joie de vivre

Why:

1. no hotel there

2. no restaurant, or at least a snack bar, or even a vending machine

3. in fact, few amenities at all

a. no flush toilets

b. no running water anywhere, we’re in the desert, hello? What if I get thirsty? Don’t you care if your visitors get dehydration?

4. windy roads make it difficult to get your motorhome or 5th wheel there.

5. dangerous for walking: probably no more than 10 feet of paved trails; trails lack safety rails, and just about anyone could probably fall off a cliff if they weren’t paying attention.

Tell all your friends: do not go to Canyonlands National Park. Worst national park ever.

Back in the day, this was “Delicate Arch”. Maybe someone transposed the signs, and they stuck with it. Really, doesn’t this one look more delicate?

This is my great grandfather’s ancestral village. It’s now on Google Maps. I can tour down the main streets, look at all the houses.

I can see the old synagogue, grey and boarded up, here: http://goo.gl/maps/jIlgr

I try to imagine what it was like, 150 years ago, when he was a boy there. When the majority of the village was Jewish. According to my research, he was the first to emigrate. After him came waves more, many settling here, in the greater Seattle area.

By the time the Nazis invaded, there were only a few hundred Jews left. Every last one was slaughtered.

The tombstones from the old cemetery were used in a Soviet road paving project. If I were to go, what would there be to see?

But I can still rove the streets, from my desktop here. I try to imagine….