Deciding the future

Later today M and I leave south. We’ll be spending two full weeks in southern Utah. While there we want to pick where we’ll spend the next three or so decades.

Some, or many, of you may not know that we got married and lived in the Colorado Plateau. Before she started hanging out with me M had never slept in a tent. I’d spent plenty of time in a tent, but exploring the hidden corners of our new backyard set me on the path of deeper wilderness immersion which has blossomed since we moved to Montana in 2008. I want to see if the Colorado Plateau is still as vast and mysterious as it was, or whether the woods, rivers, snows and fewer people of Montana have permanently slanted my vision.

We have a number of ancillary criteria, but as we decided long ago to have a simpler, less financially abundant life location is paramount. If you can’t afford to fly around the country on a regular basis, and will gas never to return to 2002 levels, you damn well better live close to good stuff. This works well, and is why we haven’t been down to the Plateau since July of 2009. Which is something I never thought would happen.

Talking in the pub yesterday afternoon, both of us admitted that we expect to return to Montana with one foot already out the door.

Wish us luck, as nothing is certain.

DaveC

October.16.2013

Backpacking, Bikes and biking, Climbing, Cultural critique, Fly Fishing, Hunting, MYOG

5 responses to “Deciding the future”

Jill Homer

October 16, 2013 at 10:15 am

Post-college, I considered Southern Utah as a permanent residence seriously for years, but I couldn’t reconcile the uncomfortable culture of the communities down there. Even Moab, the cosmopolitan hub, has its fair share of hardline anti-government types and others with uncompromising cultural values that clash with my own. Sometimes I wonder if that’s changed, or if it’s still just as unwelcoming. But I guess if I am honest with myself, most small communities in Alaska are culturally similar.

Either way, that’s exciting that you’re considering a move down to that region. If you do, I will miss your dispatches from Montana. I grew into an adult wandering the Colorado Plateau on weekends, but these later years have revealed that northern landscapes are the places that resonate with me above all others.

Have a great trip.

Reply
samh

October 16, 2013 at 12:55 pm

So long as you can handle the religion down there may your search be fruitful. I too will miss the dispatches from my old haunts up in Glacier but will be happy to live out the life in the desert vicariously instead.

Reply
Spelt

October 16, 2013 at 1:28 pm

Good luck.

Reply
Kurt

October 17, 2013 at 4:50 pm

That same decision is exactly what brought me down to Prescott. I could have ended up in a wide variety of other places for work, but none of them would have had the landscapes and access that I need to live my live the way it needs to be lived. Prescott may not be perfect, but it sure has a lot to offer. I’m excited to see where you two end up.

Reply
rogwilmers

October 19, 2013 at 11:14 am

I have often wondered why you haven’t explored the vast wilderness to the northwest of you in BC more often before pulling out of Montana. Places like Valhalla and the Bugs and everything in between. Oh, to be that close. Hopefully you’ll get a chance to before heading down to that slice of desert paradise. Good luck and have fun.

Reply