It all started when our dog was born. I promise this will tie into how we ended up with 86 acres and two vacation rental homes in Utah, but this really is what caused all of this to happen. Blue is a Weimaraner, a breed with incredibly high energy, and he needs a lot of exercise to remain calm and happy. He was born on December 23, 2013 and by the time he was in his dog-equivalent to the "terrible twos" (which is about 6 months old for dogs) he was officially in Tasmanian Devil mode and destroying our home. It is a LOT of work keeping a baby Weim happy, so we began taking him on long hikes in the local mountains to burn up the energy - keeping him at a manageable level of hyperactivity. The Problem: When you want to take a dog anywhere in a heavily populated area you have a few caveats to deal with. Namely "NO" signs posted seemingly everywhere. Dogs must almost always be on a leash, can only be on certain trails (the boring easy ones), and don't get me started on beach restrictions for dogs. What we wanted for Blue was wide open spaces where we could let him run freely to his heart's content. The Solution: In a word - Jeep. That's right. I bought a Jeep just so we could take Blue to the places no one else (in a standard vehicle) can go so the "NO" signs became fewer and farther between. For example, there are no leash requirements in the middle of Death Valley. We rigged the Jeep with every camping accessory made, including a rooftop tent, and we hit the road as often as we could. This eventually lead us to Utah, of course, and that is when we fell in love. On one trip we spent the day in the mountains exploring trails. We found ourselves somewhere near Duck Creek, Utah, a mountain community somewhat isolated in a devastatingly gorgeous area off the 14 highway. Stumbling on a trail that was fairly technical driving had us believing there would probably not be many non-off-roading tourists. We made our way through a forest of trees with multi-colored fall leaves that took our breath way.

After and hour or so on the trail we came out of the woods in a meadow at the base of a giant, sprawling lava field. We hadn't come across a single human this entire time, so we knew we were in the ideal spot to let Blue run free. I flung open the Jeep door and he lept into the thigh-high wheat-like sage grass and disappeared, frantically sniffing and dashing from place to place. Have you ever seen a dog smile? They do, and if you know what to look for those smiles can be from ear to ear. Blue had one of these smiles, and I have never witnessed a happier animal. We knew we were home.

That's when the discussions began. Maggie and I couldn't stop exploring how we could somehow acquire some land out here and build an escape pod we could bug out to, camp on, build a new life around, and remove ourselves from the restrictive regulations that say "NO" to the things we love to do. Utah is perhaps the friendliest state in the west when it comes to off roading and dog-owner rights. There is an unspoken law that you begin to understand once you've spent some time here. You won't find it written, but it says "Do as you please, but don't be an a-hole. Stay on the trails, pick up your dog's poo. Be a responsible, respectable human, and Utah welcomes you".

I spent time in St George Utah as a kid. My mom was raised here and my grandparents lived there for years when I was a boy, so I was familiar with the culture and people. We just feel at home in this part of the world. When we got home I made a few calls, met a super-connected realtor, and the search was on. We wanted something remote, on as many acres as we could afford at the time. One listing for a raw, well-treed lot had a few photos of an absolutely beautiful mountain view. It was a 20-acre parcel near a tiny town called Kanarraville. It has power running along one side, came with water rights (a system for rationing water from wells) and a clear title. The search was over. We made an offer and the deal went through. A few months later we made our way back to Utah to explore the property in the Jeep. We had all sorts of ideas about what to build here, mostly along the lines of a "container home" made from shipping containers, digging a well, and being completely off-grid. While trying to decide, we visited often to Jeep-camp and explore the local area. We've recently had the amazing good fortune to have two adjacent parcels totaling 66 acres with two luxury homes go on the market. We were able to acquire them with a little haggling, and probably paid a little too much. We are just so grateful to have had that opportunity. Your neighbors only sell so often - sometimes never, so this was serendipitous to say the least. Add our original raw 20 acres and it's become a contiguous 86 acre parcel we call Kolob Canyons Ranch, named after the nearby Kolob Canyons entrance to Zion National Park. Who knows how this will turn out, but we do plan to expand with our experiential hospitality project and are looking at building an A-frame tiny home village for couples seeking the ultimate romantic getaway. We have a lot of land here, so the adventure is just beginning.