The Universe Giveth and Sheer Stupidity Taketh Away
I’ve never been the godly type but the events of the last 12 hours really put my non-faith to the test. Capitol Reef National Park, which is often overshadowed by Bryce Canyon and Arches, is basically a desert Eden. And I, like Eve, didn’t fully appreciate it until it was too late.
After leaving Bryce Canyon, I drove through two national forests without getting arrested to arrive at the Capitol Reef National Park visitor’s center mid-afternoon. I checked out the day’s events, which included an 8pm Ranger led talk on the history of the National Parks Service. Sweet, said my inner history geek. Next to the visitor’s center was an onpark bakery so I picked up freshly baked bread and parkmade cherry butter for lunch. Just outside the bakery entrance was a little, garden mule deer.
I had hours to go until 8pm so I drove the scenic route through the park to Capitol Gorge trail, which has some of the biggest stones I have ever seen in my life. I know, sounds dirty, but seriously, the rocks that rise up on either side of this slot canyon (Focus will you? Slot canyons are geological formations.) made me feel like someone had dropped me down a green pipe and I’d ended up in Super Mario Big World.
Feeling tiny and awed, I set out for The Tanks, a series of ponds up in the cliffs at the far end of the gorge (Hey! Blog is up here, buddy!). I followed the sign that led up a rocky trail on the side of the canyon but there were no trail signs. I passed a man looking out into the abyss but I was confident in my bushwhacking skills (Stop it.) so I kept climbing. Thirty meters up I had hit soft white sand and a dead end. A voice called out from down below:
“Do you know anything?”
“Not a thing!” I replied.
The man who had called up was the one who had been staring into the abyss. Turns out he’d been lost for over an hour. Together, we set out to get unlost. During that time I learned that his name was Jean-Luc, he lived in Rome, and he was on vacation by himself visiting the parks of the southwest. He’d just come from Arches, which was where I was headed next.
“You must see Delicate Arch at sunset. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Not just the arch, the whole experience.”
“And you should hike the Bristlecone Trail at Bryce Canyon,” I said. “It’s not the most popular trail but it looks like Christmas and smells like world peace.”
“Ah, I will hike it.”
I studied abroad in Perugia, Italy but I’d forgotten how melodic that accent is. If you have to be lost in a canyon, I highly recommend doing so with a seriously attractive Roman hiker. Too soon, by my estimation, we had reached The Tanks.
Okay, so it’s not exactly Club Med, or even that pond you pass by on your way to work every day, but let’s give a shoutout to mother earth for making the effort. I can’t even keep from knocking my water bottle over in my bedroom let alone maintaining a pool of water in a desert year round. And there was another miracle to be had as we joined four other people sitting around the largest pool. They were all from Philadelphia and all artists. I’d met other Philly folk while traveling this Summer but none so close to my age or interests. The six of us sat around the pool for an hour watching the tadpoles zip through the shallow water and chatting about the US politics, Italian culture, and documentary films in our own little backcountry salon.
The sun had begun to set as Jean-Luc and I hiked down the steep canyon walls. We talked about science, the cosmos, and the fact that there was a meteor shower happening that night. What’s more, Capitol Reef is internationally recognized as a Dark Skies Heritage site and is one of the best places on earth to stargaze. Before I knew it we were nearing the end of the trail.
“I have been camping for the last three days,” he said. “Tonight I will have a good dinner.” He stopped hiking and looked at me. “Do you have dinner plans? I would like to take you to dinner.”
Sometimes the universe gives us gifts. Today, the universe looked down on me, smiled for some inexplicable reason, and sent a drop dead handsome Italian hiker to ask me out to dinner while hiking through a canyon at sunset on a night of abundant shooting stars.
Now, there are only two appropriate answers when a drop dead handsome Italian hiker asks you out to dinner while you are hiking through a canyon at sunset on a night of abundant shooting stars. 1) “Yes”. 2) “HELL YES”. Under no circumstances should you say anything other than one of those two things. “Actually I was going to watch a ranger led talk on the history of the National Parks Service” is at the top of the list of things NOT to say. Why anyone would say that under those circumstances can only be seen as grounds for lobotomization. Only someone who hates being alive, has no sense of romance, and has no qualms about punching the universe in the face when it offers up a gift would say something like that.
I think you know where this is going.
“Actually I was going to watch a ranger talk on the history of the National Parks Service,” I say.
“Oh, okay, well, you should do what you want to do,” he says.
I am stunned. What just happened? Am I having a stroke? Should I go to a hospital? I drive toward the visitor’s center in a daze. How, I wonder, did I even get to this bench, calmly eating the rest of my bread and cherry butter while Park Ranger Michael gives a powerpoint presentation on how the mission statement of the National Parks Service changed between 1916 and 2000? I try to forget that I just betrayed my every romantic ideal in one fell swoop and focus on the talk, which, I’m not going to lie here, was a damn fine talk. I even got the ranger to send me his powerpoint presentation so, you know, that’s as good as a date with a beautiful Italian man in a national park on a night where there are hundreds of meteors raining down from the impossibly dark, romantic sky, right?
All by myself, I looked up at the cosmos that night and begged forgiveness for squandering such a swoon worthy opportunity. The milky way shone bright and shooting stars crossed the sky by the minute as I pleaded temporary insanity to the cosmic gods. No response. The jury was still out at midnight as I set out on the 2 1/2 hour drive to Arches National Park, waiting on pins and needles for their verdict. I had nothing to distract me from my foolishness on the ride because my cds don’t work in the rental car and the local radio stations consisted of mormon lectures, mormon church music, and the mormon equivalent of erotic story hour, which is basically just a woman reading what I don’t even think was a romance novel in a breathy voice.
I arrived at Arches at 3am and pulled into the parking lot of The Windows trail where I planned to grab a few hours of much needed sleep and wake up for a sunrise hike. But the universe had other plans.
I woke at 4am on the dot to a thunderclap of judgement. I knew in an instant that the universe had come to a decision about me and it wasn’t good. I was about to be smote for my ingratitude. Sure enough, hail began pelting the car. Driving rain made all else inaudible but the roar of near constant thunder. Lightning struck time and time again, second after second, in every direction.
I was paralyzed with fear in a tiny, metal box in the middle of an open parking lot in a land that I had only seen in the shadow of night and lit with sky fire. I truly thought I might die at any moment. My heart raced as I huddled in my front seat trying not to touch anything metal in the car. In true biblical fashion, a tiny patch of sky cleared just enough for me to see a shooting star rain down directly beside a fierce bolt of lightning.
“I’m sorry!” I cried out. I thought back to Jean-Luc’s first words to me: “Do you know anything?” “I know nothing! I know nothing! Dear god!” If I was going to be the worlds worst romantic I might as well be the worlds worst atheist, too.
It was another hour before the storm passed. I was shaken and exhausted but the sun had begun to rise on a new day and the park didn’t look nearly as hellscape-y by morning light. As I stepped out of my car, my legs wobbled. I steadied myself on the driver’s side door and took a deep breath. I had survived the night. The gods, however much they wanted to scare me, had let me live. Now, all that was left to do was appreciate the hell/heaven/desert/oasis/whatever out of this day. I’m awake, Universe; you have my attention.
