Summer Road Trip - Bullfrog, Utah & Meteor Showers

On this day in Utah, I, hold your breath, slept in. It just seemed like a good idea, or, maybe I am lazy. I think, in my life, I have always felt the danger of laziness. My mother is the poster child of "Not Lazy". She and my father raised five kids in a rural area while both working full time and we were always doing stuff. This is not to say she pushed us into activities because she wanted us to be cultured and educated but because she wanted us to have fun and discover things we loved. Well, unless you consider raising dairy goats as an education in "culture". We also had a lot of chores and a lot of time to play. My mom is not what you would traditionally consider an overachiever either, but this is what she did, or more like, the expectations of normal achievement for her were cow-jumped-over-the-moon achievement. This is not also to say that she expected us to get amazing grades and be the star at everything we did, because she did not. But, how can you really believe that your science project is "good enough" when you saw her sweat and toil and stay up late making Halloween costumes fit for Broadway? She set the stage very early on, how going-the-extra-100-miles is not really "extra" at all, its normal.
So, I have the conflicted relationship with sleeping in. Part of me likes sleep and part of me likes to get up because there are things I need to and even want to do. But, unless I am sick, really sick, not just a cold, I always feel guilty about sleeping in. Today was not an exception. After I get up, I consider what I am going to do on this cloudless, sunny day in Utah. I could find a hike. I could go for a drive. I could go swimming in the lake. But really, I feel like reading. I picked up a fiction novel in the JFK airport during my layover and I started reading it on the plane. My mind keeps running through all the excuses to spend the day reading: the book is really good, it is fiction and I haven't read fiction in a while, people have been telling me my itinerary is jammed packed with activity already, I deserve a break? I deserve to relax? Do I even know the meaning of this word? Isn't "relax" just another way to say "lazy"? Have I ever actually relaxed and not felt guilty about it? Yes, I have, exactly one time in my life. I actually went somewhere to relax exactly once, my honeymoon. But that's a once in a lifetime thing.

The road "off property"

Honestly, I find road trip driving and hiking very relaxing. Or maybe the better word is soothing. But what is this relaxing all about anyway? Sitting around doing nothing? I have never found that fun or, desirable. Okay, so reading a book is not doing nothing, its just sitting around. And I could read outside because I really don't want to sit inside the house all day anyway. My mind conflicted, I head out to the back porch with my book and sit in a chair for as long as I can stand the strong sun, at which time, I spend the rest of the day following the shade spots around the yard with my chair and water bottle and my book. I did spend, perhaps an hour, inside reading during the hottest part of the day. But this is so uninteresting. And, by the way, the book was very interesting.

When Becki got home from work, we went on a short hike, the Pedestals hike. Becki drove us "off property" and on this side road, a shortcut to some areas east of here. The road turned into fine, dirt and there was a small, temporary creek running across it. I guess the proper term is a "wash". Becki gets out of the car and inspects the level of water. "Its too high, I don't think I can cross over. I wish we had brought the truck." I guess the thunderstorm yesterday made things a little wet in surprising places. Turns out, the trailhead was actually behind us already, we had passed it.

So we get out and hike across the red-orange, Utah desert toward the large outcropping of naturally poured rock formations. The little trail pamphlet promised us "pedestals" of smaller rock formations. We follow along the "trail" of park ranger made rock piles that supposedly mark the trail. We cross several washes that looked like they had been dried up for hundreds of years. Really, do they ever have water in them? We are loyally accompanied by Pancake who is quite happy to chase whatever desert creatures are scattering about. The dirt is more like sand in most places, making it a little slow going. Its really hot out. Its really dry. I am really hungry. My lunch had been really light since I was just sitting around lazily, all day. But it is really nice to get out and walk around.

This landscape troubles my photographer's eye. It is beautiful, but has not inspired me to photograph, so I kind of force it. Maybe it is the flatness, or the sorry looking desert plants, or the crumbling rock walls? Maybe its just that I am really, freaking hungry, so much that I am starting to feel light-headed. I begin to drag. I wish I could run around with energy and excitement like Pancake. I never thought, in my life, I would wish to run around like a pancake. We continue to follow the rock pile trail, but we don't really see anything that I would describe to someone as a "pedestal". There are some nice, sparse, clusters of wildflowers here and there. The sun is getting low in the sky and the shadows are getting long. We decide to head back.  I trudge, my feet feeling like heavy weights, my arms dangling. The car seems so far away. My blood sugar level must be low? But we make it eventually. Pancake is very thirsty and Becki gives whatever water she has left. I am famished as we head back. I am excited for some food.

Tonight we are eating out in the only restaurant in Bullfrog, an establishment which is not open in the winter. The three of us pile into Mike's truck with an additional guest, their neighbor, Chris. After the very, very short ride to the Lodge, we sit at a nice window seat for dinner, the huge Lake Powell, like an enormous trough, below us. Chris, with his baseball hat on, sits across from me in his rather worn and very casual clothes. Chris is from, well, I don't remember where he is from, maybe he didn't tell me, but he was born in Southern California and he decided that he is a Seattle Seahawks fan. He kind of has an accent and he likes living in this remoteness, away from all the traffic and people. I guess he doesn't get bored here. I am beginning to really appreciate the variety of the San Francisco Bay area. If you want ocean, or redwoods, or oak forests, or mountains, or bare hills, or city streets you got it. There is variety in landscape, people, events, entertainment, dining, jobs and culture. But it does have lots of traffic and a very high cost of living. The fact that people like Chris really desire this environment intrigues me, I can really respect their want and need for this place. It is not a place where you just "end up" in. You are not here because your family is here or you grew up here. You come to Bullfrog because this is where you want to be. Why you stay here may be a different reason.

Our table is crowded with appetizers and dinner plates and we all eat large amounts of food. Then we go back to Becki's and prepare to watch the meteor shower. Tonight is supposed to be the best night for the meteors, although the best time is supposed to be at 3am. It is a bit unreasonable for Becki and Mike to stay up this late, so we head out again, to a side road away from the lights of Bullfrog and park ourselves in our campfire chairs with our faces towards the sky. The air is warm and the breeze is gentle. We see satellites and airplanes. We see meteors of varying degrees of brightness and spectacular-ness. Some look like dimly glowing, distant baseballs that seem to appear out of nowhere and then disappear. Some look like huge, glittering streaks of white fire, larger than any star and streak across the whole sky.

A Meteor Over Bullfrog

I love stars, they are so magical for me. Stargazing leaves me in awe. The world seems so over-explained, labeled and categorized in so many ways, that we forget to regard its beauty and even though the stars can be approached from a very scientific perspective, but it doesn't matter to me, they never fail to leave me without words to describe them. On this night, the Milky Way stretches its arm across the moonless sky in a magnificent splendor, creating the most amazing cathedral ceiling for the world. Yet at the same time you wonder, if the night sky can be this spectacular, what other amazing things have we yet to discover or see or experience beyond this? Surely, It must exist. And not knowing what It is, that It is yet to be known, leaves me with excited hope and a sense of divinity so great, that I can not help feeling supremely joyful that there is so much more to this world, to my world, to my experience of the world, than they thoughts in my head.

The Night Sky at 3am

We watch the sky until Becki is falling asleep and our necks can't take anymore. Back at the house, I set the alarm on my cell phone for 3am. When that hour comes I go out the the front of Becki's house and gaze at the sky again. There is a meteor a minute, more like the baseball kind, originating from all different parts of the sky. It comes from so far away, traveling for thousands of years, then it appears in our sky for a brief second, and someone might witness it, or not, and then it is done, gone, extinguished forever.

Summer Road Trip - Lake Powell

This part of Utah is full of orange and blue. The dirt and rock here is a deep orange, painted on canyon walls and large, rounded, rock formations. The blue comes from the amazing water of Lake Powell below and from the far stretching sky above. This is the Land of Orange and Blue.
After relaxing the morning away, Becki had arranged for me to go kayaking on Lake Powell, so after lunch I went down to the marina.

A young man helped me with my kayak and I set off into the orange walled lake. The sun was hot but the splashing of the water kept me cool. The sky was alive, brilliant blue dotted with white puffy clouds. Becki had warned me about unusual thunderstorms and said if I saw a dark cloud appear at the end of the canyon I should head back toward the marina immediately. I passed a few gatherings of rocky beaches, but mostly I was enclosed in the canyon walls and rounded rock formations. I was in search of some smaller canyons that were fabled to snake inland, creating narrow hallways of water and rock, places to be explored only by small boats or kayaks. I rounded the bend, around the beehive rock formation and in the distance I saw a large mass of cloud spilling over the west side of the canyon wall. My sunglasses are tinted yellow, so I took them off to scrutinize the color of this cloud. It was light gray, not the shade of darkness that I would expect of a storm and it really was quite far off, so I kept going. I thought, even if it did storm it was so far off in the distance it could not possibly affect me. Then I saw, like a long finger, a stream of distant rain, reaching down toward the land. Eventually, it would reach down over the water and whoever, or whatever, was underneath it would be rained on. But it was so far away.

As I watched this cloud sneak its way east over the water. It was so far away, it was raining somewhere. Then, in a suddenness I was not expect an incredibly long zig zagged flash of lightning bolted down, wherever it hit, I don't know, it was out of sight. I filled with fear and distress. What if it hit the water? How far does the electricity from lightning travel in the water? I went through my brain searching for the school lesson about lightning and water. I knew if you were swimming you should get out. But wasn't that because you were probably touching the bottom? What about boats? They aren't touching the bottom, are they okay if electricity passes through the water? Plus they sit on top of the water, they are only partly in it. Is it only swimmers who need to worry? Here I am sitting on top of the water in a plastic kayak. Is this safe? Could I be in danger? How far does electricity travel. All of these thoughts passed through my mind in a matter of seconds. At the end of those seconds, or second, I made a right turn and headed, with a vengeance, to the closest rocky shore. I certainly wasn't going to test the physics of electricity today.

I paddled as hard as I could to the shore. There were a couple of houseboats docked along the side and next to them, a few tents. I pulled my boat completely out of the water and stood on this isolated bit of rocky beach, dotted with tall growing green weeds and I watched the storm in the distance. The storm seemed to gather darkness at its bottom, its top was still innocently fluffy and white. I watched as the finger of rain grew and thickened into a larger mass. I looked behind me, to the other end of the canyon where it was bright and cheerful and storm-free.

When I felt like the storm was safely over land, I got back in my kayak. I surveyed the sky in all directions. Hmm... there was a mass of clouds gathering, which seemed like the might peek over the canyon wall and display themselves directly over the marina, directly over Bullfrog. Was it really something to worry about? Those clouds looks so innocent. But I had no idea what was in store as they traveled closer since I could not see over the high, distant, canyon wall. Maybe I should head back, play it safe? Maybe I am being too cautious, I tend to do this. Maybe I am making something out of nothing. I keep my eye on it as I paddle out into the lake. The clouds were moving quickly. Actually, this is starting to look like that other cloud, the storm cloud. I would hate to kayak for such a short time. Maybe I could paddle away from it and I could miss this storm? Could I paddle fast enough, away from the marina and avoid this storm too? I looked in that direction, but it looked like maybe more clouds were coming from over there too, well... maybe. Logic spoke to me, "Kathleen," it said, "this looks like a storm could be approaching. You don't know. You don't know if you can outrun it. You don't know, if you do outrun it, if another storm wouldn't follow that one. Then you will be very far away and you will be stuck there. That could be dangerous. That would be dangerous. It is not worth the risk."
So, I turned back towards the marina, angry with myself. Why was I angry with myself? Because I felt like I was not a risk taker, I was submissive, I was a slave to my common sense and logic. But I went back anyway, my paddling conflicted as I did not want to admit that I was returning out of logic, or that I might still have a chance to go further away and explore when the storm did not appear. But then, over the horizon, I saw, not a finger of a rain cloud reaching toward the horizon, but a whole hand, two hands worth of rain fingers. Holy Crap, I thought, that looks bad.

Before I knew it, the storm was rushing in on me, closing in fast. I paddled with intensity, focusing only on my mechanics to make myself move stronger, faster, more efficient. Occasionally I broke my concentration to observe the progress of the storm. This propelled me faster and harder. I was out of breath, my muscles were pulling as hard as I could. I leaned into it, I pulled I used my arms, my back, everything I could. As I approached the marina dock I saw the young guy who had helped me put my kayak into the water. He appeared there like he had been searching the water for my bright yellow kayak and now I was here and he was glad to get me out. When I pulled up and got out, we lifted the boat out of the water and he took my lifejacket and paddle. "You came back just in time. Do you want to call Becki to come get you?" he said.

Normally I would have walked to two miles back to her house. "Yes," I said, "I better not take my chances in a thunderstorm." It had started to gently rain. I went into the marina office and someone was calling Becki at work. I had not been inside the building for a full minute before the storm unleashed itself. Rain came down so hard and loud I thought it couldn't possible just be rain. Sure enough, it wasn't, it was hail. It hailed for several minutes while the thunder and lightning continued to do its thing. Eventually the hail stopped and the rain continued and even then, that started to relax a little. The thunder seemed less frequent when I saw Becki pull up across the marina in her car. I would have to run across the thin, wet walkway across the water to get to her. I made a run for it.
"You made me drive in hail!" Becki exclaimed, jokingly. When I got back to the house and Becki took off for work, I surveyed the sky. It looked like another storm was right behind. But this time I got my little video camera, my voice recorder and my camera out to capture the sights and sounds of the thunderstorm.

After Becki got home from work, she made dinner and we hung out. We went down to the ferry dock and swam in the water and talked. We threw the ball out into the lake to Pancake who swam out there in a hysteric fit of joy and swam back, too excited and too out of breath. The sun was going down quickly and it started to get cool.

Then we went up to the one and only restaurant and had some dessert while the sun went down over the lake. I had Snickers pie, yum. In the evening we sat out in her backyard and watched the sky, looking for meteors. The grand finale of this meteor shower was supposed to appear the next night. Mike came home and a neighbor came over. Here in Bullfrog, you not only work with your co-workers, but you live amongst them too. There is no escaping. Becki went to bed and Mike and I talked and listened, in silence, to the sound of the crickets.

Summer Road Trip - Driving to Southern Utah

I don't know what I am doing with this travel writing. Maybe it is just for me. I think there are clues in there trying to tell me something. Maybe it is desperate self-discovery disguised as travel writing. Maybe I am just hoping to live my days between vacations by the well-documented memories of my last adventure. If you think I doubt myself all the time, I do not, but I certainly question my actions, my sanity, the validity of my time here.
I awoke at 3am to prepare for my departure. Sadly, I said goodbye to Therese and then "Susan", my brother-in-law, drove me one hour away to the Syracuse airport. Here I will digress to talk about "Susan". I was talking with Therese and "Susan" one night when I mentioned I was writing a travel blog about my trip.
"So, you are going to talk about your time in New York?" Susan asks.
"Yup," I reply.
"Are you going to use my real name, or are you going to change it?" Susan asks, kind of jokingly.
"Well, I was going to use your real name, but I don't have to, if you don't want me to." I say.
"What do you mean? You might change someone's name and use something else instead, like 'Susan'?" Therese asks.
"Sure, just like 'Susan'. I can change Jason's name to 'Susan'!" I say.
We all laughed. That is how I came to have a brother-in-law named "Susan".

Approaching Salt Lake City from the airplane

When I arrived in Salt Lake City I managed to get an airport shuttle service to take me to my car, which was parked at my friend Mandy's house. I chatted with the driver on the way out, he seemed friendly. I asked him if he had heard any news about catching the escaped convict that had been hiding out in Yellowstone. He said he thought they caught one of the three guys that escaped but two of them were still on the lose. This led to discussions about the death penalty and how a man had been put to death by firing sqaud in Utah only a few months ago.
"I think in Delaware you can still opt to be put to death by hanging." I say.
"Really? That's crazy." he says. Yes, it is.
"Well this was a cheery conversation" I say. He laughs.

Before I left my car at Mandy's house, I had rearranged my camping stuff and organized the things I needed to take to New York. One thing I had left in my car was propane for my backpacking stove. I brought the gas from home because I thought I might have to use it for the stove in Yellowstone, but for some reason I brought all four of my little propane tanks on my trip. I don't know what I was thinking, there was NO way I was going to use all of them, or even all of one of them. But I did, and when I was reading the label before closing my car up at Mandy's it said, "Do not leave in direct sunlight. Do not expose to temperatures over 120 degrees." I packed them carefully where they would never see the light of day in my car. But, minutes before we left for the airport, while we were admiring that amazing rainbow left over from their recent thunderstorm, Mandy told me that the temperature in Salt Lake City can easily get to a hundred degrees. Well, that's twenty degrees below 120 degrees. While I was on the plane, flying to JFK, I started thinking. If my dark purple car is sitting out in direct sun in hundred degree weather all day, I'm sure the inside of the car can get to 120 degrees. Oh my god, what would happen then? Would my car blow up? Would it ignite the gas in the gas tank and become a huge, flaming fire ball? I just bought that car a couple of weeks ago, that's thousands of dollars thrown away. I would lose all that money. My insurance would not cover it. Worse, when it blew up it might injure someone! And, my car is parked in front of a playground. It could blow up and hurt of one the children, maybe even kill them. Maybe it will hurt or kill someone in Mandy's family. I could not live with myself. I could just imagine the police questioning me, "Were you aware that the propane tank was not supposed to get over 120 degrees? Did it ever cross your mind that the interior of your car might get that hot?"
I would have to confess that it did cross my mind. "Then why didn't you do anything about it?" they would say. Oh and why didn't I? Because I would have had to FedEx my keys overnight to Mandy and have to ask her to dig four propane tanks out of the back of my hatchback. I could have taken every precaution. I was going to go to jail for negligence. The whole thought stream seemed crazy, so, I tried to let it go. But I was sweating bullets. When I got to New York, I checked the weather forecast for Salt Lake City, it was supposed to be in the mid-eighties. I felt relieved, but I kept checking my cell phone, waiting to get a call from Mandy telling me that my car blew up. Then, I realized the propane tanks probably wouldn't blow up, and they probably wouldn't ignite a fire, they would probably just start to leak. But I will say, when I did see my car, sitting outside her house, completely intact, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. The only thing different about my car was that it now looked like a dalmation, dust build up and rain drops had made it spotted.

Highway 6

I ran into Mandy on her way out with all her kids. She was holding her one-year old, Elinor, so cute with light blonde hair and amazingly deep blue eyes. Elinor looked at me, no, she stared at me. What was she thinking? When an adult stares, or even just looks, our life experience makes us judge. We almost can't help it. We see a person and make dozens of tiny judgments. How do they dress? What does that say about them? Are they thin or overweight? Are they ugly or attractive? Do they look smart? Trustworthy? What do they do for a living? Are they rich or poor? Responsible? Honest? Kind? Mean? Am I better than them? Do I approve of you? Will they try to hurt me? On and on it goes. This judgment is harsh, even when it is kind, because you can not possibly know a person with one glance. Or can you? We even judge ourselves! But with little Elinor, when she looked at me with her round, blue, one-year old eyes, she could not possibly have these thoughts. She was seeing Me, whoever that was, without the judgments. To know me without judgment may be to know me better than I know myself.
START: 1384 miles.
I am back on I-15, driving south, getting away from the highway construction and congestion of Salt Lake City. Then I am free from the interstate, on Highway 6, driving through mountains of gray rock, made green by the shrubbery and trees. It gets more and more remote as I wind along the road heading southeast. It becomes lush and the mountains flatten out a bit and the gray rock starts to mix with red rock. Puffy white clouds appear in the smog-free, blue sky. Such a contrast from the hazy, muggy skies I had last seen in New York.

I am missing Therese terribly already, in fact, I am missing my whole family. But even with all this homesickness, or whatever it is that is not homesickness, I do not want to move back east. I don't know what it is called, but part of me feels lost and missing. I don't know what is. I miss Paul too, but I think because I know I will see him soon, I do not miss him as much. Or, it is like I am missing parts of myself and I leave them in different places and one of those places may now be far, far away.

I drive up a long, not too steep hill and just over the top, the landscape changes drastically, from lush and green to dry, thinned out vegetation, exposing bare rock. The road sweeps through turns of red rock valleys. I drive up, I drive down, I drive along train transporting things to far off places, and the road descends softly into a valley below me.

I wonder if I can just forget myself, part of me wants to, and just melt into this world, into the landscape. Who would I be? What would I be? What would I love? What would love me? Would I love it all? What things about me would I forget? Would there be anything to remember? What would be left?

What would be left.

Crumbling Mountains

The mountains become rounded and after a long time, they begin to crumble. They are crumbling from the side, or the base, they are becoming canyons. It looks as if they have given up trying to hold their youthful form. Is that the fate of all mountains? Will they all, one day, crumble in a way that they form canyons, like the bottom of the world fell out from under them? What ages them? Is it time, is it worry, is it wear? Perhaps they were never made strong enough to begin with, to keep them from crumbling through the ages, they could not withstand. Is it that we are like mountains or mountains are like us? Or, do we just find comfort in the company of aging? Is it not just a human condition, but an earthly condition?

Travel might be like an acquaintance, where you skim the surface of knowing. Home is like family, you go deeper, more is invested. But even to our surface, things of importance will rise, waiting to be skimmed off the top. Acquaintances may say or do something casual that changes our life forever, because at that moment, it has floated to the top of our consciousness. With family, like home, we can have closer, more intimate relationships. But with family we have a history, a history that may blind us from ever learning anything new. When all the excitement and surface politeness of travel are skimmed off the top, we can go home and dig in again and see what we pull up, all kinds of crazy things, but it changes, and changes how it looks to you and how you feel. Digging and skimming changes you because maybe it makes you more of who you are. And maybe not.

Here the canyons don't seem to drop below you, but rise up next to you. As they spread out behind me I drive through a small town, one after another, more populated than the one before. There are old buildings, falling apart with some new ones, well kept. Everything is simple, even when cluttered at times. I guess when you have a lot of space, your clutter can spread out and fill more spaces. It becomes drier and the trees become more sparse, yet there is a sweetness in the air that I can not place. It lasts just a minute and then its gone. There are large piles of dry dirt that become mountains.

I don't feel like going back to San Francisco, although I miss Paul terribly. I don't feel like going back east, although I miss my family terribly. I want to be on the road, but I don't want to be lonely. I want to be alone and for this, I feel guilty. I don't want to go forward, I don't want to go back but I don't want to stay where I am. I don't know what I want, but part of me feels like it does know. Highway 6 meets Interstate 70. A sign says, "Next gas 100 miles." There are no other cars in sight.

I am only on the interstate for eight miles before I exit for state highway 24. Green shrubbery pops up around me, some of it as tall as me, as canyonlands appear ahead. I like these wide open spaces, because they make me feel like I too am wide open. It cracks me open, but I don't want to stay too long, I will feel too open, too exposed, too extreme. The landscape flattens out and fills with sagebrush. The road ahead of me is long. In the distance, along the road are some rockpiled mountains with puffy clouds beginning to get hazy along the horizon. Highway 24 becomes Highway 95.

From across the desert, the mountains approached, taking on the appearance, from a distance, as green mountains. Closer, I realized that this was just an illusion of the color of the rock, large tumbling boulders, and these mountains were not covered in trees. Highway 95 became 273, my last stretch before Bullfrog, Utah. The sagebrush was many brilliant greens.

The mountains broke down into shallow canyons and the road took me through them. Then the canyons walls spread out and rounded, mellowing.

Mellow does not last and the mountains rise again. This continues for many, many miles, like canyons chasing mountains, the landscape never quite sure if it is rising or falling. Maybe it wants to be neither and like me, it is not content with choosing.

The sun is getting low in the sky, throwing large, looming shadows across the landscape. But at last, the last of the landscape of this day will win out and the rolling orange-read, smooth mounds take the prize. This is the landscape of Bullfrog.

Bullfrog, Utah is situated within federally owned park land of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. You must pay the National Park Service a fee to enter. It sits above Lake Powell, a reservoir of the Colorado River. There are, I think, about 200 permanent residents in this community, In the summer, the total populations grows, because of the tourist season. Here, residents can never own land, because it is already owned by the government, it is like living in a park. There are no traffic lights, for hundreds of miles. There is a boat marina, a gas station, a convenience store, a lodge, a restaurant, a small school, a health clinic and an airstrip. There may be a postal office as well. All of these things are spread out across three roads. You can see everything all around you. There are no tall trees, there are hardly any trees. Everyone there is there because they are somehow involved in the tourism of the area. If you don't work in hospitality, you work for the park service and a scarce few, work as support services for these things and the residents. Tourists come from miles away with their motorboats and houseboats and go out on to the lake. Some of them camp at night in the campground. The nearest real grocery store is three hours away. It is a unique place. People here are unique too, they love the remoteness from people, crowds and congestion. This is not to say that anyone loves crowds and congestion, but the people here seem to go to extremes to avoid it, giving up many of the luxuries that we take for granted in metropolitan areas. You can not get lost in Bullfrog, all roads lead to the lake, ending, unless you take the ferry across the water. Only one real road leads out.
My friend Becki has lived here for seven years, which boggles my mind. Becki is my closest, dearest and best friend from college, where she majored in hospitality. She lives in Bullfrog with her boyfriend, Mike and her dog, Pancake. It was good to see her.
I am in the smooth, orange rock desert of southern Utah. Yesterday I was in French-speaking Montreal. How miraculous, that in the span of one day, we can become so far away.
END: 1762 miles.

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