I muddled my truck through the endless malls of Grand Junction and hopped on 70, setting my course for Ruby and Westwater canyons. I missed exit 225 to Ruby. I was looking for Harley Dome Road but didn’t see the name on the exit sign. Damn them for not putting the name on the exit sign. I kept driving west. Either I suck at reading maps, or my dated Delorme Atlas didn’t comport with Interstate reality. I stumbled onto a road creatively named 128, toward Fisher Towers.

Walled in by soaring, red rimrock in the distance, I encountered headwinds of touristic traffic bleeding away from Moab. I’d been to Fisher Towers years ago. I stopped and snapped a shot of the twin, claret watchtowers cleaved off the main body of Wingate Sandstone by mass wasting, a geologic process powered by erosion and gravity that carved the canyons over the whole of the Colorado Plateau. The winding green of the Colorado stood in gemmed contrast to the red world above. The sun was finally out of its cave, and I found rarity: open campsites right along the river. But there was a price: $15.

In our cashless society, I’d gotten into the habit of not carrying any. So, I parked in a campsite right by the river and started counting change: nickels, dimes and quarters accumulated like talus under the seats during years of trips. By the time I got down to the pennies, I had stacks of silver – all $6.65 worth – in crooked piles, balanced on the dash atop the yellow BLM envelope that would digest cash and checks but not credit card numbers. I fondled between the seat cushions of my cramped two-seater cab, elbowed behind the seats, which were a bottomless, unintentional attic of old State Park camping site receipts and foldup town maps and gas receipts from small Kansas islets accrued during cross country trips. My raccoon fingers grabbled and snatched up directions to the Little Grand Canyon in the San Rafael Swell I’d long ago written on index cards, and promo cards from the book of short stories that’d been published seven years before.

This was a kind of forced inventory, an unexpected foray into the man-cellar, looking for one thing, finding quite another. You might be searching for a tax receipt in the very rear of a crumb-infested desk drawer. You find an old journal encrusted with the dark times in your life instead.

Instead of coin of the realm, I found a CB antenna, a Wal-Mart handsaw I might need to saw off the limb of a downed tree blocking the road on my way into the North Rim, the cap of a broom handle, a baseball cap, two ice scrapers, a loose almond, maps to places I’d never ended up getting to, a gym bag with an extra pair of Nikes and an athletic supporter (no, not the sports fan kind, but a jock strap). Hmm, some of these items might come in handy, especially if I wanted to do Greco-Roman wrestling with one of the fat men down at the boat beach. Mostly, what I found was a list of partial tries at things, like marketing a book, that seemed like dead ends. It was partial failure, due to the partiality of the attempts.

By the time I was done with my forced inventory of items which can amazingly fit in the few square inches of space between the seatback and the rear window of a two-seater cab, I was justifiably incensed with my life. Out came the index cards I’d use to write things down on this trip.

Resolution # 1: No more writing.

Resolution # 2: Fire Henry. Henry was the guy who was supposed to be publishing my books.

After an hour spent cleansing the rear of my truck cab, I realized I didn’t have the money to stay in any of the campsites, so I injected myself back into the west-trending vein of I-70 and wandered Utah west. I stopped in at the town of Green River to look for a bank. I’d use my ATM card and get some dollars to use for campsites. But the only bank in Green River that I saw was about 150 years old and had along ago been robbed. Even the windows and doors were stripped.

I stayed off the interstate and rumbled down an abandoned two-lane road to the town of Thompson Springs, a ghost town near the base of the Book Cliffs. A couple of photo-historians, a woman and a man, wandered along its railroad tracks. I pulled up and rolled down my window.

“Hey,” the dude greeted me.

“Howdy.” I scratched my stubble. “You guys’re documenting the death of this place, I’d imagine.”

“Yeah, there’s 29 people here. The train still runs too.”

“I do the same thing when I drive through Kansas. I stop in at the ghost towns and take pictures of the old churches.”

“Somebody’s buying up all the land here.”

“Really? For what?”

“We don’t know.”

“I’m just wondering whether I can get on top of those cliffs somehow,” I said, finally getting to my point.

“You just keep driving, and you’ll run into some rock art a few miles in toward the canyons.”

“Oh, great. Thanks. You guys have fun.”

I took the route they suggested, hoping to find a camping spot, but the site was marked NO CAMPING, and Native land stopped me out. Ute tribal land just north of the Book Cliffs made this some of the most desolate parts of Utah. Then again, a lot of Utah is some of the most desolate parts of Utah.

Resolution #3: Plan, but don’t plan results.

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within