Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
We’ve finished one of the four days we are here with our combined family groups. Here is Teasdale, Utah, right next to Torrey, Utah and Capital Reefs National Park with its magnificent red and white high bluffs set along the Fremont River, smack dab in the middle of Southern Utah and what is generally called Canyon Country. By the way, once I used the term “smack dab”, I wondered what it really means or where it comes from. Usually, there is some derivation or etymology to be had, but other than knowing that its first use was in 1892, this expression seems to draw a blank slate…very unusual. No less unusual is the area in which we find ourselves. When I started coming here almost thirty years ago, a friend of mine, Arthur, would stand at every promontory on which we stood, looking out at the vast vistas before us and declare that “you know, this was all once under water”, which is always a surprise when you’re in an arid place like this. But then you look at the stratified rock and the canyons cut into it by millennia of water that has clearly been running away from this place and it all sort of makes sense. Once upon a time is less difficult to imagine when you find so much evidence of the past in every dusty step or along each colorful ridge line.
Today’s activities were intended to give everyone a strong sense of where we were in the topography, which is the dominant feature of the place. The name Capital Reefs seems to have come from the combination of those red striated ridge lines that are accentuated by white limestone caps at their top. That gives the long view appearance of white structures (like a capital) sitting astride reef-like layers of red (one might say coral-colored) rock. There are lots of coral red cliffs all around the Southwestern United States and there are plenty of limestone formations, but this particular combination of the two geological features is somewhat unique and enough so to be worthy of the Mormon settlers to the area in the mid-Nineteenth Century to combine their presumably limited familiarity of the ocean reefs of the world and the white limestone capital buildings so often used in the eastern half of the country, that they conjured up that name as they followed these rivers into these canyons and stood on these cliffs and did as we do today by staring in wonder.
There are at least two absolutes that come to mind for me today, the absolute of nature in all its majesty, and the absolute of family, which may be a subset of nature to some, but is at worst the anthropomorphism of all the formations that make nature so wondrous. It seems totally logical to me that we have chosen this place to gather as a family. Few things can stir the soul of man more than a vibrant scene from nature. Sometimes it is the power of the seas. Sometimes it is breathtaking scale of the mountains. Sometimes it is the verdant and lush green of the forest or jungle, stretching in all directions. And sometimes it is canyons of time cut through the wide open prairies and laid bare for us like Mother Nature’s cross-section of its being. And then there is man. Man may well be the most impressive creation of nature, both in terms of his or her complexity, but also in the manner in which nature has chosen to process this work of art over the millennia, ever so gradually improving it, adapting it, and making it fit not only its environment, but giving it an ability to improve itself with the passage of time on an endless array of dimensions. And those capabilities are the essence of family and the genetic chain that family represents. Just as nature changes the landscape to adapt to new elements and climates, so it uses the evolution of families to adjust to the ever-morphing universe of reality.
We split into two groups for morning, noon and afternoon. They were not the same groups because dimensionality is multi-faceted with age, physical capability, obligation (both to old and young), and, indeed, level of interest in the physicality or cerebral nature of pursuits, all varying and cut across groupings and even time of day. In the morning, a younger group headed off for the central part of Capital Reefs for a llama walk. What exactly is llama walk? Pretty much what it sounds like, you take a hike with a trailing llama all your own. You bond with the animal by feeding it some sort of food from your mouth and thereby forge a link as strong as the rope around its neck…and then you take it for a long walk through the high desert. Apparently, both adults and kids liked this unique combination and the part of the brain that has made us want to be near other animals was assuaged. The other group headed to the upper regions of Capital Reefs, called Cathedral Valley. The issue with Cathedral Valley is that like many of nature’s greatest works, they lay hidden in remote places that almost seem intentionally hard to access. You have to work at it to get to enjoy them. I got as much local knowledge on the easiest way to get the maximum view of the Cathedral as I could muster and still make it a morning activity rather than a full day slog. That took an hour’s drive, half of it over a rocky dirt road that wound up and down a mountain and onto the high plateau where one could overlook the valley properly. The younger natives in the van were restless and wanted to hike while the older (dare I say, wiser?) just wanted the jostling in the van to stop.
Both groups chose different places to lunch that were a mere two blocks apart but equally appreciated after a morning of walking and or jostling. Those that were left behind to tend the injured or unable (one sore midnight faller in need of attending and one yearling with limited tolerance and an equal need for attention) were brought lunch to enjoy, as they say, back at the ranch.
The afternoon saw half the group off for more jostling on UTV’s (Utility Task Vehicles) which we rode up the mesa to the top of the red rock plateau for another overlook, this time into the valley where our ranch-home sat in one direction and then, up the river in the other direction to those magnificent white capitals hanging atop the red reefs to the east. Riding UTV’s is a dusty and bouncy affair made dustier and bouncier by intent as the guides took us up one roller coaster ride after another of hematite and Navajo sandstone dunes. I suspect that neither the kids nor the older adults enjoyed the thrill ride as much as the younger adults who drove the five vehicles we rode in. It was a thrilling two hours by anyone’s standards.
Meanwhile, more drinking, talking and scratching was going on amongst the rest of the group back at the ranch. Some were in the hot tub, simmering in the sun and the glow of the red cliffs behind them. Others were sitting in the shade of the ubiquitous cottonwood trees. And still others were gathered around the coolers to select a continuous array of wines, beers and sodas to quench the thirst we all felt in the high desert dryness.
After showering I went through my normal ablutions like using a Q-Tip on my ears, only to find that apparently half of the Southern Utah desert and a fortune of hematite had lodged itself in my ears and needed swabbing as much as I can ever remember. Cleaned-up and ready for our taco dinner with bison meat and free range chicken while the mele of family of all ages clambered in and out of the dining room, great room and on the porch, we were all happy to be meanwhile, back at the ranch.