Mary Panttaja

So we had a great visit with our good friend Valerie in Palisade, CO, bought peaches (look up Palisade, CO), and headed south on 128. What a beautiful drive!! It follows the Colorado through enormous red rock—hardly anyone on this route—just a couple of resorts. Deeper and deeper red rock desert made more luscious by reading E Abbey as he talks about his time here before there was anything but the idea of a series of national parks.

So my literary brother sent me a link to the local Moab newspaper late last night and I read the lead article this morning. Sure enough, almost every tamarisk plant along the Colorado River is dead, eaten by the tamarisk beetle which they have imported to devour the imported tamarisk. It is a massive undertaking and it is hard to envision how they will deal with the debris (or if they will). But the challenge of managing invasive species is a very valuable thing to step up to. We deal with this in our own California rivers and in our fields. My battles with yellow star thistle are an ever-ongoing theme.

Planning to camp high up on the mesa, Dead Horse, in the middle of Islands in the Sky. The view is not to be missed and we are praying for a massive thunderstorm—that would be real entertainment. Meanwhile we sit and work in an internet cafe on the main drag, thoughts about our launching enterprise commanding our attention. And even on a cool day in the deserted (and desert) of Moab, the air conditioning is nice for a while. Why don’t we know what others know—we seem to often come to the canyonlands in August. And have the place to ourselves.