Just outside the sun-bleached walls of Lennox House, leaves whirling aimlessly around the Jeep Wagoneer, five of us began to meld into warm vinyl. Driving away, I wondered if the shadows against Shove Chapel and the stillness of Mathias would trap us at the corner of Cascade and Uintah.

Moments earlier, consumed by highlighter pens and earmarked volumes of “The Divine Comedie” and “Paradise Lost,” I dreamed of escape. Now, with the landscape of Wilkerson Pass before me, South Park became my gateway to freedom.

Although our goal was a trashed-out campsite in Moab, we were able to forgo campground bathrooms for a piece of level ground just off Highway 191. Unable to put up our tents, and without thinking or changing clothes, we allowed the late nights of first block and our nylon sleeping bags to swallow us up into the night.

Our weekend getaway found us hiking through a maze of slick rock, fins, buttes, and spires. It enveloped us — a ceilingless cave with tight hallways that suddenly opened up to great grassland vistas. Winding through the carved red rock of Utah, we wove a memory that would become a piece of the mural of our lives.

We studied these rocks like we studied each other. The great dramas of Dante and Milton somehow connected with our relationships and this world around us. Quiet reflection gave way to impassioned discussion as we worked our way through the serpentine canyons.

The five of us huddled together as a too-bright moon kept us awake into the early morning. Surrounded by blackbrush and juniper, the sounds of the canyon wren and a distant coyote, this canyon trip led me into another block break, another year, and adventitiously into the tapestry that made up my experience at CC.