Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

Here, among the brick-red formations of Chimney Rock, The Martian Chronicles’ landscape comes alive. The sun catches a glint of hot metal as though off a silver spaceship descending from the deep, vast sky. But it’s just the shine off a passing car, and we climb back into our own and resume our journey. Past the Mormon orchards in Fruita, the tree branches dripping with golden apples for Dorothy to pluck en route to Oz. Past the uranium mine tunnels carved into cliff walls, too small for a man to enter at full height, where The Hobbit’s dwarves might toil for silver. At Grand Wash we walk along the bottom of an ancient river chasm pocked with smooth cubbies that in local legend harbored outlaw Butch Cassidy. At last we stop at Behunin Cabin, where a pioneer family’s two sons bedded down outside in cavities of rock. I whisper goodnight to Laura Ingalls Wilder and we ride off into the sunset.

—Shannon Carey

Shannon Carey is a Traveler photo assistant.