Revisiting "Thelma and Louise"
Our travel expert offers advice on spotting the filmic outlaws' relics in Utah, getting in position for the next solar eclipse and learning about those European B&Bs.

Editor's Note:Donald D. Groff welcomes questions of general and not-so-general interest. Send questions and comments to traveladvisor@salon.com. A selection of them will be answered each week in this space. He cannot reply personally.

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By Donald D. Groff

Sept. 2, 1999 | I was riding a motorcycle down the White Rim just out of Moab, Utah, and Thelma and Louise's blue convertible is still down below the rim where they crashed it. This is a national park and I was wondering why the film crew didn't clean up its mess.

Portions of "Thelma and Louise" were indeed shot at Arches National Park near Moab, but the title characters' climactic plunge occurred on Bureau of Land Management property below Dead Horse Point and was cleaned up afterwards, according to Murray Shoemaker, a park ranger who was working in the park during the 1990 filming. "They were required to remove everything," he said.

Lee Sjoblom, assistant manager of Dead Horse Point State Park, says he witnessed the removal of the two vehicles used to film the cliff-diving scene. "They cut the cars up and hauled them out by helicopter," he said. Sjoblom said that on the Green River side of the White Rim Trail there are a few smashed cars that were used in the 1950s or 1960s as fill material to stabilize switchbacks. They have been exposed by erosion, and one is baby blue, Sjoblom said. That could be what you saw.

A movie locations map produced by the Grand County Travel Council in cooperation with Dead Horse Point State Park and the Bureau of Land Management, Grand Resource Area, shows three locations linked to "Thelma and Louise":

• The site of the plunge, Shafer Trail under Dead Horse Point, where "a dozen police cars are in hot pursuit of Thelma and Louise as the final dramatic scene is played out."

• Courthouse Towers in Arches Park, where, "stopped by a police officer while driving their '66 T-bird convertible, Thelma and Louise manage to take the officer's gun and lock him in his patrol-car trunk."

• The La Sal Mountains as seen from the town of La Sal, which "was the opening vista for the movie and the location for some of the chase scenes."

The brochure puts a curiously pleasant spin on the movie's plot, considering the smashing outcome: "A humorous and uplifting story of two women who ultimately reroute the course set for them by society, thereby changing the direction of their own destiny."

The Moab Film Commission is at 50 E. Center St., Moab, Utah 84532; phone (435) 259-6388.

I understand the next solar eclipse will be quite visible from central/lower Africa in June 2001. Some friends and I are contemplating visiting Kenya, and perhaps climbing Mount Kilimanjaro at the same time. Are there any tour groups that specialize in this?

You're right -- the next total solar eclipse will occur June 21, 2001, and although it's too early for many tour companies to have firmed up plans, you can expect to have several choices if you want to sign on. The path of totality is expected to cross portions of Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Angola.

One company offering an eclipse program in Zimbabwe is Wilderness Travel of Berkeley, Calif. Four of its African safari tours -- in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe -- will take in the eclipse from Mvuradonha, located on the Zambezi Escarpment in northern Zimbabwe. Wilderness Travel is an old hand at Kilimanjaro trips, too, although it has none planned during the eclipse period. You might be able to glean useful information from Wilderness Travel, phone (800) 368-2794.

You can scope out Kilimanjaro trips through the Great Outdoor Recreation Pages, which includes a primer on trekking at Kilimanjaro National Park in Tanzania, just across the border from Kenya, as well as links to companies offering Tanzania trips.

Among solar eclipse sites is one from NASA that shows solar eclipse paths from 1997-2005. Another site is Solar Eclipses by Bill Kramer, an "eclipse chaser" who notes the June 2001 event. He invites interested parties to contact him, as he's looking into cruise ship possibilities. The page also has links to a dozen or so other solar eclipse pages. Another site is the Eclipse Chaser Home Page.

There's an African Eclipse 2001 page that maps the band of totality over the continent and offers a trip reservation form. Another map of the eclipse's path is at the Eclipse Home Page at the NASA/GSFC Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum.

Another company whose site anticipates a Zimbabwe eclipse trip is Innovations in Travel, 1203 West St., Suite D, Annapolis, MD 21401, phone (800) 733-3361 or (410) 268-2883.

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