I love the desert. I’m getting a divorce. I’m selling my suburban Salt Lake home. And, for the first time in my entire life, I have the chance to decide where to live all by myself. Right now I’m choosing Moab, Utah. To me it seems a combination of Hawaii, Nome, and Borrego Springs: all oddball places whose quirkiness and remoteness appeal to me. But here’s what some of my friends and family are warning me about.
Moab’s too remote.
Yes, it’s four hours from Salt Lake City. You drive there by taking the dreaded Route 6 with lots of curves shared with trucks, occasional washouts, and godforsaken Helper and Price which are charming in a boom-town-gone-bust-with-nice-waitresses kind of way. Or you can buzz down I-15 and I-70. But, Moab isn’t remote in a scary-weirdo-Charles-Manson kind of way. To me it seems more Burning-Man-Wall Drug-Park City: arty, outdoorsy, creative, upscale, no apparent zoning, and drink-beer-on-your-porch remote.
It depends too much on tourists. It’s a resort town for God’s sake.
I know resort towns. I grew up in one: Manhattan Beach, California. You learn a resort town’s rhythm. The beach was crowded and awful in the summer when the beer-sponsored volleyball tournaments brought out lots of cretins, drunks, and loudmouths. High-season parking was difficult, so we walked to the beach. The bars near the pier were obnoxious, so we did stuff during the week. So what? It was beautiful and relaxed during the winter, and I LOVED the gulls, loved the fog, loved the salt smell, loved the red tides with flourescent night waves, loved taking my Starbucks latte and scone out on the pier and staring past the fishermen towards Japan. Sure it rained and got dreary at Christmas, but even a gray beach is soulful.
Manhattan Beach had a vibrant community that existed alongside the tourist industry. Lawyers, teachers, doctors, therapists, and our Metlox pottery factory thrived alongside the sunglasses shops. Besides, the tourist services were quite attractive to visitors. Bored relatives? They could go down to beach and rent some rollerblades. Perhaps even my sons and their families and friends will continue to visit me because of all of Moab’s amenities. Besides, we’re not talking Branson tourists here. Moab tourists include artists and families, climbers and river rafters, hikers and birders.
You’ll hate the ATV and Hummer crowd.
Well, yes, different groups are attracted to desert places. I’m a hiker and a quiet person and a SUWA supporter, but I can appreciate the place of a motorized vehicle. I don’t really like motorboats, but I remember being rescued by a guy in a motorboat when my husband and I were stranded on the wrong shore during a windy canoe trip. I know I can change my mind, too: I read that introverted editor and writer Jim Stiles moved south out of Moab to smaller and quieter Monticello. Maybe I will, too, someday.
It’s a long way to a major airport. Why don’t you just move to Grand Junction instead?
Grand Junction’s a dump. I drove through it in May with my son. Traffic, franchises, stoplights, confusion. No thanks. It does have a small airport and a Sam’s Club, but I may find myself driving or taking a shuttle back up to Salt Lake for those things anyway.
It’s just a town for outfitters.
Well, yeah, the outfitters and the arches get all the press. But Moab also has a great little library (voted the country’s Best Small Library in 2007 by Library Journal), a fine little comics store, a big grocery, gift shops and art galleries, farmer’s market, two wineries, a library book club, and a branch of Utah State University. Plus Moabites are building a bigger hospital and a bigger elementary school. People actually live and do business there, not just outfit river rafting, slickrock biking, and Hummer tours. And who’s to say I won’t want to outfit myself out of Moab anyway?
But you hate the heat. Actually, the older I get, the more I like the heat. It’s partly Salt Lake’s winters that are driving me south anyway. I’ve lived in other hot places including Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I can adjust to hot.
There isn’t much to do there if you’re not rafting, biking, hiking, or ATVing. The Moab Happenings listed 79 clubs and organizations in town, including the Poets & Writers group, the Bird Club, Sierra Club, library auxiliaries, and film society. I don’t need the opera, ballet, and big-town concerts; I don’t go see that stuff in Salt Lake City. I like home-grown fun. I wrote for the newspaper when I lived in Nome; maybe I’ll do a column or blog down south. When I asked a Moab local about a hiking club, she said she didn’t think there was one but that I could certainly start my own.
Of course, I don’t really know what I’m talking about; I’ve only stayed in hotels and passed through Moab. I haven’t yet worked, shopped, or interacted extensively with the locals. I’m game, though.
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