Back in the day, heading to the desert meant packing up the trunk of the ’65 Fairlane with enough macaroni and cheese to last a week, loading up the cooler with two cases of beer, and a dog-eared copy of an Ed Abbey novel.

Remember when Chautauqua was a ski area? No?

A few months prior to this, I was invited by a friend of mine to join him in elk hunting this fall. He and his family live outside of Aspen, and he hunts every fall within 10 miles of his house, and has a successful hunt around 90 percent of the time. Of course, he grew up hunting in Michigan, so he has it in his roots, so to speak.

If I could recommend only one classic desert mountain bike “tour,” I would choose the White Rim loop. Located in the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park about an hour outside of Moab, Utah, the 100-plus-mile White Rim Road offers mountain bikers unparalleled vistas of the vast plateau sandwiched between two mighty western desert rivers, the Colorado and the Green.

If you're feeling the fall blues, your cure just might include heading to Telluride this weekend for the 16th Annual Telluride Blues and Brews Festival.