OCR Text |
Show not sympathetic to both sides. On my recent trip with my mom through Moab, I actually admired the way your funky little town seems to function on its own energy. It made me feel as though it didn’t matter whether I, or any other tourist, came there or not. Moab will continue to grow, or not grow, oblivious to whether you should cater to out of town money or just circulate your own cash amongst each other. The fact that we happened through made absolutely no impact on the ambivalent yet friendly folk we encountered there, and I was glad. Not so in the other stops on our itinerary, including Cortez and much of New Mexico. Sometimes they killed us with such kindness we wanted to run and hide. Other times they were so snotty I wanted to grab them by the shirt and throttle them until their heads rattled. A lot of the friendliness was supercharged by the prospect of making another buck. The rudeness bore signs of how tired some are of seeing another stupid tourist full of equally stupid questions. Fortunately, the kind people far ee the unkind, even if some of the kindness was thinly masked over greed for our mone Things change. Our country has been raised to think that propress, in any form, is good. Which would explain why the wonderfully remote roads of New Mexico are being widened into four lane highways and why many of the beautiful old: historic trading posts along Route 666 have transformed into nothing more than another convenience store. New Mexico is losing its enchanting flavor, bit by bit. I had not spent time there in twenty years or better. With that in mind, I realize that the change has been slow. Still, like the tourists that visit my hometown, I felt violated to discover differences that would make New Mexico ugly to some. We were especially disappointed with the Four Corners Moet For those who need an update, the Monument now charges $2.00 per person to see where the only four states in the U.S. meet in one spot. There is a tiny and fairly worthless visitor’s center, flanked on all sides by flea market booths with Indians selling their wares. The monument itself is a large concrete platform, with a wooden deck from which to take photos of loved ones standing on the four corners. There are two lines: one to the deck for tourists to take pictures, and one to the concrete platform for tourists to stand on the monument. We were disappointed for a number of reasons. 1) The Four Corners Monument is no longer a remote spot with a plaque and a little Navajo girl dressed in her beautiful native costume, like it was when I visited there some 25 years ago. 2)1 don’t understand why you have to pay admission to maintain a monument that is virtually unmoveable and nearly impossible to deface. 3) My mom and J have never stood in line at Four Corners, and we ‘never intend.to. When my mother stepped onto the New Mexico side of the platform so I could take her photo, several tourists were bent out of shape and said so. In turn, I was bent out of shape because they were all standing in line on the Arizona side, where I was born, and I couldn’t even get to it. Even the Navajos should be ashamed at such blatant commercialism and obliterating views of the fantastic landscape with their shabby little booths. These complaints aside, we really did enjoy our trip. We accepted the changes and progress better than some and less than others. Because we travel extensively, however, we are perhaps more understanding (though no less disappointed) to see some of the same things Mr. Slifer pointed out: trails, campgrounds, visitor centers and fees where there used to be none, invasion of tourons and their yippy dogs, nasty children and booming stereos, and a general disregard for the way things used to be. But these things did not prevent us from enjoying the vast open space along many highways, the desert scents after a good rain, or the many good people who continue to maintain their lifestyles, despite the changes around them. We went out of our way to take the less beaten path and avoid the stereotypical pessimism displayed by others, and I think we found what we were looking or. Mr. Slifer, 1 encourage you to put yourself in the shoes of a tourist and take a real trip through Santa Fe. Leave your comfortable abode and pretend like you don’t know where your favorite shops or the nearest grocery store is. Visit all the tourist spots dressed like TOMTIELL GALE RY FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY 61.N. Main St. Moab, UT 84532 (435) 259-9808 (888) 479-9808 E-MAIL: Tillphot@lasal.net INTERNET: www.tomtill.com ...with apologies to Jackson, Wyoming's Bob 'Swarthy' Greenspan - you are from out of town, and check into a motel for the night. Ask the locals where the best places are to eat, drink and dance, and see what they tell you. Tell someone, preferably a museum employee, how they have ruined Santa Fe and watch their reaction. At the end of your in-town trip, look back at what you remember as the best and worst of your experience. Too often, it is easy to forget that the place you are disgruntled with is the same kind of place you come from. You can move on with the good memories, or you can lay _down and die. Also, Mr. Slifer, 1 am happy you have opted not to return to Moab. Those guys have it hard enough with small town politics, growth issues, and other problems that plague every small town across the nation. They certainly don’t need you standing in the middle of them, bitching and griping about loss of your personal space. I’m sorry they won’t dispense with desecration of the land in the way of mining, grazing, logging and poisoning .of our precious water supply just so you can have some peace and quiet. I’d invite you to camp right in the middle of Colorado’s largest open pit mine near my home, but I don’t think we need you here anymore than Moab needs you there. Your self-centered views are more shameful than you even admitted. No, I think you are better off to disappear with your Dingo, if you can, to your so-called secret refuge. But I’ve got news for you: someone else will find it, sooner or later. Then the challenge is for you to open your mind and accept it, or move on to yet another treasured hiding place. Adventure is the spice of life, and if you can’t relish the prospect of enjoying each and every new special place you find and appreciating what you have seen in the past, you have lost the game. Jan MacKell Cripple Creek, Colorado Dennis Slifer’s Feedback letter can be read on The Zephyr web site (Archives, June/July 2001) LOOKING IN THE MIRROR FROM GRAND JCT... Hey Jim, I recently had a chance to read "The Zephyr"; it is the April/May 2001 edition. I read it cover to cover. I was interested in most of the articles and agree with several of your points about public land exploitation for profit. In some instances, such as Tex’s Riverways, it is a necessary evil. Others, such as leading bungy jumping day hikes to remote arches, are absurd. I am a 39 year old Grand Junction, Colorado native and have witnessed the recent overcrowding of Western Colorado and Eastern Utah. I too had special places to escape to that now are visited daily by newcomers. I remember hiking in the Cedar Mesa area below Blanding and not seeing another hiker all day. Times are definitely changing. I guess that I wasn’t aware of your newspaper because we typically don’t spend much time in Moab, rather we pass on through to wherever our destination lies. It is refreshing to see someone speaking up for the land. ae up the good work, Bail Sheley Grand Jct, Colorado NO MORE SLEEPY SMALL TOWN MOMS-AND-POP... Editor, ~ Thanks for the great article ("It’s Time to Look in the Mirror") in the April-May 2001 edition. These two sentences said it all: "We are now contributing our own kind of destruction to the last remnants of the Wild West. Our recreation, our money, and our sheer numbers are poised to do the kind of long-term damage that should be setting alarms off in our heads. The changes we’re making may be harder to detect and more insidious. But in the next 50 years, we are pees to recreate the Westen landscape in ways our cowboy cousins could never imagine." I liked Moab when it was asleeply little town, with mom-and-pop motels if I decided not to sleep out under the stars and mom-and-pop restaurants where| could get real food. I gotta confess that if] had the money, I’d buy the property cheap and sell it expensive. I'd love to time the market right--if the tailings are moved--and laugh all the way to the TOM TILL Photographs Jackson Hole |