I'm going to lay this out the way I'd tell it if we were sitting at a diner after a long drive, coffee cooling between us,

and you asked what finally cured me of camping down in that corner of Utah. I'm not trying to

convince anyone of anything. I'm giving you what we did, what we saw, and what we heard, in the order

it happened, and I'll point to the parts that still stick like burrs when I think

about them. I know that stretch of the desert better than most weekenders. I've driven Valley of

the God's Road a half dozen times in good weather and bad, in a Subaru, in a Tacoma, and once

on a borrowed dual sport when we were too broke to buy gas for a truck. I've slept on that red dirt beneath

butes I can name without looking at a map. Rooster Butte, seven sailors, watched lightning walk along

Cedar Mesa, and I've had wind pushed the sound of a single raven so far across the valley

it seemed like a radio picking up another station. If you know the place, you know there are no services, no water, no official sites,

and the camping is dispersed, which is a polite way of saying you're on your own.

You pack out everything, you don't bust the cryptobiotic soil,

you keep your fire small and in an existing ring.

And if you break down, you either fix it yourself, or wait for someone with a cell booster

to pass.

We knew the routine.

We went down in late October because we wanted the cool air and the shoulder season emptiness.

My girlfriend Emma had a day off in the middle of the week and I had a flexible

schedule. The plan was simple. Slip off 163 onto the dirt. Bounce until a pull-off open with a

clean line of sight toward Rooster Butte. Make camp. Sit on tailgate chairs. Watch the colors

drain out of the buttes and go to sleep early.

In the morning, we'd heat water for coffee on the stove, and do a slow drive out toward

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