Gear

We took 9-foot 5-weight rods. I took a Winston Air and Kris took an Orvis Helios 3, an ancient, outdated technology rod since Orvis came out with the Helios 4 a couple of months ago. I’m surprised it still works.

We had coldwater floating lines to match the rods. I had leaders tied, but the guides all hated my hand-knotted leaders and replaced them with store-bought knotless leaders. One said my knotted leaders would gather weeds in the water, and that was possibly true, so I didn’t mention that I fished a lot in Southern bass ponds. I’m not sure how to fish unless I’m gathering weeds from the water. My leaders would have worked fine, but if the guides wanted theirs, that’s fine, too.

I fished again with the newish Abel reel my sister gave me when I retired. We took waders and boots but never wore them. All the fishing was out of boats.

Playlist

Here’s what you need to know about putting together a Utah playlist. The Osmonds, the brothers, have at least two greatest hits albums. Donnie Osmond has at least four greatest hits albums. Marie Osmond has two greatest hits albums. Donnie & Marie together have a greatest hits album. I suspect that getting caught in your college dorm listening to any of the songs on any of those albums would have ruined whatever pretense of collegiate coolness you’d managed, and with good reason. The Osmonds were never cool, and time hasn’t changed them. And you can’t put together a Utah playlist without including the Osmonds.

Somehow Mormon clean living and rock music just don’t belong together. Even country music needs whiskey and a divorce to really get cranking. It would take a better man than me to listen to the Osmonds singing One Bad Apple again.

I’m not much of a fan of the Utah band Imagine Dragons, either, though I gather they were fairly recently quite the thing, and may still be. They’re a kind of Las Vegas lounge act aspiring to alternative rock. On the plus side, I convinced myself that Green River by Creedence was about Utah’s Green River, and stuck it on the list. That’s always good for a sing-along. And just to prove how much you should discount my opinion, I think the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” may be just about the best thing ever.

Here I raise my Ebenezer,
Here by Thy great help I've come.
And I hope by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home. 

Robert Robertson, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, 1758.

Otto Eliger, Stone of Ebenezer, engraving.

The Arizona list included Charles Mingus and Linda Ronstadt, and Ronstadt became our go to when all else failed. There was also Marty Robbins singing El Paso, and that one woman from Fleetwood Mac whose voice is like a cheese grater. I never could keep the members of Fleetwood Mac straight, and was surprised when one was from Arizona.

Books and Movies

I’ve already talked about Stagecoach (which is supposed to take place in Arizona, but at some of its best is filmed in Utah’s Monument Valley). I would add that one of the greatest quirky movies ever, The Sandlot, was filmed in Salt Lake City. Who knew?

Arizona also has a penchant for quirky movies: Raising Arizona, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (filmed in Arizona, but set in San Dimas), Little Miss Sunshine, Thelma and Louise . . . All of them are good but peculiar films. 3:10 to Yuma with Glen Ford and Van Heflin is not quirky, but it is terrific. The 1957 version is supposed to be better than the remake.

Glen Ford, 3:10 to Yuma, Columbia Pictures, 1957.

I was curious about the history of the Church of Latter Day Saints, and over the years had collected bits and pieces of its history, but never in an organized way. Before the trip I read American Zion by Benjamin E. Park, which was readable, thorough, and I thought very fair. Park alerts the reader early on that he’s LDS, but his belief doesn’t intrude on good history. Towards the end of the book I got curious about Park, who turned out to be an assistant professor at Sam Houston State, just up the road in Huntsville, Texas. I was very proud, like I’d just discovered the book was written by an old friend.

I had bought a copy of Roadside Geology of Arizona for the drive through Arizona, but forgot to bring it from Houston. It was sorely missed. We bought a copy of Roadside Geology of Utah on the road, and it was a great investment. There’s a lot of geology to be curious about.

Restaurants and Hotels

The last time I wandered around in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah was nearly 40 years ago, and I’m certain that the only thing we ate for a week were Navajo tacos. Kris still hasn’t recovered but that was ok with me. I love fry bread, and I love tacos, and the combination is excellent.

Something had happened though over the years, and fry bread was harder to find. I finally found fry bread at at a food truck in Colorado near Mesa Verde. The fry bread may have been harder to find, but it was still great.

I hit the Navajo taco jackpot at a wonderful place, Amigo Cafe in Kayenta, Arizona, just after you turn north for Monument Valley. It was midday and there was a wait for a table, and waiting we had a strained interaction with a drunk guy with meth teeth. He told Kris she was beautiful, which is true, but then he told me I was beautiful.

Inside the restaurant though was wonderful, and the food was lovely. There was a gleaming new espresso machine, that looked like in a pinch it could substitute for NASA launch control. It was a fine place, and definitely a step up from the roadside cafes I remember from 40 years before. You should go out of your way to eat at Amigo Cafe next time you’re in Kayenta. I bet breakfast there is spectacular.

A Navajo taco with queso fresco really is the very thing. What a great place.

Near Lees Ferry we stayed two nights at the Cliff Dwellers Lodge and ate both nights at the Cliff Dwellers Restaurant. We also ate breakfast there once, and they made our lunch the day we fished. There weren’t a lot of other places to choose from, but it was perfectly decent food. There was also a fly shop, but it had seen better days and now mostly sold fishing shirts with a Lees Ferry Anglers logo. This was handy though since I had left all of Kris’s fishing shirts hanging in a closet in Durango.

At Dutch John we stayed at the Red Canyon Lodge, which also had a pretty good restaurant. We sat on the deck and shared a bottle of wine with hummingbirds. Hummingbirds are one and all heavy drinkers.

We flew out of Salt Lake City. Who knew that Salt Lake City could have such a ridiculous street layout, such ridiculous street names, and so many street people? The pioneers started from scratch in the middle of the desert, and with active imaginations and a blank golden tablet they should have done better. Most streets are apparently named a number, and there is nothing more baffling than finding yourself at the corner of 4500 East Street and 700 North Street, or some such. We may grossly mispronounce San Felipe here in Houston, but at least the corner of Kirby and San Felipe means something.

Before our flight we had breakfast with our friend Tom, who from time to time has given us excellent restaurant advice, and who moved to Salt Lake from Milwaukee last year with his husband Sal. Tom isn’t a drinking man, but he is radically intense with his coffee, so he is a heathen gay coffee drinker living in the heart of the Mormon world. I think he likes it, but I suspect there is some culture shock. Salt Lake City should welcome its new citizen by putting Tom in charge of renaming the streets.

Where we ate breakfast, Finn’s, there were three lovely young women, significantly tatted, at the next table over. I kept wanting to ask if they were Mormon, but didn’t. Kris should be proud of my restraint.

Fly Fish Food.

We drove a bit out of our way to visit a fly fishing shop in Orem, Utah–Fly Fish Food. While I can find pretty good saltwater tying supplies here in Houston, the tiny stuff used for trout flies can be hit or miss, and I end up buying a lot of stuff by mail order. One of the places I order from is Fly Fish Food.

I have been to a lot of fly fishing shops, from Vermont to California. Some of them are pretty famous among fly tiers. In person some have been disappointing. Fly Fish Food is one of the few shops I’d go out of my way to go back to. They must have a thousand packages of different sized fishhooks, and all the feathers from all the chickens in the world. How strange it is that they’re in what seems to me an out-of-the mainstream place like Orem.

Guitar

I hauled a guitar from Houston to Utah, and played quite a bit, mostly Bach. I would have missed it if it hadn’t come along.