Sunday evening, I-15: We are heading north on I-15 toward Salt Lake City, three days of driving behind us. Since coming onto I-15, it seems like there are swarms of police everywhere; unmarked cars, marked cars, sheriff cars, highway patrol cars, more police than I thought existed in all of southern Utah. They are preying on those returning from Vegas and in a hurry to get home. We ripped up the roads for three days, and now I have the car's cruise control set at 80 mph as we plod towards home.

Alexander, my ten-year-old son, is my passenger in the Boxster this trip. He has a week more of the fourth grade once we get back, and then glorious summer. My wife informed we a week ago it is time to have "the talk." This is our fourth day in the car together, but the time was filled with sightseeing, comments on the string of Porsches winding out behind us, and just generally hanging out together. It was time well spent, and now, with the steady hum of the wheels on the interstate and in the uncertain light of dusk, I decide to broach the subject. "So, whadda ya' know?"

After a couple of minutes, it is pretty clear he knows quite a bit and he really does not want to talk to me about it. Plus, he is only 10. But I want to make sure he has the facts he should know at 10 straight, thinking back on the significant misinformation I had at 10. Alexander is tolerant, although not terribly interested in discussing life philosophy and feelings about the potential onset of puberty. Finally, he has had enough: "Dad, I really do not want to talk about this. Let's play the animal guessing game."

And so we play the animal guessing game. He hits me with an obscure reptile, which I have no hope of guessing, and then I am back at him with an insect. The insects are really hard, and he is stumped by termite. Back and forth in the enveloping darkness, I play the animal guessing game with my son, still a boy and wanting to stay a boy right now. I am glad to share this boyhood moment with him, it will be over much too soon.

Thursday afternoon, I-15: "Heh, point man. I am being passed by a minivan back here." It is Tim on the radio. Tim, our club president, who gives me a fair amount of grief about "good tour practice." I can understand his anxiety, he has never been on a tour I led, and he does have a lot of responsibility for the overall conduct of the Club. We are heading south towards Hurricane at about 10 over the speed limit, and I am actually glad to hear the news we are being passed by a minivan. I consider it good tour practice.

Looking to my left in the rear view mirror, I can see the minivan coming up behind me in the left lane. I ease down on the throttle just a bit to gain a little more speed, thinking I will push out a little and leave the minivan next to Tim. Looking to my left again, I can see the minivan is gaining on me. Rapidly.

I am thinking, "Who is in the minivan," when I realize it is about to blow by me at a speed in excess of 100 mph. As it is going by, I look up directly into the kindest, most beautiful blue eyes of a woman smiling thoughtfully down at me from the passenger seat of the minivan. She is easily 80 years old, and her gaze is a grandmother's reassurance that I am the better person for letting her minivan leave my trail of Porsches I the dust. Yes, I was passed by grandma and grandpa. And there were witnesses.

Saturday late morning, Utah 95: We are heading down North Wash, a winding canyon no more than a hundred yards wide that ends up on the north edge of Lake Powell in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The canyon walls are a hundred to two hundred feet high along the road, mammoth, sheer faces with undulating surfaces, clear evidence of thousands of years of water flowing along this course on its way into Glen Canyon. The road runs along a creek that seems much too modest to stake any claim to the mammoth scale of this canyon, although on the scale of geological time, this little creek probably can make a reasonable claim to the title of artist.

Porsches are strung out behind me, flowing fluidly over the road surface and gliding along the canyon walls, responding to the same physical forces as the creek beside us. In narrow canyons, one can often hear the wail of the engines. But here, in this mammoth space, the sound is subdued, swallowed up by the great expanse of curved rock faces and towering cliffs. The car is alive on this road, tires grabbing ahold of the pavement as it sprints through the sweeping turns, its pulse quickening in the short climbs and then the breathes come faster and faster as it accelerates down a sharp incline. It is gravity that carries cars and creek coursing toward the massive Glen Canyon. As the waters have done for millions of years, so the cars twist and turn along the canyon walls, rushing and then hesitating just a moment before plunging headlong down a steep slope, gathering speed then leaping over the uneven surfaces of a rocky rapids.

Friday afternoon, Utah 12: It had been a day of spectacular roads in the midst of natural wonders. Starting the morning with a sprint through the little traveled western reaches of Zion National Park, then driving through the park and on to Red Canyon, Bryce Canyon National Park, and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Park, we had seen red rocks as spires, towers, arches, amphitheaters, cliffs, bluffs, plateaus, and gravel on the side of the road. The weather was beautiful, but as afternoon wore on, the relentless sun was becoming fatiguing.

After crossing a mind boggling stretch of highway along a ridgeline outside Boulder, Utah, with huge canyons dropping away on either side of the roadway as far as the eye could see, we began climbing up the flanks of Boulder Mountain. Soon, we were winding through huge groves of white-trunked aspen trees, broken occasionally by stands of pine. The air was cooler in the intermittent shade of the forest, and the road was more twisty as it made its way along the flanks of the mountains, steadily rising as it picked its way through an occasional meadow and then charged up a steep slope. This was certainly no rival to the breath taking grandeur of the national parks, but there was something gleeful about this romp through the forest. The cars came to life on these twisting, undulating roads, charging up to a turn, braking hard, then accelerating into the next short straight. Like exercise at the end of a busy day, it felt good to stretch out in the cool of the mountains before the day came to an end.

Saturday, late morning, Utah 261, Trail of the Ancients: Utah 261 came up fast after the first indication an intersection was ahead. I braked hard and made a quick right turn onto what can only be characterized as a tertiary road. And this is when I saw the sign. A big yellow sign with flashing lights. A sign meant to get your attention, and it got mine: WARNING, narrow gravel road 26 miles ahead.

I had researched the route, and I knew there was a short stretch of road, possibly with some gravel, along this segment. But I had assurances there would be no problem for cars to drive over this stretch, it was simply unpaved because it ran down the face of a cliff and was easier to maintain as dirt. I had persuaded myself this was not an issue, and there were good reasons to take this route. Until I saw the sign. That was when I started to lose my nerve. A serious sign like this had to mean something. Sure, it seemed to focus on RVs and trucks, making the most of "narrow," but "gravel road" is not exactly a warm fuzzy feeling in a lowered Porsche.

We stopped beside the sign, and I radioed everyone my assurances that I had researched this and we would not have any problems with the short stretch of gravel ahead. I was not, however, as sure as I tried to sound. I had not expected the sign.

Once we were driving, the road was a series of long straights over a mildly undulating terrain with occasional curves to find a better track over washes and gullies. We were making good time, but it seemed a curse, bringing us closer and closer to the inevitability of the gravel road.

As we drove, I decided the only way I could inspire confidence was if I took my lowered car down the road first. Then, if it was impassable, I would bear the cost of being stuck fifty miles from the nearest town. We had plenty of warning the pavement was about to end in the form of another massive yellow sign with blinking lights. I had a sinking feeling as I saw gravel on the pavement, a sure sign civilization was about to end. I radioed everyone to pull over and wait for further instructions, then I took a deep breadth and pulled out to the edge of the world.

No more than a hundred yards down the road was a pullout, and what I could see was stunning. At Moki Dugway, Cedar Mesa abruptly ends and drops off a thousand feet to the valley below. Off in the distance I could see the stunning rock formations that characterize Monument Valley in Northern Arizona, and looking down the cliff I could see the narrow road twisting and turning like a mountain goat trail. But the road was paved at one time and had coarse gravel in the turns to even out the rutting that is the inevitable result of waters taking the road to the valley below.

I immediately radioed the pack just above me and told them to come on down, leaving plently of spacing to avoid getting a chip from the car ahead. We lingered for quite awhile in this spot, captured by the magnificence of the vista before us. It was like standing on the edge of the world and looking out at another planet. I had never seen anything so breath taking, mainly because I have never seen another vista where the world seemed so perfectly divided into two halves. I was glad I had taken the risk to ignore the signs.

Sunday evening, 9:00 pm, Wendy's in Spanish Fork, Utah: There were just three cars in our caravan heading north, and we decided to stop for something to eat before it got too late. Unfortunately, nothing was open on Sunday evening, so we felt lucky to find even a fast food restaurant open for business.

Per was driving with us on his way to Idaho, where he planned to spend the night before heading back the next day to Oregon. Michael and his Dad, Dick, were heading up to Centerville, and Alexander and I would peel off in Salt Lake City. We were all tired, and this was a stop out of physical necessity rather than a desire to further socialize.

After we all managed to get our food served fast food style, one at a time, we focused on the task of eating, which did not take long. There was some small talk, but we all wanted to get back on the road and headed for home. But just as we were all piling our respective paper and containers on trays to carry to the trash, someone told a funny story about the day before, and we all had a good chuckle. This reminded someone of another funny observation, which was good for another round of laughter, and then another story was told to another round of laughter and ribbing about being passed by a minivan.

For the next thirty minutes or so, we were in a magical place of stories and laughter, of teasing and mock insult, and friendship and camaraderie. We were still tired, but the stories tumbling out were a chance to share the moments that had made the tour a memorable time for us all. There was a warmth of friendship in our little group sitting in a deserted Wendy's late that evening, as memories were shared and we again delighted in what we had experienced together.

I sit there still, as I write this piece, the same warm feeling of that moment still with me as I think about the tour and the jumble of experiences that are the memory.