pipe dream

My new back-up plan is to move to Moab, mostly because I like the public library, a place so inviting it leaves me hungry for words.

I wake up in the night to read Larry McMurtry in my sleeping bag cave. The space is a little tight, but it keeps my fingers warm. When the sun sufficiently creeps over the snow peaked La Sals, I crawl out for coffee and a downhill ride to town.

At the library I pace the aisles. I madly scan titles, flipping through books, galvanized by Wallace Stegner and Terry Tempest Williams.

We haven’t seen a drop of rain since we crossed the border to Utah and sometimes we like it that way.

I wanted to race “The Other Half” marathon this weekend, but found out it cost $109 to run down a strip of highway. Instead, I ran the Slickrock mountain bike trail as fast as a I could. It was a great challenge, leaving my heart beating and my legs sore for two days. 

We planned to ride out of town yesterday afternoon. We planned to ride out of town this morning. Instead, I left the library on foot and ran for the hills. I followed a jeep road that paralleled a cliffside until it dead ended. Running back to the entrance, a trail marker for “The Pipe Dream” singletrack caught my eye. The trail ribbons up and down the cliffside. Nearly two hours later, I ran back to the library to share it.

I’m filling the last few pages of my european diary before I ship it home. I’m replacing it with a well worn 50¢ Tom Robbins paperback.

I feel like I’m in a story where I rode into town to buy some 3.2percent beer and woke up smiling eleven years later. 

It’s time to move on, but it feels like we’ll be back, if we ever do leave.