120 Hours

Day 1: Groggy after a late night of RV doctoring with Jason (installing a new battery and an alternator), Brandon chauffeured us west toward Mesa Verde National Park in the southwest corner of Colorado. The little girls watched eagerly at the windows for “purple mountain majesty,” but the rest of us were preoccupied with home. We were determined to take one final road trip together, the northwest loop we had delayed last fall because of forest fires. However, our minds had already moved on to the next thing–resuming the routine of school and church and work. It was hard to leave Lubbock. That first night in the campground, we snapped and grumbled in the hot, cramped RV and wondered, some of us quite loudly, why we were still doing this.

Day Two: Scaling wooden ladders and squeezing through rock tunnels to visit cliff dwellings helped revive our sense of adventure.

Ancient Puebloans lived in the Four Corners region for about 1500 years, but they only inhabited these cliff houses for about eighty years before migrating to other regions.

Once we started to unwind, we grew friendlier towards each other, and I remembered a “why” of these trips that is more satisfying than any of the learning moments I’m always struggling to organize; we enjoy each other. I tend to stay focused on the schedule of activities I have planned, and I get antsy when the morning prep drags on or when everyone wants to hang out around the campsite instead of attending an evening ranger program. Brandon keeps me at bay, hoping I’ll eventually notice the richness of the relaxed family banter. It’s hard for me to recognize because the talk is mostly debates about the legitimacy of various comic book heroes or lengthy arguments over which Disney princess a sibling most resembles. When I’m willing to drop my agenda for a little while, I realize how funny the kids are, each in his own style, and how much I like them.

An artistic rendering of the first 600 miles of our trip

Day Three: Next, we traveled through the Martian landscape of southern Utah. We watched 127 Hours, the gruesome story of a climber who amputated his own arm after it was pinned between a boulder and the wall of a remote slot canyon in a Utah park. This is not necessarily a family movie night recommendation; we hoped the kids would remember the cautionary tale as they scrambled over high, rocky places as if they were invincible. (Jane was practically a teenager before she caught even a glimpse of the scary witch in Sleeping Beauty; now Nan declares proudly that her favorite part of the movie was all the blood.)

Delicate Arch at Arches National Park (Viewed from a distance since we were to wimpy to tackle the 3 mile “march to the arch” in 100 degree heat.)

Balanced Rock, which weighs around 3500 tons

I tried to stay calm as I watched one child after another disappear over a high ridge above me. It’s the conundrum of the helicopter parent; I want the exhilaration of adventure and exploration for them, but in a careful, antiseptic way, so as to avoid any injury!

Day Four: In Salt Lake City, we enjoyed a reunion with Matt and Michelle Salada, friends we hadn’t seen since we lived in Nashville, and their son Miles. It’s funny to hear other Southerners describe the transition to western living. They echoed our longings for various elements of the old home while appreciating refreshing aspects of the new.

Temple Square in downtown SLC

On the road, we listened to Unveiling Grace, the story of former Brigham Young University professor Lynn Wilder’s thirty years in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is a helpful book for someone like me, who never knew any Mormons growing up, but is now surrounded by friends and family members who are LDS, and who wants to understand the cultural and doctrinal distinctives of the LDS church. Wilder finds herself in the uncomfortable position of having to entrust her child to God when the exercise of his young-adult independence seems to be dividing him from his family. It’s a theme of this trip, rightly managing the panic that erupts in my belly every time my children cross some invisible boundary I’ve set, whether I’m anticipating a misstep on the steep mountain trail in front of us or considering the looming separation that college will bring in a few weeks.

If southern Utah is Mars, then the terrain around the Great Salt Lake is the Moon. Driving over the long causeway to Antelope Island, which is in a corner of the vast dying lake, ghostly clouds of salt blew across the white flats all the way to the horizon. The state park maintains a parking lot with showers for visitors, but getting down to the water is not for the faint of heart. We dashed across hot sands, stumbled through rocky exposed lake bed, and tiptoed through a graveyard of tiny brine shrimp before stepping into the chilly water. Once we waded in, though, it was marvelous to find ourselves effortlessly bobbing like corks.

It’s all fun and games until you swallow a mouthful of salt.

Day Five: In what will probably be recalled as the VERY BEST STOP ON THE WHOLE TRIP, we spent several hours in Preston, Idaho, scouting out film locations from Napoleon Dynamite, a family favorite. Giddy, and communicating primarily in quotes from the movie, we drove up and down the streets of the little town and out into the surrounding countryside, occasionally pausing for a photo.

We read online that a local farmer, Dale Critchlow, was persuaded by his neighbor, director Jared Hess, to participate in the movie, and Critchlow welcomes visitors to stop by his home to chat about his role. We had to pay him a visit. When it came down to knocking on the door of a stranger’s house in the middle of nowhere, we felt a little sheepish, but Mr. Critchlow cheerfully donned the hat and shirt of Farmer Lyle and came out to meet us. He’s still farming at 86-years-old, and he’s still full of the same sage advice he offered Kip and La-Fawnduh while presiding over their movie wedding. Hearing that Jane is headed to college, he cautioned, “I hope you’ll go for more than the recreation. If you just go for recreation, you won’t get much out of it.” She’s thinking of cross-stitching that piece of wisdom on a pillow for her dorm room.