We’re off on vacation, so in the spirit of getting out of town, I thought I’d share our favorite place we went last year on vacation (which I meant to write about and I never did).
After a long and winding adventure through Califarizcoloutah, we found ourselves in a little town named Lees Ferry, Arizona. It’s essentially the beginning of the Grand Canyon and where most people start their rafting trips.
Besides the fact that you feel like you’re on Mars, it’s an especially magical place because this was one of the only places that you could get across the Colorado River until major bridges were built. Here are the remnants of an old steamboat ferry that would shuttle wagons and their passengers to the other side.
There was a thriving settlement here for some time, and the valley is filled with abandoned buildings that made up a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Wandering through these buildings was an absolutely incredible experience, as was noticing how remarkably well they were built. Little House on the Desert.
Something was drawing me to this place. Maybe it was the high mineral content—it feels like someone has torn a gash in the planet and you’re traveling down deep into the innards of the earth. But all the while, I felt like there was something vaguely familiar about the whole place. Like I’d seen it before.
And here’s why. Here’s a photo of Keith fly fishing in the river, where it’s so wide and cold and fast you’d die if you tried to swim across, even in the desert, even in the middle of July.
And here’s a photo of my dad fishing just a bit downstream, sometime in the ’80s, which he sent to me when we got home. It was a place I had always heard him talk about. It’s maybe his favorite place on the planet.
I can only hope we find as magical a place on this year’s trip. I’m pretty sure we will. I’ll be posting photos as often as I can (which may not be much up in the High Sierras), but likely won’t be writing longer posts. As always, you can get the play-by-play over on Twitter. See you on the road!
More shots from last year’s vacation.
