Just follow the Colorado River, more or less, from Grand Junction, Colorado to Grand Canyon, Arizona, with a hundred side trips.

Some of the most beautiful places I know are in southern Utah, in what I like to think of as the A to Z tour, Arches to Zion. In between are the wonders of Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Bryce, and outstanding state parks like Kodachrome Basin, Dead Horse Point and Goblin Valley.

Here is where I saw my first rattlesnake and tarantula, pulled the first cactus spines from my boots with a pliers and had several good shirts torn apart by plant life as hard as the land. Here is where I rounded up cattle for the first time, walked through quicksand, mined a lode of silver, rescued the town from outlaws and saved the widow's homestead from greedy bankers. Oops...that last stuff was from the movies. Gotta love the southwest.

"Deep in the outback, back of beyond, far into the hoodoo land of naked stone" - Edward Abbey