Your passport....

The first time you held a passport in your hands, you knew , if you used it, your life would never be the same. Fear of the unknown was masked behind a tingling thrill of the potential adventure that lies ahead.

These writings will be your passport to the exciting real-life adventures that lie behind the closed doors along central Utah's Highway 89, specifically in Piute County. Why Piute - one of Utah's smallest and least populous counties? Primarily because the region is not only rich in resources, but in human lives. It is a true representation of Small Town, USA, and is a surefire example of a growing trend to relocate to the country.

Piute is representative of the American Dream - a place that figures into the plans of urbanites and suburbanites who yearn to get back to the basics. In turn, it's a place where the natives pay a high price to stay.

Piute doesn't have a strong economic base. Residents find the admission price to live in the central Utah county calls for tremendous creativity in paying bills. Sharing the lives of those in Piute County sheds light on the lifestyle paradox typical of all south central Utah counties.

In 1980, while vacationing in Utah, I stood at the lookout point above Brianhead and was struck with the feeling that somewhere close I would find 'home.' Born and raised in Los Angeles, I knew I was a nomad by age 15. While others dreamed of a two-week vacation in Hawaii, I dreamed of sitting on the steps of a castle in Scotland or exploring the depths of a pyramid. Everywhere was home and nowhere held me for very long. After that short vacation in Utah, my life was forever changed.

I hired a property manager, stored my furniture, parked the Mercedes in my mom's garage, purchased a 4 wheel drive truck and fled into the wild back country of Utah.

Past adventures of hitchhinking alone through Europe, busing and walking my way through Central and South America, scuba diving in unprotected waters off the Yucatan all pale against the adventures of a "normal" life that I faced in Piute as a mother, wife and woman in Small Town, USA.

Until September, 1981, my name was Bobbe McGhie. For those of you who remember the song, I was not the original reason for Kris Kristoferson writing it, but my life directly paralleled its contents. Somewhere near Salinas, after many adventures (as the song says), I slipped away....

This is your passport to Piute and the celebration of life found in Utah's most rural regions. Find out why it beckons to such an array of people from throughout the world. Find out why the threat of poverty, always a shadow at the door, serves to make its people more creative for the privilege of living there.