Getting Down the Road

Utah 2025 #1

2025-06-12

I’ve still got some stories left from our Bears Ears trip in 2024. That series has been chronologically presented over the last year, yet now, we’ve collected a few more Utah tales during this year’s trip.  Actually, there are a couple of hangers-on from glamping in the White Mountains, from the year before that! We haven’t been idle during the rest of the year locally, either. Every few stories, I like to throw in and article, some naturist thoughts, things that pop out of my head. It’s all there, in the works, for future publications.

The only solution, I’d suppose, will be to just present a chronological chaos and a variety of posts bouncing from location to location, over this next year. That’ll be starting right now.

For a few months, we had been busy with annual parties, fundraisers, stucco and paint on the house and sauna, stashing away the BnB business to instead accommodate a new renter’s needs. I also needed to get ahead of the publishing, so this website didn’t just suddenly stop while on vacation. We like to leave by mid-May, but the twelfth of June is the way things rolled out….

We embark knowing that it is this time of year that the deserts of southeastern Utah typically begin to heat up. The only solution during the hot times is to head into the mountains and further north, to cool off. Utah has some wonderful green peaks and heck, plans change, we could end up in Idaho, the sky’s the limit. We have this four wheel drive SUV packed to the gills. Everything that we need is in here, but for shopping for fresh produce. We are on an open timeline, 3 to 6 weeks.

It all starts out well. I chant a Ganesha mantra, a catchy tune, all the way through the Phoenix megalopolis. The guy who clears obstacles is at work. The freeway rush hour congestion seemingly magically disappears before us and we end up on a hilltop in Dewey with our friends Ken and Amie on the first evening.

Arriving very naked, all the way from Tucson, it is always a pleasure to climb out of the drive barefoot all over and into their free living enclave. Somehow the concrete walkway is nearly always shady and cool and strolling around the house on their cushy green lawn is a sensual delight.

There is a sign at the base of the drive declaring a liberated place of no nude shame, fear, or concerns. Ringing the doorbell there is a sense of a world as it should be, bare and greeted by bare bear hugs from familiar faces.

It’s been awhile, so we all take our customary positions in the living room to catch up and debrief, they in their recliners and us on a towel draped bench chair.

This is a step off point. It is exciting to be on the road again, an adventure is budding. Still, at the same time, I sigh relief at an end to the hustle of pulling it all together and the many goals. Now, we shall be in a world that rolls out in front of us each new day.

There is a new home going in at the base of the hill. Does it compromise the solitude and freedom of the extensive nude walking trail system? We have to investigate! The small signs with quotes along the stealth trail remind us again and again of this vacation’s mission. Wrapped up in the busyness of the city, our nature mostly in the garden in our yard for a few months, this trip is to be a reset, a readjustment, immersed in our natural sense of being and the moment.

Dinner, then a comedy movie about a family in stressful chaos while traveling in Utah. On the road, the family re-finds itself and soul. That’s the stuff! We’re getting cued and finding our pace. We are all somewhat ready for early bed.

In the morning, I awaken to the sound of the birds that frequent the feeders by the window at the back patio. Nature sounds busy out there, but us, not so much. Just lying naked in bed blankly listening and stretching is pretty darn appropriate.

Ken has a jigsaw puzzle across the dining table and DF is drawn to it like a hypno-magnet throughout the day. I’m concerned that she will steal all of the fun from the others, as she steadily progresses. We chat.

I haven’t had a real opportunity to know exactly where we are headed. I only have accumulated pieces, ideas, maps and information. I have a jigsaw to sort out of my own. The next few days travel and list of potential contingencies come to my inner vision. It’s a start. That’s all we need at this point.

The moon is full and promises to be something called a “strawberry moon.” I don’t recall one, but I do know that around sunset it will arrive on the horizon. We are perched high enough, with no mountains in the way, to get a full effect.

The skies are clear, as we gather Ken’s collection of percussion in the front yard, which overlooks 360 degrees of verdant scrub and numerous mini ranchettes and homes. Tiny lights are coming on throughout the valley. They have invited the local nudist clan for a drum circle. This neighborhood of 3 to 5 acre lots bring out several naked locals. It is a net of nude community hidden amongst a textile majority. They undress in the drive’s carpark, or arrive via carnuding. We make our rhythms like restless natives, while watching the sun boast color in the west and dusk. Not too long into that display, a particularly large round moon rises. Ester clearly across its smiling face, there is something I don’t recollect. It is a deep strawberry colored glowing disk tonight. The drumming continues and then drumming stops to just stare at its unusual creation. Our body’s subtle shades of color are picking up the light from the skies.

Next Day Travel:

We take off after a friendly photo of our visit, like people do. We’re dressed for the occasion and our trip, not even wearing shoes.

We have a long road ahead and several ifs that may require some time to adjust to. How long does the road take to drive, conditions, will we find and stay at a camp along the way, what weather, and how many roadside attractions might we desire to stop and luxuriate in, along the way. Daylight isn’t open-ended and opportunities are vague.

Appropriately a sign greets us on the highway, expressing the spirit of the day!

We make our way to the Interstate, pass Flagstaff and memories of now iconic Little America. Then into big spaces and the huge skies of the reservation lands, the “Nations.” It feels familiar, desolate yet charming, lack of opportunities, yet spiritual abundance. The colors change from pines to buttes of red, orange, vermilion, one thousand shades of grey. Humble mounds and majestic cliffs pass by the windows. Hogans and sheep flavor the cultural patina with tradition.

Gassing up and eating in Page, we are ready to pass away from civilization and cellphones. The two lane highway ribbons past Lake Powell, even drier than the last time. It is stunning to me. The shallows of the lake that I used to float through in my 20 ft. powerboat are desert, now. High above the water line, the scrubby low desert vegetation has reestablished itself after drowning in the 1980’s. It triggers memories of now deceased friends, a happy prosperous time, weeks spent becoming a deep brown all over, fishing, sandcastles, warm endless swimming waters and exploring. Of course there was relaxing to excess.

Not too far down the road, we find the obscure look of a turnoff. It appears to go nowhere in particular. Without its signs, it would hardly have the look of a major route north.

A sign warns us that it is impassable during rains. It is typical of the hard pack and sand drift of Utah, slippery slick when wet. No warm rain will create icy conditions today.

In the middle of the road, I stop on a rise. I can see both ways for a distance. While DF takes pictures out of the window, I climb out to touch the Earth, stretch, feel the warmth of the sun and dry air. I set the 4×4 lockers on the wheel hubs. The 4×4 high range will stabilize the drift on the 46 miles of graded dirt called Cottonwood Creek Rd. I climb back in and adjust the trip odometer, so I can know how far we have gone and perhaps couple this with sparse information on my crude map.

The road meanders.

It is disappointing at first, before it sinks down into a desert valley surrounded by cliffs. It isn’t for travel trailers. Tough and overly tough looking vehicles are who we meet every few miles.

I begin to see the colors used in Navajo/Dine’ sand paintings.

The promised cock’s comb stays for miles on the east side of this remote road. A massive pushed up rock formation, then eroded to the shape of the namesake. Yep, just like a cock’s comb.

Every so often, there is a cottonwood tree, or a small stand of them. I was hoping for some water, but this looks hopeless today. There is one unoccupied turnoff about half way. We decide to rest and consider it for camping tonight. We find it warm, even with shade of the numerous tall trees. The dry sand creek wanders further, so we walk down the slope into the channel.

One curiosity leads to another and we have had our first naked natural walk of the trip. A layer of dried silt cracks above the sand. Mangled branches record a tree’s tough tenacious life.

The rock face has a cave-like structure that must be investigated.

There are ruins, left by someone who once made a life out of this wilderness.

We’re getting in the groove of journeying.

There are many unanswered questions ahead and it is still early enough in this day.

Daylight savings time in Utah will give us an extra hour and solstice’s longest day is just next week. We’ll have Kodachrome State Park, if no campsite jumps out at us.

Next post is Kodachrome Park.

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