Moab: Filled With Genital Humor

Blake, a Boulder friend of mine, took me on a Jeep outing that ended before it began. After a bout of whining that he asked my roommate, not a Jeep person, first instead of me and was invevitably turned down by him, he offered to take me up to Left Hand Canyon, only a few short miles from home. We passed the canyon on that initial trip, thinking we would drive further into the mountains; however, we were met with a snow closed trail at the top. Driving back, Blake was too excited to be rational. He took the corners coming down from the pass with a little too much speed. He really wanted to get back to the LHC for some offroading madness. I should have said something. I was thinking it, but he was driving. This was not my car. The journey ended with a thankful kiss to the guard rail smashing his front bumper to shrapnel. The wheel cab hopped over the top from the 6 inch lift, settling us into a frontal hooked back tire spin without good enough traction no matter how deep we dug with that damned plastic shovel or how many branches we shoved underneath the rubbers. Needless to say, once we were pulled out by a passerby with a truck, that trip was over.

On the way home he made the offer for a bigger, better, and badder trip -

His buddies in the Mile-Hi Jeep Club - Patrol 2 were going for the week. Out of the 9 days he could only make the last section of it, the weekend. The first bit, which causes envious drool from the expository details of it, would be a full on back country trip for 5 days straight without towns or beer runs. What you had was what you had. It would be like backpacking with a Jeep to carry your equipment. Nice. Too bad we would miss it. The piece we would arrive upon would be tooling around on some close to city onstacles. Hesitantly, I accepted with a tentative to my schedule agreement. Eventually, I told him I would go under the condition that we camp the whole time. Not being much of a camper, he upped the ante by requesting I provide all of the tents and camp equipment. Since it is not as much fun to trip by yourself, I always keep extra supplies on hand including but not limited to tents, sleeping bags, bedrolls, backpacks, flashlights, and whatever else might be necessary. Thursday after work, we were on our way.

I expected dirt bikers and four wheelers pining for multiple strokes, jeeps with large nobbies and lift kits measured in inches, dune buggy conquistadors hitting the sandy bottoms of any canyon they can get their rods into, and every other sort of mechanized desert phallus symbolic dildo fun. Although I should have, based on these other expectations, I did not fully realize the sheer amount of penis affiliation associated with MOAB's arena. Every time you turn around downtown there is a dick joke waiting to happen. Two bars - Eddie "McStiff's" and "Woody's" Tavern were not nearly enough. We stayed at "King's Bottom" campsight, a homoerotic phrasing Blake assures me. He would know. These might be a little of a stretch (pun intended) but the construction company called "Le Grand Johnson Construction," I would say, is fairly blatant despite the French masking. Unfortunately no photos are provided to verify.

On Day One we rode the penis train of 4x4s embarking on their non-quest to make their mark by pointlessly damaging the ecosystem in the name of vehicular entertainment from the glory-ous Hole in the Rock, a bathroom pitstop with a heavy petting zoo. Four hours later we were on top of the Flat Iron Mesa via a trail called the Metal Masher. It was fun. I am glad it was not my car. There were no guard rails to save us this time. This guy we followed almost got a chance to see what his hood smelled like. Fortunately for him, I jumped out and grabbed his rear bumper above my head, pulling it back to the ground. My grip slipped. He wobbled right up to the breaking point of flip city. I grabbed it again, yelling for him to stay still because my feet were sliding on the loose sand to underneath his cab. By this time Blake and another driver joined me, one of them standing on the actual wheel. Vincent went to get a tow rope that we never needed. Our lost lamb found his way home. Did he thank us? Nope. Not me. There was too much testosterone in his veins. He busied himself worrying about where his son was most of the time and yelling at him to quit having fun. Fathers and sons should not offroad together. It is not like a having a beer together bonding experience unless you consider Irish wakes hospitable company.

Another family had similar tension when his boy took too long climbing over a difficult ridge. Surprisingly, even the mild mannered leader of the patrol got involved in the bitch-fest. "It's not a look at me day. We are all here to have some fun." Are you? Not right now. He isn't. Not anymore. He did take too long though in their defense. He should have quit when his left front tire bent parrallel to the frame or when he decided to take a hammer to the well to give that same tire more room to wiggle. Still, the attitude permeates the air to make everyone that much more on edge than the cost of repairs to get their primary vehicle back on the road has already made them.

Blake was nervous about the pings and clangs emnanting from the undercarriage on the rated "D" for "Damn!" ATV trails courtesy of Lattitude 40 Maps, the best damn topo maps ever. Honestly, I was done with, as I would later explain to Blake while ingesting the fluid of Eddie's Stiff Cock-Tails, the vast dusty shrubberies, monotonous landscapes, everyone wanting to show how big theirs was, and this dude constantly yelling "Connor" for the weekend after a single day. "Instead of wrecking up your vehicle more tomorrow on something called the Poison Spider, which will be the same scenery as today, we should go check out Arches." And we were both glad that we did.

Arches National Park gave revelation to the genital humor. For every single vaginal canyon, wind blown hole through stone, or natural arch monument to excavate their were ten fully erect masculine monoliths to grope.

We could hardly get out of the visitor center with our gutter minds.

We hiked every trail and some un-trails. The first was Park Avenue.

Note: Do not park at the entrance to Park Avenue. Skip the PA Viewing, get right on to the Organ (seriously I am not making this stuff up), and hitch with traffic going deeper and

At Balance Rock, some old lady yelled at me for climbing up it and trying to push it over, like I could, like anyone really could. . . . She grumbled, "If everybody who came to this park tried to do that, none of this would be here for us now." Like her? I would have loved to see that old bat get as high as I did. I fell down it just to make her happy. Later I found a sign validating my righteousness. Read the last line, beeyatch.

We ate apples in the Garden of Eden. This is in the Windows Section with many of the huge, popular Arches. Standing in the middle of them there is a certain energy that they convey. You have to be there to understand. Not the ones that anyone can get to because the trail leads right up to the red clay walls, but the ones you have to go off the beaten path, around some rocks, and up the side. One of them I let braver souls forage. The easy ones have it also. It is just a tad watery in them like American Christianity compared to standing out hundreds of feet up looking out across the weird martian landscape by yourself. Like I said, you have to be there. We managed to get everyone out of lens shot for a couple photos of the famous Double Arch. This one has one girl running to duck under some rocks. I would have grabbed another once she was adequately secure except some asshole with a bunch of kids decided he was done playing my game. Blake has those. I had to actually, physically go up there and kick everyone off. It was totally for their benefit also. We snapped our shots and left for the next.

Our last hike of the day was up to Delicate Arch. Jerry, Patrol 2s leader, suggested that and the Fiery Furnace were his two must-sees. His wife agreed. The Furnace needed reservations. I am saving that for next time. Delicate did not. The weather started getting dark on the way up to the viewpoint. We learned our lesson from Park Avenue, skip the first and start at the furthest. Plus, we needed a break from hiking through the Windows.

Blake and I met a couple on the trail, Erin and Roger. Somewhere they have pictures of us doing handstands in the center of the arch, a death defyingly precarious rock climbing maneuvre with a severe plunge, and a pagan Mayday ritual in the center of the bowl. I would have had those pics also, but my camera battery died. In case you were wondering though, the ritual worked. A mormon told me I should stay in Colorado a little longer, a stranger gave us beer and candy, and I climbed into a van for a quickie. What can I say? With all of these subliminal suggestions. . .

Leaving the park at sunset, we decided to move our tents to a back road near the remaining piece of the action. For further inquiry we hit up a coffee shop/ice cream parlor in the McStiff's plaza making us MOAB believers one lick at a time. We turned that place into a military situation war room blaring Pink Floyd with our Latitude 40 Maps (the best topo maps in the world) on the table prepping for our mission back into the desert, while Blake recharged his camera battery. I left that component at home. Iced herbal teas hydrated as well as caffeinated us for the sequel to our evening adventure.

If I had to do it all over again, I would start from the furthest back of the park, near the campgrounds and Landscape arch in Devil's Playground, working my way to the front Disneyland style. The primitive loop at that site was my favorite hike all vacation. Maybe it was because it happened in the morning on the day we left. Maybe because Blake stayed back at the car leaving me all by myself Maybe it had more secluded monuments that seemed to be there just for me. Maybe it was because you had to work to get to them. Maybe because they called it the Devil's Playground. Whatever. They let me play too. I loved it. Next time I go, I am starting there and making my reservations for High-Noon in the Furnace.

A couple times on the way home we took a few side trips to see what was down there. Compared to Arches, nothing compared. We ate lunch less than 500 feet from real live petrified dinosaur tracks and could not be bothered to walk that far to go look at them. We were done. It was time to pack it up and head for the hills that people commonly refer to as the Rocky Mountains. When we thought nothing more eventful could occur, that we would make it home before midnight, Vail Pass was closed due to inclement weather (wet, icy, windy, snow) and multiple vehicle pile ups. At least we didn't decide to spend the weekend on the Gulf Coast.