Rob, in the Wilderness
When I was seven, my mother took me and my two younger sisters on a bus trip from Illinois to Rhode Island. Since my father was working, she took us alone, and according to her, we were actually very well behaved. I was fascinated by the scenery, and enjoyed it very much. Even better, was meeting all of my cousins, who, oddly enough, talked in the same New England accent like my mother. We played for several weeks down at the ocean shore, had picnics, watched fireworks and played baseball. When I was eight and nine we took trips to Utah to visit my mom’s sister. My father drove us, and we had a wonderful time again, especially driving through the Rocky Mountains. We also got to play at SaltAir, a resort on the Great Salt Lake with all the usual carnival rides and got to float in the lake itself. (Not as fun as it sounds, being very salty). When I was 10, we moved to Utah, so my father could find work as a machinist.
When my son, Rob, began to grow up, we decided to take trips with him. Lynne and I had been travelers already, we had flown around the country attending science fiction conventions exhibiting our art and also drove all over, exploring the scenic wonders of Utah. And, being Utah, the central and southern portions of the state are mostly desert and canyonlands, not fun places if you prefer cool mountain lakes and streams. We started taking Rob to those science fiction conventions, so he probably got a sort of strange idea of travel. My passion was all of those amazing landscapes of rock and stone, I also enjoyed collecting rocks and fossils and made Lynne and Rob hike through those dry and dusty places with me, lugging out our finds.
Being quite young, Rob was willing to wander along with his pack on his back through those deep canyons, towering rock spires, vast expanses of rocky wildernesses and rough and tumble dirt roads. He never complained and always seemed to enjoy our wanderings. Though, to be fair we also traveled to places like Disneyland, Disneyworld and other amusement parks on our city convention trips. Museums were always a must wherever we found one and of course we ate very well in the cities, unlike picnicking out in the hot and dry deserts where we tried to travel in the spring and fall avoiding the summer heat and the tourists to make things more pleasant for us. When Rob was set to go to Japan for a year of studies, he sorted through all of our pictures to find some pleasant landscapes to take with him to show what life was like here in Utah. Sighing and bowing to the enviable, he said that he really did grow up in the desert and took those photos.
(Rob and me with our four-wheel drive truck, somewhere in the desert. Rob rafting down the Green River and exploring Indian ruins. Since we traveled in the off-season, snow was sometimes a problem in the high country. Rob at Monument Valley and at Angel Arch in Canyonlands National Park.)
