Hello friends!
For a moment, let's return to early October 2020. We don't need to linger there long, because it was awful. But just in case you blacked it out in your own mind, allow me to summon the mood. We were still about six months out from vaccines—even the president had Covid then. Fires in the West had just brought our pandemic outdoor summer to an end, cloaking Portland with smoke for days. This was after the city had already been smothered with tear gas from a season of protests. Seeking escape, Chris and I lined up a dog sitter, piled our camping gear in my Subaru and headed to the national parks of Utah.
Among the places we camped was a tiny, beautiful creekside National Forest campsite near Boulder, Utah. We chatted there with fellow campers who returned year after year to bicycle the backroads. We told them we wanted to visit Arches National Park in Moab while we were in the area, but as usual …