River Notes

Caution: Objects may be moving in more than one direction

A free-range life requires nimble adaptation for perpetual unknowns. This often includes dry spells where nothing happens, except rejections. Since Path of Light was published three years ago, my creative and personal life has been under construction. All plans have been drawn up in the sand, as I navigated multiple possibilities, never with the intention for it all to happen. Then, without warning, a flood.

There is still caution tape across the scene, but I will share more about the business I am launching (yikes!) and dreamy anthology I am contributing to soon. I need to wear a PFD at my desk to stay afloat. Better still, to paddle away…

Last week, Aaron and I commuted 200 miles, half on dirt roads plus fifteen miles packrafting the Colorado River, to fill two grocery carts with provisions. Rural Utah will make you a prepper regardless of faith or political persuasion, especially when you run out of beer. The cashiers at Walmart asked if we were going on a long river trip. Yes, no, always.

My dry bags are packed for back-to-back business trips with the necessary tools––a camera and a printed copy of my manuscript draft.

See you downstream!

Morgan

River Notes

Watershedding circus essentials:

My RIVERSIDE manuscript is travelling the Green River with me!

Comment if you can guess the literary and historical inspirations for both swimsuits!

Supermarket commute. Aside from occasional motorboat traffic we enountered desert big horn sheep, condors, and trout.

There is nothing better than devouring a book in one river trip. I so look forward to Rebecca Lawton’s forthcoming memoir.

I’ve been running while listening to Bridget Crocker’s brave memoir, The River’s Daughter. Crocker reads the audiobook, which is such a treat!

As we bumped our way home from Walmart along the 48-mile road, we lamented that Garfield County is, as we speak, chip-sealing the iconic Hole-in-the-Rock road. I spent a well-wasted hour writing an essay drawing from my experience walking most of the route for Path of Light. Then I looked at my writing to-do list with an imminent river sabatical, and thought better of it. Perhaps I will resurrect it later.

The brain rattling from the washboards ensures you stop to enjoy the sunset over Hole-in-the-Rock road.

I will leave this here: long live the dirt roads that remind us of this region’s complicated human and geological history. These bumpy roads remain portals, for tourists and locals, that affirm the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Glen Canyon landscapes retain a uniquely rugged and wild nature that needs ongoing protection.

For inspiration, please listen to Edward Abbey’s 1988 speech to Univeristy of Utah students about Garfield County’s ongoing efforts to destroy the primitive nature of the wildest lands remaining in Utah.

Thank you, Wayne Belcher, for sending me a heavy armload of old USGS hydrological reports. These helped me make a big editorial (and field reporting) decision this week!

My Dad gives me wine from grapes grown where I grew up in Southern California, so I can always drink a glass of home terroir. That is, a touch of concrete with ephemeral rivers, sea breeze, Mojave minerals, and sunshine. This week’s deadlines warranted the extra liquid support!

The office. If Wifi can find me, the stories don’t.

There are still a few spots open on a Glen Canyon Institute Cataract Canyon trip June 11-15. The trip is already a good group size, so I am not trying to hawk tickets, but I can promise a good time if you find an opening in your schedule.