I’ve been reading a trip blog calledDucks on the Road since the very beginning. I ran across it in a list of newly-created blogs, and subscribed via Bloglines because it looked interesting. For one thing, they were from Oregon, and we Ducks are always interested in other Ducks for some reason – maybe the trauma of having a cartoon character college mascot makes us feel the need to support each other. The Ducks on the Road folks have driven around visiting family and friends; it’s been a relaxing trip. Today they’re in Moab, Utah – on the return leg of the trip and headed in the direction of home eventually. Along the way, they’ve stopped off in places in my old stomping grounds in the West, but have also gone places I’ve never been.

David and I leave on our own road trip Saturday morning, and as it happens we’ll be in Moab in a little over a week. I’ve got hotel or B-and-B reservations made to get us to Moab – here’s what I have so far:

• 2 nights in Estes Park near Rocky Mountain National Park at a B-and-B I’ve been wanting to try
• A night in the B-and-B near Boulder where we were married
• 3 nights in Mesa Verde National Park, in a “newly renovated deluxe room”

Well, the newly renovated deluxe room will be comfortable and plain, and it’s a good deal after all the splurging on the Front Range part of the trip. We were in Mesa Verde for a couple of nights on our honeymoon (which, as it happens, was also a driving trip around Colorado and southern Utah) and wanted to come back ever since. It’s so quiet and peaceful – the stars at night can be bright enough to wake a person out of a sound sleep if the conditions are right. They were when we were there in October, because the Pleiades were shining in the window from just over the horizon. I don’t know if anything like that will happen again, but we may set the alarm again for 3am just to see what’s going on in the night sky.

Damn, I wish we had a decent small telescope.

I haven’t bothered with making a reservation for the one night we’ll need on the road between home and Colorado; we’ll play that one by ear. There’s a lot of choices for the Moab area, either conventional hotels or guest houses of one kind or another. One of the more intriguing choices was something called “Adobe Abode” but I need to do more research on it. Another intriguing choice for Moab lodging was a private rental home that’s supposedly owned by a “Hollywood producer” and is located in a wide valley somewhere near Moab. You have ford 3 small creeks to get to it and the first day a guide/caretaker leads you in to show you the ropes and drop off some groceries for you. Price: steep, and it’s very isolated. If I were a writer or a “sleb” (celebrity) it would look ideal. However, it’s really, really isolated, and so not for anyone that requires a lot of human interaction day and night.

The stars would be awesome, though. That might be interaction enough.