Sweet and Sour or Cashew Chicken?

This morning I headed South intending to go to Monument Valley via Canyonlands – Needles District. Rt 191 is pretty uneventful, the radio stations non-existent, and the traffic flows right along so fast that I almost missed the turn to the Park. Thinking this was another of those parks where you drove until the road stopped at some lookout or other I didn’t figure it would take to long to drive the 60 miles round trip. But after stopping to look at Newspaper Rock things began to change. The valley opened up into a wide plain bounded by high red cliffs. Both beautiful. It was the kind of country I’d pictured in Westerns. A big plain with a lazy cottonwood creek running through the middle. Cows grazing everywhere. Like many of the places I go I began to wonder what it would be like to live in a place like this. Wide open, sunny, clear…not like a stuffy hotel room where I’d probably be spending the night. Truth be told I had been looking forward to throwing myself down on a big bed and taking a looong hot shower, but at the same time, I wanted to stay outside…out of doors. And that’s when I drove through the Park entranced and saw the campsites available sign.

I had a tent, a sleeping bag, a pad….2 bananas, 2 apples, ½ a bag of sunflower seeds. Hmmm. Not quite enough for a day and night…but wait…I had also thrown two backpacker pantry ‘meals’ in my bag. Technically I had no way to cook them but all they need is hot water, and you can get hot water in the desert…right? And it’s an amazingly beautiful campsite.

After setting up I packed up the bananas, the sunflower seeds and water and headed up a long 4 mile canyon to the Needles. Could help but think this is one National Forest that Edward Abbey just might like. The road doesn’t take you to all the cutely named scenic rocks. Nope. It just goes down the middle of the park. If you want to see anything, or heck, even experience the desert, you have to walk. And nothing is named that I could see. I did however not get to see it all as at the end of the canyon I was walking up you had to scale up the canyon wall to get to the next canyon. I made it about ½ way until I got to the part where you had to swing out just a little bit – and I couldn’t do it. But the hike back was just as nice as the hike up. I love these canyon streams and cottonwoods.

I’ve settled on the Sweet and Sour Chicken which is – hopefully – cooking on the hood of the black volkswagon jetta. Bon appetite!