The Lottery

Every morning for the last 2 weeks we have gotten up in the morning, jumped out of bed, guzzled our coffee, and raced to the BLM office in Kanab, Utah for the lottery. There is a world famous rock formation in Southern Utah called “the Wave”. I'm sure you've seen pictures of it. If not, look it up. It is spectacular. Anyway, the only way to get to see this wonder of nature is to win the lottery. They only let 20 people in to see the wave everyday and there are thousands of people applying to see the thing on any given day. There is an online lottery which gives out 10 tickets where you are competing with people from all over the world via the web...literally thousands of applicants every day. There is also an in person lottery at the BLM office which gives out tickets to 10 people a day. Your odds of winning the lottery by applying in person at the BLM office are much better than the online lottery because you have to actually be at the office to apply. People come from all over the world just for a chance to win.

The least amount of in-person applicants that we saw was 84 on a Tuesday and the most was 186 on a Saturday. The mood in the BLM office can be tense. We saw tears of joy from winners and tears of frustration from losers. We saw a guy try to bribe the Ranger running the lottery (he was quickly escorted out of the building) and we saw lots of people telling their sob story on why they should just be given a ticket instead of trying to win one like the rest of us. Most of the stories were something about how they only had a limited amount of time in the area and they really deserved to be let in because their mommy told them how special they were as a child...boo-hoo-hoo. Cry me a river and get in line with the rest of us who have been here multiple days patiently trying to win.

After a handful of losing days we started calling our morning routine “the morning rejection” or “the morning disappointment”. We would set our alarm to wake us up for this rejection and disappointment and head to the office with high hopes. Unfortunately it never came through for us. On the bright side, since we were up early and we had our car loaded up with food and gear, we were on the road bright and early to see the sites...and there are sites to be seen here.

The Grand Staircase of Escalante National Monument may be the most amazing place that we have been to date...and 2 weeks ago we didn't even know the place existed. When we found out about its existence, we thought that we would maybe spend a couple of days here and be on our way. We have now been here for 2 weeks and have really only scratched the surface on what is here. There are the most incredible geological features that we have laid our eyes on, there are fossils and dinosaur bones that would blow your mind, there are more slot canyons in the area than anywhere else in the world, and there is wild solitude. The place is huge and surprisingly diverse.

I was talking with a guy while I was waiting in line for our morning rejection. He asked me what I thought of the area and what things we had seen. I told him where we had been and said that “some of this stuff could possibly be the coolest stuff that I have ever seen!” It turns out the guy was a Geologist and already knew about the cool stuff that I was talking about. He proceeded to tell me that “these things aren't some of the most incredible geological features you have possibly seen, they ARE the most incredible geological features on the face of the earth! There have been text books written on the features that are found only here and no where else on the planet!” I stand corrected...this stuff is the coolest stuff I have ever seen.

We talked for a bit about what some of this cool stuff was and what it meant and I learned of another spot that we apparently had to see...the “Cockscomb”. I'm not sure why it's called the “Cockscomb” but that is what it's called (I think someone should have come up with a better name). According to my new friend the Geologist, the Cockscomb is the best visible example on earth of shifting tectonic plates. The Cockscomb is a jagged ridge that runs for about 100 miles and is created by two tectonic plates crashing into each other. One of the edges of the 2 crashing plates got pushed up and the other was pushed under ground. The one that was pushed up created an amazing ridge that you just have to see to believe. The best place to view this 100 mile long ridge was at another incredible geological feature that the Geologist told us we had to see...Yellow Rock. What is Yellow Rock you ask? Well, it's a yellow rock. A huge yellow rock. It's about the size of Texas huge. This yellow rock isn't all that easy to get to, but since my new friend told me how incredible it is...we had to go and see it and look at the Cockscomb from the top of it. The Geologist was right...the rock was yellow, it was huge, it was amazing, and we could see miles and miles of the Cockscomb. Incredible and fascinating.

Just yesterday, after our morning disappointment, we went for a hike out in the desert to see a beautiful box canyon that one of the Ranger's told us about. In this canyon we found ancient pictographs and petroglyphs high on the walls that are hundreds of years old. Pretty amazing. After that, we saw some fossilized clams and oysters...who would have thought that clams and oysters would have been in the middle of the desert!?!?! Incredible. We stopped by another BLM office after our discoveries to ask the Ranger's about them and got some interesting facts about the history of region. The Grand Staircase of Escalante not only has amazing geological features and a rich history of ancient peoples, it also has had more discoveries of new dinosaur species in the last 2 decades than anywhere else in the world...and millions of years ago it was under the sea (which is where the fossilized clams and oysters came from). Incredible.

So that's what we've been up to for the last 2 weeks. We didn't win the Lottery but we felt like we still came out like winners. We explored canyons, we saw dinosaur bones, we saw evidence of ancient people, we hiked our brains out, we did some serious redneck style 4 wheel driving in the desert to get to some of this stuff, and we felt like we were in science class the whole time we were out there. We loved it! I was a great 2 weeks. We really feel like we could spend another 2 weeks here but there is some weather coming our way and most of the roads are impassible when wet which means we would be sitting in our home on wheels waiting for things to dry up so we can explore some more...we aren't very good at sitting still...so off we go.