AAH! YAH! In the words of Laura Furtado, "dis is so cool." Between our return to the day shift and our surroundings, we are in another heaven. Yesterday's drive to Escalante took us through Red Canyon to altitudes nearing 8,000'. We passed under sandstone arches and had views of the Bryce canyonlands with diverse landscapes in between. After checking into the Prospector in Escalante we headed to the reservoir by the local petrified forest where we swam and napped in the sun. Our team masseuse came with us and gave us our day off massages on the beach. We are always so tired after two rounds of graveyard shift. It will take a few days to catch up. The regular hours help a lot. Laura, Shiri, Rob and I dined at the local "cowboy" restaurant where I enjoyed delicious fajitas and nachos. We stayed awake to have dinner at a normal hour and went to bed at 9pm with the alarm set not to go off until 6am, a normal time. Alas, we missed a big exchange party organized by the hotel proprietor as we were in bed. I had given this wonderful woman a BPR shirt earlier in the day. She was so excited about our journey that she called on all her guests and some locals to come to the 9pm exchange which then turned into a huge celebration.

We are in the high desert of Utah on our way to Moab. Parts are a small version of the Grand Canyon, a real "Church of Nature." Places like this are to me the natural cathedral in my life, home to the spirits and souls. The natural quality and true beauty captures my spirit and my soul every time.

From Escalante we followed the Escalante River Bed, a very dry one. First views were of the mesas and dirt roads stretching and twisting forever across them. We passed signs to places like Salt Gulch and Hell's Backbone at 6,700' then drove through Boulder, Utah where it was surprisingly green. From there it was onto the Boulder-Bullfrog Road heading to Bullfrog Basin. We encountered lots of rabbits, both squished on the road and alive and running. The greenery along the river bed inside the valley was interspersed with bushes of soft lavender blossoms and lowlying morning glory type plants with white trumpet flowers open but preparing to close up to the rising sun. Tracks in the sand on the sides of the road documented the passage of snakes, bugs, deer and rabbits. One deer posed by the side of the road like a statue studying us. The morning light within the sandstone surroundings was again incredible. We climbed amongst sculpted sandstone arches and towers, dropping back down into the next valley on tight sandy switchbacks with occasional washouts. We passed Upper Muley Canyon. I love the names of things out here. On one road sign at an intersection a handwritten note said essentially, "if you turn right you are on the right track to Hall's Crossing but both ways are seriously washed out." Some of our fleet has been diverted to an alternate route because this one would be impassable. I love the interest and excitement of this kind of terrain. This is truly back road wilderness.

We crossed Lake Powell at Hall's Crossing with the pilot van, Team Orange and the photo crew. Lake Powell was engineered in the 1950's and is a major source of hydro power. The southern part of the Lake borders Arizona, the rest is in Utah. Its waters fill Glen Canyon, a canyon which underneath its waters has been compared to the Grand Canyon with what were dramatic waterfalls and Anasazi ruins. The Lake is also a tourist attraction galore, drawing hordes of people to play in and around its waters. The popular activities include camping, houseboating, jet and water skiing, boating and more, too much commotion for my blood. Many of the boats and other motorized toys are ostentatious, smelly and release bad stuff into the water. The water was in the 80's and the outside temperature at 94 degrees for our short visit. Laura ran the baton into the ferry dock and I ran out. I ran right off the ferry and then climbed a big hill out of the hotbox and into a stiff headwind, yet another headwind for Dot. Rob our driver joined me for the first few miles. The scenery of the Lake and the surrounding desert, rocks, gorges and mountains was breath-taking.

My run was cut short by a GPS navigational misunderstanding. I still managed to get in eight plus miles. I tried to negotiate some extra miles but I was passing off to a new team. It's tough when the mileage does not work out to your expectations especially if it happens right before or during your run. Most runners like myself plan for the run and gauge things like fluids, electrolytes, foods and clothing appropriately. If the mileage is short or long and we know it ahead of time we've been able to work out equitable coverage within our sub-teams. But some runners don't want to negotiate for more or less. Some of that is competition, some just inflexibility. So, today, I did what I always try to do - grab the silver lining. Every step I ran today was drop dead gorgeous. The wind even turned to sail at my back, and the uphills were rewarded by long sweeping downhills. The temperature remained in the 90's. The sands along the side of the good quality roadway with little traffic spit out sea shells to the surface. This area is full of artifacts from all eons in the history of our formation, from the seas that once covered the entire earth to the remnants of cultures like the Anasazi and other adobe dwellers. And the horizon views here are forever. Food for life's illusions, ala Joni Mitchell who was singing when I re-entered the van after my run.

The drive to Moab was more of the same, beautiful. We crossed cattle guards and passed turns to places like Mexican Hat, Mule Canyon Ruins and the entrance to Canyonlands National Park. We named rock formations like the nipple rock with a door spotted by Simon. The purported door was a cave entrance perfectly placed as an entrance to the structure had it been some type of building. Wild fires were burning on the ridges to the north of us. We lunched in Blanding known as the "Base Camp to Adventure." We will spend the night in Moab and run there tomorrow.

I continue to be amazed by how much undeveloped open land there is in this world. More than enough to house all the globe's people with each having some private turf. The problem is water. There is little of it out here in the high desert of Utah. People need it to survive and homestead. Here it is not about the safety of water but the supply of water. The bottled water issue is not about the safety of water but about the trash produced and the recycling of the waste created, as well as the energy utilized to produce the bottles. Overuse of water, eg. sprinkling, car washing and long showers, is not about the safety of water but about the wasting of energy. These are some of the distinctions from what we are about. The Blue Planet Run is all about the safety of water and the lack of access to safe drinking water which causes mortality, particularly in kids from undeveloped and underdeveloped countries.

Water is life. Pass it on!