Jun. 05, 2005 - 20:57 MDT

BIGGER THAN MANY COUNTRIES

An ideal way to spend a summer's afternoon. A fourth birthday party for a great-grandson of ours. What really made it neat was that it was held in the Phantom Pavilion at Lakeside Amusement Park here in Denver. The pavilion is in Kiddie Land, sheltered from rain (there wasn't any) and open to passing zephyrs. We all had been provided with tickets, those who wished to take any of the rides could exchange their ticket for a little cord bracelet "free ride for the day" type thing.

One nice thing was that we were right next to the ride that was a favorite of mine when I was a kid. Of course there are many of my memories of the past attached to that park. As a kid, it went like this, hold back carfare and pop money, spend the rest on rides, the last one being a ticket to the fun house. On departure there was a place across the street where a cold drink could be had for the normal going price, much cheaper than one had to pay in the park. Then, if I miscalculated and only had money for a drink or carfare of course the drink won out and Momma's little boy walked across town, about five miles. And Mom used to wonder how I could wear out soles so quickly. In many ways carfare was found money for me, it had so many other uses.

Heather and I finally bid the family goodbye and headed out. We weren't the first to leave and left in good order and graces.

While Heather was putting together a lunch for us at home I unpacked the seat cushion and pillows for our new swing and installed them. We ate green salad, chicken, the potato salad I love along with cold drink and potato chips. Mine were, as near as I can remember what the commercial called them years ago, "Ruffles With Ridges," being more to the mile and thickness too.

Then we went out to the swing and settled in. Heather with her part of the Sunday paper as well as the ads and I with a book I have been drooling over since I got it at a garage sale.

The Book : Canyons And Mesas -- The American Wilderness/Time Life Books -- by Jerome Doolittle with photographs by Wolf Von Dem Bussche. Published in 1974, revised in 1977 --- Library Of congress catalog number 74-77772. Is written about a part of our country I have had the pleasure to see part of, some of it while passing through and some while I was working in that area.

Canyonlands, The Colorado Plateau. A vast part of our country in four states, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Utah. A land where spit is a welcome drench to a thirsty plant. An area mostly desertified to a greater and lesser extent. Green areas in there are few and far between. A place where many Oater movies have been made, Mounument Valley. John Ford's movie "Stagecoach" was shot there, George Stevens shot "The Greatest Story Ever Told," there too, using that locale as ancient Palestine.

I guess because even the Denver area and surrounding plains has been more or less a high desert before settled by palefaces and teeth gritting on blown dust from the drought during the Great Depression and my Grandmother living on the edges of the area, my love for this type of country has been ever with me.

I am no expert of geology, botany, zoology or history as far as that goes -- so that might just qualify me as an arm-chair expert on the desert southwest.

My memories began early riding in our car to see my Grandmother in New Mexico, the smell of sagebrush, the unbelievably wide and limitless view of scenery and sky, red earth and rocks here and there. Not too many farms down that way then, some ranches but the livestock was runtry compared to what I saw in later life when living in Illinois. Jackrabbits galore though. The air so clear that one felt they could see to the other end of the earth and tried to.

Then as the changing light of eventide occurred there was a kind of bluish cast to the view until full dark arrived.

Along the way in New Mexico I would see buildings of adobe brick with the clay ovens next to them. Something far different than what I would see in Denver. There were no lawns or flower gardens, bare earth mostly with a few weeds in the less traveled parts of the yard.

Sagebrush everywhere and some cedar brush mixed in here and there. The sheer rock face of mesas and accompanying slope (about 45 degrees) of talus at the base, once seen never forgotten.

Much of what I saw as a kid was on the outskirts of the actual desert county, but it was arid enough that we carried water with us. I do remember the sign not too far from Grand Junction, Colorado on the way to Green River, Utah that said, "No services, fuel or water for the next 110 miles," or wording to that effect.

Ah but Nature supplied me with sights of grandeur in all its fairystory surreality in all my travels in and around the area. Each sight more fascinating than the one just passed.

The country in and around St. George, Utah and Zion National Park became fairly familiar to me as I worked on Hurricane Mesa (Lower Smith) just above the hamlet of Virgin, Utah for a period of time. Through the generosity of a Mormon young man who worked up on the mesa with us, both of his time, effort and 4WD Jeep we were taken into places that the ordinary tourists wouldn't see, also I did the book bit about that area and gained an idea of just how difficult it was to survive there back in the early days.

Appreciation of just how easy most of us have it nowadays is given me from finding out how it was back then in that part of the world.

New Mexico has the tag, "The Land Of Enchantment," but I think the whole Canyonlands area should be titled thus.

The Colorado Plateau is no small place, encompassing 150,000 square miles. I love every inch of it, although survival for me there would be impossible, it exists in my dreams, still and evermore. An area so vast that it is BIGGER THAN MANY COUNTRIES . . . . . . . .

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