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Show hummmmmed--and moaned. I would spread my arms, lie down and press my body into those sensuous curves--just couldn’t pass up a rippled crev- asse, a set of Moki steps or a soft, round bum with potholes up its crack. One ragged hump spit at me as I reached up for a handhold, and beneath an alcove, with cicadas cavorting in a cottonwood by the Wash, I had to cover my ears--they sounded like four-hundred six-year-olds practicing the violin! As I neared the River, about fifteen miles from the drop into North Wash, winding down through Navajo, Kayenta, Wingate sand- stone, I stopped for the last time between towering Moenkopi bon-bons, barely wide enough for the Bird’s passing, to listen for what I knew I would hear. It came up on a_ breeze of earthy cologne. Mi i t li laughing 1 i g me home. The song of my River. Katie Lee lives in Jerome, Arizona. Her recently published book, All My Rivers Are Gone, tells the story of the demise of Glen Canyon and is a priceless treasure. -wise e Plants tive & Water-wis ves aa Succulents Consulting/Site & Aga Design If you have ever had a hard day on the trail, a hard workout, or jMON JUDId « e« « Plant Now! *Plant Now! jMON JUD|d © jMON JUDId « j|MON JUD]de © j|MON JUD|d ¢ {MON JUDide Not exactly the unknown, I’d come that way more than once with someone else driving the nothing-but-sand-silt-rutted-rocky- road from Hanksville, around Little Egypt, over the dunes and down North Wash--one of the hundred or more side canyons into the Glen. No bridge spanned those several hundred sinuous miles of river from Ken’s to Marble Canyon, Arizona then. This time, I was alone in terrain where I could be up to my crotch in crocodiles before someone came along to pull me and my low-slung ‘55 T-Bird out of the dunes. Well, I was damned if I’d go all the way around through Moab- Monticello-Blandingand down Farley Canyon two hundred more miles to the river. So what, if there were seventy-five to a hundred crossings of North Wash?--that’s the way the biscuit falls to pieces. I’d do it. Be there by late afternoon. (Take a look at it sometime as you go from New Hite to the Pissing Springs turnoff--yeah, that’s what the Mormon cowboys called it before the map makers got to it~you’ll enter North Wash on an elevated, bitumen highway now and can’t see the bottom until you get miles up the canyon). Lucky for me the rain had traveled from the Great Salty down Hanksville way, or I’d be there yet. It doused the dunes enough to harden them for my tricky but triumphant crawl across to the Wash. I plowed, crawled and burrowed through them, whatever seemed right, only got stuck a couple times--a few rocks, my shovel and the dunes let me go...down to the rocks in a mostly bedrock streambed whereI found a more or less constant trickle left over from what had been a dandy flush of the system some twelve hours earlier. Fleshy mounds of petrified Navajo dunes poked up on all sides of my vision, hardly discernable from the soft moving ones that obliterated a good part of the road. Many times I stopped, got out and listened to the desert, the stream and the rock. It (or there goes the sap rap) If you really think it’s too late to plant, then you'll cause me to rave and rant. “cause cool fall weather is the way to go, as long as you do it before the first big snow. I know how make the desert bloom without also making your water bill boom. My name is Janis and if you'd like to know. When it comes to planting Iam Moab’s Pro. « Plant Now! I would spread sensuous curves-Moki steps or crack. JANIS’S FALL PLANT CHANT ¢ Plant Now! and the rock. It hummmmmmed--and moaned. my arms, lic down and press my body into those just couldn't pass up a rippled crevasse, a set of a soft, round bum with potholes up its $39:29 9.43534 «Plant Now! Many times I stopped, got out and listened to the desert, the stream HIGH DESERT GARDENS e Plant Now! wide, six-hundred foot deep fluted canyon (I have never stood in a slot) and heard a melody so out-of-this-world I could not capture it again. Couldn’t hum it, sing it, or remember any tune--only its gentle persuasion to take me to another place, a place I’d never entered before. From Ken’s lawn toward Hanksville, dry and wet streambeds vein out from the knuckle-raised fists of the San Rafael Swell and the Reef running south that parallels the Green river above its junction with the Colorado. Red-orange-yellow-pink-buff-purple cliffs clutch at dark green juniper and pinon on top of the Reef like lustful fingers tangled in unruly hair. The drive from there to the River was pure sensation. Beyond Hanksville, the Summerville formation like sheaves of rippled wet parchment crumble beneath the snow-tipped Henry Mountains to the west; while south and east rise the Colorado Plateau. My track paralleled the Dirty Devil River before it plunged into a deep red heart of hobby-knobby-chocolate-drops that cordoned the river above Hite— Moenkopi Mudstone--a fiery furnace that some called hell. I called it heaven. Then I braved the unknown. are wisited by sore joints and muscles, you need this product. Made from 100% natural plant extracts, this gel is formulated from American Indian medicines which they have used for centuries. For questions or to order, call or write: Glo Germ Company, 150 E. Center St, MOAB,UT 84532. 1-800-842-MOAB or 259-5693 Check or money order only. 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