I was invited this last weekend to visit an old friend from college who lives in McElmo Canyon, which is a canyon that is a little South and West of Cortez Colorado. Her house is about 12 miles East of the Utah border and McElmo has a river that runs all year long and is home to old Mormon Orchards and farms and has several bed and breakfast's and a couple of vineyards. I haven't visited her in a few years although we talk on the phone about once a month. Since my last visit she sold her old house, which at one time was a stage-coach stop between the Utah Colorado border and Cortez and the stage then went on to Bluff. She sold her old house to the BLM and then had a new house built on the acreage where she keeps her horses. She has a complete unit in the basement complete with kitchen that she rents out to people who are either hiking or taking horses in to Land of the Ancients National Monument which borders her property and she even has a gate that leads directly into it. It would also make a nice over-nite spot for people touring the southwest on motorcycles. Directly across the highway from her house is both a vineyard run by an arrogant, I am told, Welshman, and behind that the Battlerock Mountain.
My favorite way to get from Salt Lake City to McElmo is instead of going through Moab, to turn just before Green River and head West on I-70 and then turn off on highway 24 towards Hanksville. This is what I did last Thursday the 19th of July. I have always thought highway 95 between Hanksville and Blanding is a fantastic motorcycle road, second maybe to Highway 12 for one of my favorite roads in Utah. There was very little traffic after getting to Hanksville a little after 9:00 am and I had originally thought about taking the Mokie Dugway to Mexican Hat and then backtracking back up to Bluff and then heading to Aneth. Instead I continued to and got gas and a strawberry shake in Blanding.
Just before Aneth there is a junction that picks up the road that runs between there and Cortez. From the Cortez side it is road G and is also a scenic byway and part of the Land of the Ancients Byway. My friend Susan is the coördinator for the Land of the Ancients byway. It wasn't long until I saw her new house perched on the side of the hill and did not ride my bike till my return on the 24th.
Why is is that we tend to notice the sky, sunsets and day break with more vivid eyes than we do at home. While I do always try to notice the sun setting over the Great Salt Lake, I have to admit there was a vividness to these in McElmo, that I don't think I recognize on a daily basis. Its like the comment that is always made about the beautiful sunsets in Venice. It we all opened our eyes in our normal lives to the extent we do while in a new place, I think for the most part life would seem so much more magical.
Susan has 3 dogs, two of which she had when I was there last and they seemed to remember me. She also has 2 cats and 4 horses and several acres of irrigated pasture. Susan had a quick trip to Chicago for a surprise birthday party on Saturday so early Saturday morning I drove her in her new Fiat 500 to Durango and dropped her off at the airport. I had agreed to take care of things while she was gone and to pick her up at the airport on Monday Afternoon. For many years I had cows to feed on a daily basis, and we had several horses, and lots of birds and at one time over 40 peacocks. I had forgotten that nice feeling of being tied to the earth that one experiences when one has some time of physical activity that needs to be repeated several times a day. Susan has a watering system that pumps water out of an irrigation canal and the she has risers and about five sets of hand lines that can be moved around the pasture. There are valves to be turned and separate diets for both the dogs and the horses.
I thoroughly enjoyed doing all of this, and in the off time, I read lots of magazines that I don't normally look at, read some books and watch several movies that I had not seen either before or in years. On Saturday and Sunday afternoon there were brief rain showers and by Sunday morning the place was looking green and well cared for. Thank you mother nature.
Susan has a beautiful new house, filled with Navajo rugs and Indian pottery and family heirlooms including an old bed that was brought by buggy from New York to the then new territory of Ohio in the early 1800's.
I picked her up at the Durango airport which is about 20 miles away from Durango and near Ignacio. It was a torrential rain storm just when I got to the airport and rained off an on until about half way to Mancos. I had driven another one of her cars down to pick her up, because her youngest dog had her obedience class that evening in Dolores and so by the time we made it back to McElmo it was a little after 8:00 pm.
I left early the next morning and did go down to Mexican Hat where I gassed up and then did head up the Mokie dugway and proceeded up highway 95 and again got gas and a strawberry shake in Hanksville. I had thought about heading towards Capitol Reef and Torrey and then thought I would take SR72 towards Emery but instead I headed back towards Green river to head toward highway 6 and Price. Instead at the junction of SR24 and I-70 I headed West on I-70, which really is a beautiful if desolate stretch of road, my favorite kind, and did turn off on SR10 towards Emery and Huntington. Just before I turn off on SR10 there had been a roll over on eastbound 70 and the ambulance was a head of me towards Emery and Ferron, where it seems that moved the people from one ambulance to another and just about the time I was getting gas in Huntington the ambulance with lights a blazing was heading towards Price.
At Huntington I turned off on SR31 that takes you from Huntington to Fairview, the road has washed out because of some flash flooding and the fires in that part of the canyon and although it was open there was a lot of muck at the side of the road and there was the smell of burned wood in the air. There was not much traffic on my whole return trip, until I got to the mouth of Spanish Fork canyon and its junction with I-15 and after running the gauntlet of the Utah County I-15 rebuild I was soon back to the land of Zion on its most special day. My Great Great Grandfather Erastus Snow had actually been one of the first three pioneers to enter the valley on the 22nd of July.
It was a nice 5 days to have relaxed in a beautiful desert environment and I look forward to my next adventure in the American West.
I am ending this installment with a quote from Stephen Vincent Benet
“I have fallen in love with American names, The sharp names that never get fat.
The snakeskin titles of mining claims. The plumed war bonnet of Medicine Hat, Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.”
