Moab: Part I

I have been to Moab. It is good.

I came home early last Thursday undecided about going to Moab for a four day weekend because the forecast called for rain. Every single day. In the desert. But Gerard insisted we go anyway, and I'm glad he did. I'm going to break the trip up into multiple blog posts, partly because I have a lot to say, partly because each leg of the trip had its own feel, and partly because I just now have enough time to start writing about the trip.

So Thursday night we packed up and Friday morning we set out early. We had four full days ahead of us and no real agenda aside from making it to Moab at some point. One of the great things about road trips, especially unhurried ones, are the things you stumble across along the way. Around lunchtime on Thursday we found ourselves in the city of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. It was a cool, drippy day and we were in search of a bathroom, lunch and some hot coffee. The Summit Coffee Shop served us very well. It was as funky a coffee shop as you might find in Austin, but with that particularly mountain feel that only coffee shops above 5,000 feet seem to have. Maybe it was the wall of books and maps on whitewater rafting, hiking and Rocky Mountain field guides and everyone dressed in flannel, I don't know. I do know the coffee and muffins were fantastic, the service was friendly, and the atmosphere cozy enough to entice us to stay awhile. A few blocks away were the famous hot springs, believed by both Native Americans and present day citizens to be a source of healing. Of course these days it looks pretty much like a swimming pool you'd find in any suburban community center, only much bigger. We walked around town a bit and stayed just long enough to get a sense of the place, but it wasn't until we started to leave that I found a real treat. I saw a small sign that said, "Doc Holliday's Grave" and an arrow pointing into a quaint neighborhood.

"THE Doc Holliday!?" I gasped aloud.

"What's that?" Gerard asked. I explained as I made a hasty u-turn. A few minutes later we were at an unassuming and completely unremarkable trailhead at the back of the neighborhood at the base of a mountain. We climbed.

The trail was rocky and not maintained and it wound its way around the mountain, up and up, until we reached a small cemetery overgrown with weeds and juniper. We wandered through reading badly weathered tombstones dated as far back as the 1880's. Some were completely illegible and others had been toppled, but by weather or vandals I couldn't discern. And there, way in the back nestled between a large juniper and the edge of a precipice, stood a tall marble column bearing that old gunslinging dentist's name.

"Well I'll be damned," I said. A small plaque next to the marker explained that this was, in fact, not Holliday's exact resting place. Rather it was a memorial, since his exact resting place isn't known. It turns out he is indeed buried in the cemetery but in the early 20th century the cemetery records were lost and anyone buried prior to that time whose grave marker hadn't adequately withstood the test of time was now lost somewhere six feet beneath the juniper.

You may remember from high school history, or perhaps from the movie Tombstone, that Doc was involved in the legendary "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," arguably the most famous gunfight of the American West. It all went down in Tombstone, Arizona where Doc, Wyatt Earp and others had their famous shootout with some of "The Cowboys," a band of outlaws. In fact, Earp later said of Holliday, "he was the most skillful gambler, and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a gun I ever knew."

Doc suffered from tuberculosis, and five years later ended up in Glenwood Springs hoping the waters would ease his suffering. He died quietly in a hotel near there in 1887 at the age of 35. The hotel is now gone.

I stood up there on that mountain a long while, listening to the wind blow and looking out over that sleepy town. Somewhere just below my feet lay a true Legend of the American West. Doc Holliday. Wow. He was my age when he died. How times have changed.

It seemed so strange to me that such a legendary figure would not only be buried in an all but forgotten, neglected cemetery, but that even his grave site would be lost. In fact the only reason the memorial is there, as the plaque pointed out, was that the city thought they could make some tourism dollars by promoting his final resting place. But after thinking on it, I suppose it's a fitting end. He was a loner in life. He lived fast and hard and died a young legend. And now he's finally getting his long rest up there on that lonely mountain.