The road to hell is not paved....

I have an adventurous husband. No gravel road is safe from his exploration. It’s one of the things that I love most about him, he’s always willing to take the path less traveled. If I say, “I wonder what’s down that road?” he’ll say “I don’t know, let’s find out”. Every vacation exposes us to new wonders. My magic word when we explore is “stop”. And he will. He's ALWAYS a good time. Before we met, I had taken very few vacations; time and money constraints kept me at home. Since our first vacation, we’ve seen waterfalls, animals, lakes, oceans, monuments, deserts, tall trees, twisted trees, mesas, rivers, miles of sunflowers, corn without end, wheat, and really good restaurants. And… we’ve seen Utah. I single Utah out because we found the road to hell there. No lie. We had been looking for the Scott M. Matheson Nature Preserve in Moab, Utah. Our directions were less than stellar. We turned right by the McDonald’s onto a blacktop road with a mountain on the left and a river on the right. Down the road, around the corner, further and further until the blacktop ran out and we were on gravel. Around and around, down and down, and around and down. Over a dry creek bed, around the corner and into a rock canyon. Miles and miles of rock at 5 miles per hour until we realized if we broke down out there, our bones would be scattered by coyotes before we were found. At that point, there was barely room to turn around, but he did. And back we crept. Miles and miles at 5 miles per hour, around the corner and over the dry creek bed, up, around, up and up, around and around and onto the blacktop. There, facing us, was the sign for the Scott M. Matheson Nature Preserve. We’ve never been able to figure out why the sign was facing in a direction that few people would ever be traveling. Having discovered the Nature Preserve, we were captivated and visited several times. We would like to return to Utah, but we’ll wait until fall. It was 116 degrees while we were there in July. You could burn your hands opening your car door. It was too hot to breathe and I was totally miserable. We started going out very early in the morning, going back to the hotel room about 11:00, I would nap, then we would go out again in the late afternoon. My husband spent his Navy years as a boilerman, working with the giant boilers that run an aircraft carrier so the heat didn’t seem to bother him. I remember at one point telling him if one more person said “but it’s a dry heat”, I was going to tear out their throat with my teeth. Wish I had some of that heat right now. We received about four inches of new snow last night and it’s still snowing.