By Lance Hamlin
Preparation – As I lay down on my couch for the last time for nineteen days and think back on the last week or so. Most of the time was taken over by meeting and planning and all the other preparation for our trip. Our group started out as Mike McGinn, Ann Kohman, Justin Streeter, Lacey Landt, Josh Chowen, Marcelle Dorenkamp, Lance Hamlin, Phil Lynott and Chris Robertson. First Marcelle got sick and dropped out so our first alternate Mike Ennis got the opportunity to go. Next Lacey got sick so our second alternate, Emily Richards, was called to go. We all had our assignments and our gear and I don’t think there was one of us who could wait another day. I fell asleep that night with thoughts of deserts and rivers bouncing around in my head. At the last minute Emily got sick and couldn’t go, so our total group size, including Doug, ended up being nine.
Day 1 – After an uncomfortable fourteen hour drive we arrived at our first destination, Ogallala Nebraska. There we slept in a gymnasium of a school. We played basketball and hacky sac most of the night. Then some of us decided to pull a few big gym mats over to the wall and jump off the balcony onto them. A lot of fun until Lynott attempted. He came down a shade to the left of the mat. He came down hard on his ankle and hurt it pretty bad. At first Doug thought we might have to take Phil to the doctor but Phil kept saying he could handle it. So we all slept in the gym and hoped Lynott had a miraculous overnight healing.
Day 2 – We spent the day driving across Colorado today. I don’t think I can take much more of that van, although the scenery out the window was a lot better than Nebraska and Iowa. We ended up in a state park off some back roads outside of Grand Junction that night. First thing of course was to walk around and stretch. Lynott never had to go to the doctor but he had a big limp and moved at half the speed he usually did, which is quite slow in itself. We had a stroke of good fortune that night and a group of campers that had been fishing all day had way too many fish and gave us a dozen trout. Doug cleaned them up, fried them, and we all ate good that night.
Day 3 – We did a little driving today, nothing compared to the last two days. We ended up about fifty miles out from Moab, Utah at a road side campground called Hittle Bottom. The set up was a lot more primitive than our last site but our surroundings were much more interesting. Doug needed to go to town to buy some groceries for the next couple of days, so he took Lynott and left for Moab. This left the rest of us with about four hours to explore. We saw a bluff in the distance so we decided to trek there. Our distance perception was a bit off and it took us about the entire four hours to make it there and back. It was our first real walk through the desert. We saw lots of cactuses and loads of little lizards running everywhere. That night Melissa Quigley joined us. If you haven’t read this issue’s featured alumnus article, Melissa was a student back in the seventy’s and now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. Having a greater knowledge on the topic of Arches National Park she would be our guide for the next day. We also got to meet Melissa’s big German Shepherd, Barney. A dog who doesn’t understand the concept of down time. With Ann, our weather girl, giving us another perfect night we slept out under the stars again.
Day 4 – We had our first real day today. The nine of us, Melissa and Barney drove first to see some ancient pictographs done by the Ansazi Indians probably 800 years ago. From there we went to Arches National and drove the tour. Our first stop was Windows arch. Arches just amazes me the way the rocks can turn out that way just from wind erosion. I could sit here and try to explain them to you but it’s just something you gotta see first hand. From there we went to see Delicate Arch. This arch was by far the best including the area it was in, but it took about an hour to get to the arch and it was all rocky and uphill. From there we saw Landscape Arch, Double O Arch, Balanced rock, the organ, the three gossips and the lamb. All and all it was a great day. That night we went back to Hittle Bottom, said good-bye to Melissa and went to bed.
Day 5 – We went into Moab today and pulled into Slickrock campground. It was one of those nice private ones with a store and a café, even a hot tub and pool tables. No one really cared for it but it put us close to the outfitters. We dropped the canoes off at the outfitters, got everything prepared back at camp for the canoe part of the trip, then went to town to wander around for awhile.
Day 6-13 – The last eight days we’ve been on the river. Life on the river is something I will remember for the rest of my life. Everything that is considered important in our normal life is relatively useless. Now our days consisted of a nice bowl of instant oatmeal in the morning at about 7:00 A.M. followed by about four to five hours of canoeing through some of the most spectacular scenery you will ever see. I had a good partner in my canoe, Mike McGinn. He’s been my best friend since Kindergarten and we just B.S.’d back and forth the whole paddle. But even our conversation was muffled by our sense of peace and contentment. By noon we’d stop for lunch, which always consisted of a hunk of cheese, a hunk of summer sausage, and a flap jack {a very large completely packed granola bar} with a couple pieces of chocolate on top. Not exactly a gourmet meal but it was quite filling. On the river we saw many structures believed to be made by the Anasazi Indians, plus an old cabin believed to be used by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The cabin was over a hundred years old, never cared for and it still looked it almost perfect shape. Same with the Indian tower on this site, over eight hundred years old and still around. That says a lot about the preservation capability out there. We would usually do another couple of hours of canoeing after lunch. Not a fun canoe after filling up at lunch, but once Doug had power stroked out of sight all we had to do was float and let the rather fast moving current do the rest. We would find a nice campsite in a canyon each night with plenty of time to wander around before dinner. There was usually a stream to follow or there would be a large rock slide to climb around on. Either way there was always something for us to get in. For dinner we had to do most of the preparing ourselves. We were too young to run the stove so Doug was in charge of that. Dinner was usually some noodle-rice combination, some times we would have candy, sometimes pudding. Whatever we ended up with was always good, or at least by the time dinner came around we were at that point it looked good. The thing about the river that amazed me the most was the disconnection from the “real world”. No cars, no plumbing, no TV or phone or radio and the main one being that there’s no other people or at least so few that you can easily go days without seeing any. How could you survive? During the first couple of days I felt myself missing civilization and felt a little lost. It didn’t take long though and I learned to love the silent and simple life. If I had to make this article worth while it would be to stress to everyone to remember to hit the power button once in a while and just find the nearest woods and walk.
Day 14 – We were at our pick-up point by noon and back at Slickrock private campground that night. We were all still trying to get used to a populated area. Doug took us to Pizza Hut in Moab that night and we finally got food prepared for us not by us, what a treat. To our delight that weekend there was an auto show going on in Moab. That night was the hot rod and truck street show. There were old muscle cars and big souped up trucks cruising up and down the street all night. Doug left us in town so we could watch the show. Once again we had to walk back to camp.
Day 15-16 – We got back in the van today and drove back into Colorado to Mesa Verde National park. We just went to the Visitor’s Center the first day. The second day there we went to the museum and learned many fun and interesting things about the Anasazi Indians. From there we went to take the tour of Cliff Palace. Cliff Palace is the biggest and best preserved cliff dwelling known. Ranger Bob took us around and talked about the suspected society that they figured stayed there. We also saw Spruce Tree House, and a few other dwellings. We went back to camp, had dinner, and went to bed knowing we got to go home tomorrow. I don’t think any of us really wanted to go back, but I guess we were ready.
Day 17-19 – The drive home was even worse then the ride down. Everyone smelled twice as bad, I was twice as sore, and must of our fuses had been cut down to nothing. We made it across Colorado the first night. Once again, as on the way down, we found a state park off a back road. The next day we got back in the van and drove across Nebraska and through Iowa to Des Moines. In Iowa we stayed at Doug’s brother-in-law’s alternative programs building. They have a set up like we need in Mini. Doug’s brother-in-law was a great guy, he gave us full access to his building on the basis of trust, set us up with a TV and went to the movie rental store and set us up with a couple of movies. Being our eighteenth night that was just the set up we needed. We woke up early the next day and did the last little leg back to the school. Once back we had do the wrapping up and finish the cleaning before we were able to go home. I finally arrived back at home May 1 at three P.M.
The two and a half weeks that the nine of us spent out there I don’t think any of us will forget any time soon. I feel a lot closer to Doug, the seven others and for sure my world around me.