MONUMENT VALLEY — There's a place in Utah where people like to stand in the middle of a U.S. highway. They're out there almost every day, dodging cars and taking selfies.

"Every day, every day," said Joe James who runs a nearby Navajo jewelry stand. "Met a lot of people here from all over the world."

The location is in a remote, rural area where something always seems to be going on right in the middle of the road. Sometimes it's one person taking snapshots on the center line. Sometimes it's two people taking pictures of each other. Often there's a bunch. Occasionally there's big crowd shuffling around on the pavement.

And they're often forced to scramble off the highway when a car or a tour bus goes shooting by.

The explanation for the seemingly crazy behavior has something to with great scenery in the area. But it has even more to do with a fictional event that some people just can't seem to get out of their heads.

The strange goings-on take place at mile marker 13 on U.S. 163, a few miles south of Mexican Hat. The view looking to the south might seem familiar to many people. It's instantly recognizable to anyone who's seen the 1994 film "Forrest Gump." Monument Valley scenery had a starring role in that much-loved Oscar-winning film.

Near the end of the movie, the fictional title character begins a long-distance run to escape his personal troubles. The run goes on for years. But in a scene filmed right at mile marker 13, Gump suddenly stops running and makes a slow U-turn.

Famous words

"It's where he stopped and said, 'This is it. I'm done with running,'" recalled John Thacker of Sydney, Australia, as he stood beside the highway. "And that's why I'm here. I've made this special trip just for that purpose."

As his wife, Moira, took photos, Thacker jogged alongside the road wearing a long-haired wig much like the one Hanks wore in the movie — except that it was bright red instead of Gumpian brown. Thacker is part of an ultramarathon group in Australia that raises money for cancer research through a foundation called Can Too. He hopes to help the cause with photos of himself running in Monument Valley.

"You know, probably a couple of thousand people in our running group will see this photo," Thacker said, "and hopefully will use it as a bit of inspiration to raise more money."

For his photo run, Thacker deliberately stayed off the pavement and jogged on the shoulder of the highway.

"I was running on the side just to make sure I don't get run over," Thacker said with a laugh.

Most other visitors are not so cautious. Some tourists are content with just standing on the center line. Others take it to the next level.

“OK, OK! One! Two! Three!" yelled a teenage girl standing in the middle of the road. On her count of three, a gang of California girls leaped from the pavement for a photo that froze their leap in midair with the familiar scenery behind. They were part of a tour group of 37 from a high school near Sacramento. All the students were born long after the movie came out.

"Yeah, but I like the movie," said Kylie Rath of Loomis, California. "It's one of my favorites."

At one point, a dozen or so of the students lined up across the highway, taking positions with their bodies that spelled "L-o-o-m-i-s."

"It's not very safe, I'm not gonna lie," said McKenna Setterlund of Penryn, California. "There's a lot of cars going by."

The group posted lookouts to keep an eye out for oncoming vehicles. "We're trying to have spotters," Setterlund said. "As a car comes, we get out of the road and then we wait it out."

"I think it's safe," said James from his perch at the jewelry stand. "You can see quite a ways."

Not legal

Safe? Not so much, says the Utah Highway Patrol. And the goings-on in the middle of the highway are also illegal.

"We certainly don't encourage people to do that," said Utah Highway Patrol Lt. H. Scott Robertson. "Your life is not worth a photograph." But he acknowledged the law is rarely enforced because UHP personnel are stretched so thin across vast stretches of rural highway in southeastern Utah.

More to the point, Robertson said, in all the years since the movie came out there's only been one accident at mile marker 13 and no one was hurt.

James claims he's never even seen any close calls while sitting at his jewelry stand. But even James recognizes there's a potential safety problem.

"Sometimes, I think they should put at least a 30 or 40 mile per hour zone around here," James said. He also suggested signs that say "Look for tourists."

But Robertson said that might send the wrong message.

"You know, by doing that we don't want to encourage people to stand in the road," Robertson said. "We would just rather they not do it."

Good advice, maybe. But, perhaps they should have told it to Forrest Gump. He started it, and it looks like the show will run on forever.

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