Smells: dry air, baked dirt

Do you ever smell a smell or hear a sound and just be taken back to a previous time? I don't normally wax nostalgic, but it happened the other day. I can't remember what triggered it, exactly, but here's the scene (that Jen never blogged!):

Last summer we flew west for Ben's wedding. We flew into Vegas (we know a shortcut to Wyoming through there) and enjoyed a few days in Southern Utah as guests of our friend Kate, from Jen's Marriott School days. We love Kate.


Kate built a wonderful home on a bluff over-looking the next plateau. The view is to the east, so the hills glow with the evening sun and are crested by the rising sun. It really is an enviable position. I don't know that I'd trade my New England ponds, granite hillsides, maple and pine forests, and mosquitoes, but I definitely have respect for the deserts of Southern Utah. Maybe it was a combination of the smell of warm wood, the thoughts of sunrise (with my Chicago trip), or something that took me back.


So we spent the evening catching up, chatting about the transition to retirement, the transition for me to a career, the nuances of how life changes. We reminisced. We had a great salmon dinner. We learned a little about Toquerville's Shoe Tree. We learned about the clever customizations Kate put into her house, like a Murphy Bed for her deck that also has a breakfast table option. Her outdoor shower for the master suite. Her elevator.


That night we had our scripture stories and family prayer on the back deck overlooking the plateau in the warm evening heat. It was great. Adding to the greatness was my plan to go exploring the next morning at sunrise. It was Kate's idea, really. I don't remember how it came up, but she told me what time the sun came up and gave me a map to follow. So I did it. It must have been like 5:15 or so when I left the house. I took a picture before I left to illustrate just how dark it was. I drove on down to La Verkin, then headed up Route 9 toward Zions. I had no idea how far I would get before the sun appeared.

As it turns out, I made it pretty far... as in, the whole way. It was before the park service started manning the gate, so I just kept driving (not having to pay the fee until I came back with the family during business hours). I climbed the switchbacks, I drove through the amazing tunnel that was dug through the mountain to create a pass. Then as the sun started threatening to come up, I pulled over to enjoy it. I had my banana and yogurt. I listened.

Nothing. Dead silence. When was the last time you were ANYWHERE that had dead silence? No animal noises, wind, water. Not anything. Seriously, had I tuned my ears to the right frequency I probably could have heard the photons coming with the morning. It's times like these that I start to talk to myself just to keep myself company!

So I sat. I don't remember what I thought about. I only remember being perfectly alone with my thoughts. I noticed that apart from the brightening sky, the first evidence of the sun I found creeping up behind me as it reflected off a distant peak. I was being encapsulated: from one side the sun was rising, and from the other, it was lighting more and more of the hillsides.

Before I left my thinking spot, I found that I had company: A pair of rams were grazing on nearby brush. To think they had been so silent! There were also plenty of examples of Sacred Datura. I thought they were relatively unlikely inhabitants of such an unforgiving landscape. Shows how much I know.

The rest of the day was pretty great, too! When I got back to Kate's family was just getting up, and they seemed legitimately interested in my morning adventure. I think they were largely content for me to have had that adventure on my own, though, since 5:15 MTN might have seemed a little early after a fairly long day of flying and driving.

These couple of shots are from stops at the Weeping Rock, the base of Angels Landing, and various other shuttle-stop-overlooks. We were thrilled to have a shuttle to ferry us around and keep hiking relatively minimal. After all, Ian was only two-and-a-half at the time. Ian was thrilled to have his binoculars to look at things. I was thrilled to be at the National Park that my mountain climber friend Jake says is the best of them all. I'm pretty sure that Jen was thrilled to see me really get into something. She promised that we could come back some day.

I honestly created a memory that will last a lifetime. So that's another one that was borne of adventuring in the wee hours of the morning. What is it with the morning and everything looking so elegantly beautiful? It seems like every time I get up early to do something, the payout is huge. Do you think that's what Poor Richard's was hinting at with the "early to rise" stuff? I doubt I'm alone here.


Now for your benefit, I am including a map. You can view it in a larger mode and actually enjoy a streetview vacation. You'll love it, I promise.

View Joe went to Zion('s). in a larger map