a less than chipper Tripper. One of the few serious lapses in customer service that I've experienced in four weeks.

Fortunately spirits are revived within a few miles by the attractions of the route. Utah is blessed with a concentration of great National and State Parks: Arches and Canyonlands NPs are within a few miles of each other, and both are blisteringly hot. It was here that I found the Aztec Butte (see previous page) an outcrop where ancient Indian structures have been built into the cliff face, probably as food stores. Some piks are in the Utah album.

On leaving the motel, I fill up with gas, which reminds me. The news at present is dominated by the price of petrol, and each morning, we are advised of the national average, which is now approaching $4 per gallon. I'm already paying in excess of this on account of my out of the way locations. People are finding it hard, and apparently the bank holiday weekend will be the quietest for a decade as many stay at home.

<= You just keep me hangin' on...

Politics: both Obama and Clinton have gone on the record to promise a temporary suspension of gas (petrol) taxes. How unworldly is that? Many politicians and commentators here seem to believe that the surge in oil prices is just a temporary market insanity. Few are articulating the uncomfortable truth - the world has changed, there is a whole new population in the developing world (especially China and India) that expects and demands energy consumption on a western scale, and there's no more oil being laid down. Oh, and Saudi Arabia is already pumping about as much as it can (and more than it should if you believe in your grandchildren's future). What took 200 million years to create is going to be mostly gone within a generation, and oil prices will continue to rise substantially in real terms in the long term. In a few years, we will look back on the $4 gallon/the £1 litre as those golden years of plentiful oil in apparently unlimited quantities, and sigh... You heard it here first (possibly).

Following yesterday's nonsense about the baseball injury, the Federal Appeals Court has delivered a key legal decision today. Paper money discriminates against blind people. They omitted to consider the rules relating to admission to the armed forces, and airline pilot qualifications, but I'm sure we'll get to that at some stage.

The items that really convince me that it's time to hit the road are the following 2 gems -

By the end of the day, I've discovered another National Park - Capitol Reef - previously unknown to me, and that makes a new record of 3 in a day.

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