Ouray

Once upon a time, Mark read in a travel guide that if there ever were a town one should choose to hunker down in and write a book, Ouray was it. So, first chance he got, he took an autumn drive from Moab up through the spectacular San Juans to Ouray. He only spent a night and he certainly didn't get to write a book while he was there, but the place enchanted him enough that he tucked it away in his memory and eight years later he suggested that we head up there together. After a blazing, sunny day's ride through the deserts from Flagstaff through Cortez and Durango, the long, looping evening drive that climbed its winding way through the myriad green shades of the almost-summer San Juans dropped the veil of enchantment--and that slightly haunting feeling that had followed us since our return to the States--down like muslin on our shoulders. And that was before we descended into the jewel-box canyon of Ouray at twilight to stay at the recently restored and lovely Beaumont, an 1880s mining-era hotel that feels perhaps spookier for having been so meticulously restored. By morning Sarah declared she was fonder of Ouray than even of Flagstaff, and we spent our last day before hopping over the mountains to the bluegrass festival strolling and daydreaming in the handful of sleepy streets. Mark patrolled one side of the town, sampling ice cream, hardware stores, and his habitual favorites, park benches, while Sarah took the other side, meeting the townsfolk and taking beaucoup photos of this weirdly, simultaneously thriving and drifting mountain village--and somehow finding shops enough to construct a clever little gift box for Mark, filled with forty bucks' worth (exactly all the cash she had on hand, right to the penny) of carefully considered goodies, which she surprised him with as he left a bookstore later that afternoon. A sweet, mostly quiet day in a sweet, mostly quiet place. Maybe someday we can come back to stay a while and write that book.

Oh, and by the way--Ouray has an unusually high population of photogenic dogs and cats, a temptation few photographers can resist, as you will see for yourself if you roll down a bit.

Flagstaff

We were in complete agreement that Flagstaff was one of our favorite towns we'd both been to but never visited together. Sarah recommended the Monte Vista Hotel in the historic downtown district and booked us the whimsically themed "Air Supply" room--an upper floor corner room with a sky-blue ceiling decorated with gilt plaster cherubs cavorting among handpainted and vaguely animal-shaped white clouds. We arrived in time to spend a long, cool, late spring evening just meandering around town, window-shopping at storefronts and sampling a few dishes and brews. We had planned to stay just the one night, but days of continuous travel caught up to us and we crashed in the next day, spending the morning holed up, listening to the mournful howls of the freight trains that form the sonic backbone of Flagstaff. That afternoon Mark spent mostly strolling from shop to parkbench to shop to parkbench. (Mark rests a lot. He's a cloudmonger from way back.) Sarah went photo hunting, first in the room itself, shimmering with strange light, and then around town, where she caught up with Mark, which is, after all, rarely a difficult thing to do. Four days back on the continent and there's still a slightly haunting feeling that we're almost revenants in this country, floating about and scudding from town to town, hot valley to chilly mountain, on our way to Telluride but in the aimless sort of way that clouds tangle as they travel, passing through uncertain forms and vaguely suggestive shapes like those on the ceiling of the Monte Vista. Next stop, Mark's favorite of all tiny canyon towns . . . Ouray.

Death Valley

The plan was to get from San Francisco to Telluride in time for the Bluegrass festival but without a tire crossing the Utah border. We figured that once we're back in UT, the walkabout is pretty much done, so we should save that for last. The solution was to drive south toward Flagstaff, with a stopover in Death Valley. Most years, Death Valley by mid-June is pretty toasty, but we lucked out with weather that was fine and hot but perfectly comfortable. The time we spent after leaving I-5 turned out magical, especially our overnight at the eccentric, partly crumbled, completely uncanny Amargosa Opera House in Death Valley Junction. That combination motel, nonprofit historic site, and working theater felt like walking onto the set of an unknown David Lynch movie, replete with evening magic show. It was the weirdest spot we'd stumbled onto since the bizarre Wycliffe Well Roadhouse in Australia's NT and yet also the serenest, most unexpectedly satisfying corner since Fort Sesfontein, Namibia. It made us wonderfully happy to feel that, even back in the States, serendipity lurks around every bend.

Back across the pond to San Francisco

Back at the end of September '08, we skipped a day on the calendar by flying overnight nonstop from San Francisco to Auckland. We left on the 28th and arrived on the 30th, and we'll never be able to say what we did on the 29th of September 2008 because it did not ever exist for us. On the 10th of June, 2009, we stole a doubly long day back in return, however, by flying from Sydney to San Francisco. Thirty-six hours from waking up, we were still walking around on the afternoon of that 10th of June, only now we were back in the northern hemisphere, figuring out how to get our Toyota and all the remaining possessions we'd stuffed into it out of the storage unit near the San Fran airport. Surprisingly, it was a very satisfying day, beginning as it did with a beautiful view of the Sydney Harbor and ending with good Mexican food (how we've missed it!) in Frisco. Maybe all days should be 40 or more hours long so indolent folks like us could feel like we'd actually done enough for a day.

The next day we spent celebrating our re-arrival in the States by browsing downtown. Mark could barely wait to get into the giant Apple store and ogle new tech. Sarah went shopping for jacket and retro snapshot camera. Somehow, we ended up most enjoying street scenes and an amazing art gallery where we took our first plunge together on a small investment in original art, buying three numbered prints for the house we don't own and shipping them to Mark's new office we've never yet visited. Ah, optimism! We were being Americans again, for sure.