Highways, skyways and rocky mountain trails are part of an alluring lifestyle to me. From Sunday drives with my family as a child, to soaring above the clouds in a jet airliner, and now driving around our majestic mountains and red rock desert, I’ve always felt at home on the road.
Travel is the adventure you find around every corner – that sense of discovery and surprise as you learn something new from the landscape around you. It’s the sheer beauty of the clouds rapidly shuttling overhead, the rippling waves in wind-blown desert sand, the majesty of towering pine trees on the flanks of mountain peaks and breathtaking rock formations carved by Mother Nature that surround us everywhere we go.
At heart, we are all explorers!
When I was a young boy, my Midwestern family would pack the car for weeklong trips from Wisconsin to Gettysburg and Williamsburg, staying at modern new Holiday Inns or pulling our small tent trailer to state park campgrounds. On weekends we would head north to grandpa’s cabin on weed-filled Patrick Lake or gather for a Sunday picnic at Devil’s Lake State Park underneath the towering quartzite bluffs.
Flying wasn’t common when I was growing up. My first plane flight came as a teen with a Civil Air Patrol friend in his old Piper Cub. I joined him on a 25-minute aerial adventure from Madison to Oshkosh for the Experimental Aircraft Association Air Show, instilling a passion in me to become a pilot. A few years later, I boarded a North Central Airlines Convair 580 for my first commercial flight. There was a special elegance to flying in those lumbering metal tubes.
Travel forces you to think on your feet. Despite all the work you did with maps, or the mobile trails app on your phone, at some point you’ll need to make decisions on which fork in the trail to choose. Never worry, each fork leads to a new experience.
Imagine traveling the highways and byways of America without the interstate highway system.
A few years ago we did that, venturing from Utah to Wisconsin, completely avoiding the four-lane strips of concrete. We would just put the GPS onto our end destination each morning and then head out randomly onto country roads to absorb the countryside, pull over to the side of the road to photograph horses on the rolling prairie and stop for lunch at roadside diners in the heartland of America.
Today, we live in a state that offers some of the most diverse landscapes in the nation. As Parkites, we can drive a couple hours to the deep forests and shimmering lakes of the High Uintas, the sodium-encrusted salt flats of the West Desert or slickrock trails winding up to high desert vistas.
Last year Sunday Drive took you on adventures within about a three-hour drive from Park City. This year we’re expanding our horizons just a bit to introduce you to new destinations around Utah and our surrounding states.
Sunday Drive is designed to bring out the explorer in your family, motivating you to climb into the family SUV for a weekend journey of discovery, or to learn how to use the 4WD features of that Jeep you bought for backcountry exploration.
Thanks for riding along with me in Sunday Drive.
Next Week: With the snow melting and mud forming, it’s time to get down to the desert. We’ll drive down to Central Utah, absorbing ancient petroglyphs at the Rochester Panel where you’ll find one of the most fascinating ancient rock art displays in the state.
About Tom Kelly: A lifelong traveler, Tom Kelly has visited over 100 countries on six continents. Some of his best adventures have been in Utah and the Intermountain West, which he has made his home for 35 years.