This is the first of at least 2 parts of something I set out to write about experiencing the wilderness. It's mostly a trip to Yellowstone, but it does jump back and forth in time.
In
the year 2000, I undertook my 2nd trip across America. My first trip
was a monumental and life-altering journey in 1998, and I was once again itching
to get out and experience something like this while seeing as many of the
national parks as I could, so the minute that my final college education class
ended in early May, my friend D and I headed out across the great empty roads
of Pennsylvania, driving slowly on back roads up to Route 80 and westward to the
turnpikes of Ohio and Indiana to eventually get to Barat College for a stopping
point in Lake Forest, Illinois, over half a day after we set out. While at the
college, we stayed in the dorms briefly, hanging out with people that d had met
online before heading through to see another one of his friends in Madison,
Wisconsin.
After what felt
like eternal days of rains that did their number on 2nd row seats at
Wrigley Field and boring little indie kids and other drains on time where I felt
that we could be doing something more productive than work around my friend’s
inability to ignite Internet passion into real love, we abandoned the cities
and the academic institutions and headed on through the empty farm fields and
plains of Minnesota and eastern South Dakota to eventually arrive at the first
real destinations of the Black Hills and the Badlands.
Along the way, I
was enamored with the beauty of these places, but D was becoming more and more
freaked out by the isolation of the “nothingness” that he saw. Jumping ahead in
the story, this wouldn’t bode well for his ability to handle the true emptiness
of the American West, but I digress. For me, I was breathing it all in for the
wonder of what my country really was. If I could, I would have wanted the
destination parts of the trip to last forever (in this, I would agree with D
that you can have some of the empty drive), but nothing is eternal, so it’s
just about getting the most of what you can while you’re in it and not letting “the
sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.”
In a reflection
that I had written at the time, I would express that this was a place where “shadowy
forests are non-existent, and nothing disguises the emptiness of these fields.
Rather than driving in some Wizard of Oz
scenario (“Lions and tigers and bears, oh
my”), the moon illuminates the farms, and shows how empty America is when
you aren’t at its edges.”
I loved that
feeling of a better simpler America. Beyond the illuminated fires of Mustafar,
which is how the East Coast sprawl shows up when viewed from a plane flying
over the land masses at night, there is a brand new world. Out there, there is
a different form of existence. In fact, out in the empty middle (Idaho, to be
specific) is a place where Bill Buckner can go to hide from a world that still
cares about how he misplayed a ground ball in October of 1986. Out there is a
cathartic something that exists when you allow it to course through your veins.
I have to be
honest; I’d love to be sitting on the patio with Bill, kicking back and
enjoying life for the totality of what it is – not drowning in its worst
moments.
The Wild West is
not a place that is for everyone. Oh no, the sign in South Dakota that states
that “we Dakotans reject animal activists. Furs, game, fish and livestock are
our economy” pretty much lays it out on the line. You either get the ruggedness
of a life away from endless highways filled with big box stores, supermarkets,
and shopping malls, or you don’t.
You can either embrace
this life, or you should go back to a place where meat doesn’t come from
animals, but rather from a case in a grocery store.
And yes, it’s
true (and it still is) that even if I lived and made a living in that life that
I was formally rejecting despite being paid to be a part of it, I wanted to
embrace my rural roots and move away from it to find something better,
something purer than the smog of strip malls, the pollution of inner cities,
and the snobby nature of the suburbs.
From time to
time, that feeling would creep up in me. Sometimes, it would do so more
powerfully than it would in other moments. It was something that I once thought
I could quench with occasional Kerouac-esque drives into an America that exists
for Beat poets trying to find it in some modern day Whitman style “Song of the
Open Road.” And perhaps, it’s true that some of this can be done on two and a
half week vacations now and then. Perhaps, it’s also true that it can be found in
my songs and books and television shows and movies and in the poems of long
since dead white guys who got it or at least wrote convincingly enough to make
me believe that they got it, but I no longer believe that this alone is true.
At the time, I thought
that there might be a direct path that could allow me to find it in my own
Chris McCandless kind of way, but that’s no longer true. Chris was what he was,
and for that, he inspired Jon Krakauer and myself to imagine ourselves as him
and to defend him, but frankly, I do like refrigeration, showers, and the
Internet a little bit too much to ever go completely away from them.
Nevertheless, I don’t mind the thought of extended siestas where I can get my
kicks far away from the ennui of civilization.
Who in his or
her right mind doesn’t?
Now, things are
much different than they were a decade and a half ago. There are permanent
anchors to civilization that I have in job and home (a mortgage that it takes a
serious job to pay). In addition, there is no more sense of alone as I have
come to find a wife to love and to share my life with (that’s a good thing!),
so perhaps the modern equivalent is that I could live some better life at the
core of John Cougar Mellencamp’s musical catalog without the need to say that
I’m doing it “John Cougar Mellencamp style.” I will admit to listening to his
music, but I don’t think that even for a person who doesn’t care about being
cool that he should ruin his remaining shreds of a sense of cool by admitting
to wanting to be like Mr. Mellencamp, especially when Mellencamp is not that
far from permanent lunch dates with the Crypt Keeper (after seeing him at Farm
Aid in 2012, it’s clear that he gets reprieve from the grave for the occasional
concert performance). The same can be said for a Bob Segar sensation of being
“like a rock” or even a John Denver sense of a “rocky mountain high.”
That said, I
wouldn’t turn down a trip to Katmandu or a journey to watch eagles fly so that
I could give up the everyday for the slower and more powerful sense of wonder
in Nature.
Nevertheless,
for all that was and wasn’t on that drive west, what I saw and felt and didn’t
see and feel on that drive through Minnesota and South Dakota was that I was
being given an education, a survey course to make sense of this new life by
immersing it slowly into the feel of the empty edges, the forests, the fields,
the mountains, the isolated lakes, the steep cliffs, and the scorched desert.
And in that, I
was following the words of Simon and Garfunkel as I was “all gone to look for
America” while lost in my existential late twenties, dreaming of some Kathy
that I could ride the bus with as she fell asleep in the exhaustion of dreaming
about what’s at the end of the highway.
And isn’t that
what it’s all about when you’re trying to get from the “there” that you are set
to abandon for the “here” that you want to be? Doesn’t it make sense that
something, anything, is out there, and for that, I don’t fault D for looking
for friendship and love with fellow fans of the Promise Ring, Rainer Maria, The
Get Up Kids, and That Dog. All of these years later, many of their songs sound
dated and forgotten, but at the time, it was something special and unique for
people who had sought it out and found it. Is this any different than waxing
intellectual and sharing a million different digital pictures of slot canyons,
waterfalls, vistas, and mountains with the cult of people who live and die for
these things?
In addition to going
out on the highways in hopes of finding America, the physical place, on that
drive into the Great Plains, I was attempting to lose the last remnants of wanting
to go back to England from my conscious memory and internally defining place.
The only things left of the days that stretched from 1990-1996 were and are the
romanticized memories and images of places I had been with people who I had
been there with. No trip across this country can make me shake them, and
really, I don’t want to. However, with the more road miles I put on the great
U.S. highway system, the more I became removed from a need to go back to a life
that could never ever be.
And what of
those days? The lonely walks through the cities in search of a life that could
be purchased in record stores intertwined with the futile hopes to keep
consistency in the people that I had met and thought so highly of. Neither of
these things completely worked out, but they provided an education and a firm
grounding for who I am, was, and would be. I still miss some of the people. I
still hear some of the songs. They are the background for the man I am now. I
can’t say that I mind their not being here (or my not being there), but their
pull is historic as compared to the feeling of now and some future then.
Sometimes, late at night, the people from those moments seem so much more real,
and I want to find myself somewhere that I can say hi and see the pictures and
share my pictures, complete with narration, so that we can just catch up, even
if it’s only for a second.
Then, I stop and
retreat. Some things are historic. Some things are permanent, and so I focus on
the now and the future where things go forward and not backward. It’s the only
way to be.
Nevertheless, I
wouldn’t be who I am without England and the English people; but all the same, England
isn’t the forests, fields, deserts, vistas, and waterfalls that my life would
become in the modern now that I reflect on these words. The English people have
their charms and great points, but their way of life (for better or worse)
isn’t the American spirit.
And really,
that’s where I have to be now. That’s where I had to be in 1998, 2000, 2002,
2003, 2007, 2010, and all of those other moments that I spent somewhere out
there in the inner heart of America.
Nevertheless, if
I think about what it really is, for me, England is the ability to jump on a
train, all alone, and go out in search of what’s at the end of the line and to
not worry who is or isn’t along for the journey. England is a relationship that
I had with a particular woman who changed me for all times to come. England is
my time in the Air Force. Since these things are not happening anymore, it’s
hard to want them to be when they can’t be.
In addition, England
is also the ability to find good people and ramble dreams and stories and hopes
and fears and cultural expressions of a definition of who I am, was, and who I will
be, but it’s also a place where those things happened in line with another
culture that I temporarily usurped in the hope that it could be me. When it
couldn’t be all that I needed it to be or make sense of it in some Americanized
sense of such, I needed to find something that could be me in a way that would
feel it surging through my body every time I hear the extended liver version of
“Freebird” raging through the guitar solo at the end.
And for that, I
will always remember it and the people who touched my life while there in the fondest
of ways, but it is a place as painful to me as Old Sinking Spring. I could go
back to England, but it wouldn’t be there as I knew it in 1996 in the same way
that New Sinking Spring will never be the world that its old version was prior
to 1986.
Through it all, I
must say that England was something that needed to be placed into perspective
so that I could find this “oneliness” that exists only in the deepest recesses
of this world America. What better place to do that than on the highways of
America?
On that drive
into the Heartland / Heartbeat of America that was the thousands of lakes that
is Minnesota, I listened to the Jayhawks’ Blue
Earth CD because, why else? We were driving through the town of Blue Earth.
This was their most Americana offering in the days before the Bunkhouse LP was readily available for
people to get the full-fledged country twang side of the Jayhawks. As the CD
played, D stared out the windows and contemplated the emptiness of the fields,
which mirrored the emptiness of the two girls who wouldn’t be his and who were
now so far behind on the highways that it wasn’t even worth thinking about.
As we drove, it
was readily apparent that D and I were going two different ways with what we
wanted this trip and our lives to be. He wanted to be going “this way” in that
he said that he could relive the Boy Scout days of bird watching in the bigger
and more bountiful national parks, and he felt excited for the opportunity to
see America while he was doing it. Prior to giving him the opportunity to join
me for the trip, I talked about all of the great points of the last trip, but I
also talked about the reality of what was out there in the middle. He quickly
agreed to go, but like so many things that we do in our youth, he had no idea
what he was really agreeing to. He just wanted to be going this way, which
seemed to be the Kerouac way that everyone who explores that sort of literature
strives to attain.
Hop in the car
and go for the drive. Sing the songs, drive off quickly, meet cool people, see incredible
things, and then write about it…
"They rushed down the street together,
digging everything in that early way that they had, which later became so much
sadder and perceptive and blank. But then they danced down the streets like
dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people
who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who
are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything, but
burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders
across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and
everybody goes ‘Awww!’”
Because of this,
if you put the problem at its simplest, he didn’t get that America wasn’t all
the life on the coasts because he was in his early twenties and had never really
experienced America.
I can’t say I
blame him for this faulty assumption. I too thought people were all like those people
that I had grown up with when I went off into the distance to join the Air
Force. I didn’t think they were all like me, but I didn’t get what it was like
to grow up in the deep urban cities and the isolated rural communities at the
time. This was a major shock in 1990 from the point that some guy walked into
Basic Training wearing an artistic image of King Tut on his jacket (and he didn’t
even get yelled at for looking like a dumbass!) up through “Black Bart” and on
through to the hordes of so many BX Cowboys embracing Garth Brooks’ country
twang.
Who in my
America (or in their right minds anywhere) would do those things?
And I’ll be
honest, I still see some of my lack of understanding of America in its totality
now, even with the experience of nearly 43 years, and I see completely
different shades of this country of mine everywhere that I go. The redneck
stares that I felt on back roads Tennessee when I drove south in 1998 and the
sense of being some misplaced white boy that needs to back-track the hell out
of where I’m at are exactly the same sense of hate for the person that I appear
to be. The angry, impoverished feeling of the ghetto mixed with the white-trash
feeling of the trailer parks are juxtaposed against another world I could never
crack, which is the power of wealth and privilege to crush anything that
doesn’t have a silver spoon its mouth as it comes crying out into the world.
I’m a
complicated man. I’m one in a million. I’m in a place that doesn’t make sense
for me as much as it doesn’t make sense for you to see me and try to make sense
of me. I’m a hairy ape. I’m lost on the freeways again. I’m looking for a way
out. I just want something I can never have. When I was young, I was the King
of Carrot Flowers.
So it goes.
There are places
where I belong, and there are places where I don’t belong. Even I have trouble
figuring it all out.
Nevertheless,
there is a place that I do belong, and that’s a place where the common
denominator is a love of the natural world in places that are away from the
rest of the world because let’s face it; I need time with just me even if I’m
with you. Be it in South Dakota, Utah, Maine, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Arizona,
Colorado, California, or Ohio, we are all alike when we belong in Nature
together. If we’re there together, we can share whatever rambling conversations
that we happen to have regarding shared experience or rambling philosophical wonder,
or we can just tramp through the dirt and rocks and brush to get to our end
destination.
Nature is a
communal place where we can open our souls to inhale these wide open spaces and
worlds. The stars above us will light our way as the streams guide us down to
the flat lands and the mountains guide us up to the great views. It’s all
wonderful if we want it.
And so it was
that as I set out on these roads again that I was learning about the difference
between civilization and wilderness from the geography on through to the spirit
inside of my body.
At the time, I
really wanted to truly experience “it” (I still do). As for D, he wasn’t really
connected or desiring it, so I can’t fault him for not getting to attain it or
any other satori that he could have hoped to find in the backwoods. He wanted
Madison. He wanted Chicago. I would have thought he wanted the Haight in San
Francisco. He wanted to be in New Orleans for Modest Mouse or Columbia,
Missouri, for Sleater Kinney. He didn’t want to be staring at the same field
for seven straight hours across South Dakota in order to get to the Badlands.
He didn’t want to be told that the only differences in this picture of endless
farm fields would be the Mitchell Corn Palace and the Missouri River. He didn’t
want to mark time to how far Wall Drug was from where we were, and he
definitely didn’t feel any sense of excitement counting things down over those
last 150 or so miles to stop at a series of souvenir shops. He didn’t want to
look for statues of Native American antelope head statues so that he could pull
over to take pictures of them. He wanted to rock out to noisy emo like Joan of
Arc while living in a world he felt comfortable in and had no desire to ever
relinquish it as he went from Kodak Picture Moment to Kodak Picture Moment as
quickly as possible so that he could get to the familiar things he did want in
the cities of the other side of the country.
As a result,
there’s a picture of him hugging the welcome to Wyoming sign. I didn’t know why
at the time. Wyoming was more wilderness than South Dakota, although it’s fair
to say that there was a hell of a lot more to look at while driving through the
mountains of the state in a feverish pursuit of getting to Yellowstone. I
couldn’t say that from knowledge driving in, but I had an idea of what I was
getting into. I had been back through America the other way. I had seen
California > Nevada > Utah > Colorado > Kansas > western
Missouri and up through again to Chicago. I knew how this whole rodeo played
out, but I took the photo diligently so that I could keep it for the posterity
of some now when I could reflect on it years later.
It would be hard
to express the appeal to this state that we were leaving other than to say how
it came to me. One time, I was sitting on the stairs behind the Sinking Spring
Elementary School, and I saw a car go by with a South Dakota license plate. The
heads of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln were clearly placed on
the white field, and I was captivated.
Thus,
to me, South Dakota was the search for a Honeycombs cereal license plate, which
I never found. This search would lead to my world record of times having
borrowed the South Dakota state book from the Sinking Spring Elementary School
Library as I sought to soak in all of the great things that the state with
Mount Rushmore adorned to all of its vehicles had to offer. At the time, these
books wouldn’t tell me anything about Kevin Costner, God of Baseball Movies,
and how his parents live in Spearfish and how he owned a casino named The
Midnight Star, which is in Deadwood.
They also
wouldn’t tell me that one day, I would have one of my defining memories in this
place, but there I was, walking and absorbing this South Dakota that I had read
about. The Badlands and their hoodoos and eerie shapes were amazing as they
seemed to come into being after the Great Plains fell into the nothing that
existed on the other side of the cliffs. It was a welcome relief from the
drive, and it instantly proved itself to be one of the great American National
Parks. D was energetic in taking in photographs of things along the way at this
point, but quickly, the same dried formations started to bore him a little bit
too much, and we were off again, listening to Whiskeytown, who also proved to
be more country twang than the indie credibility that he believed they were
filled with.
At the next
stop, I found that I was walking by myself since D wanted a break from the
cramped car camaraderie, so he wandered down the road in a different direction
to watch birds or be by himself or something. And as I walked alone, I looked
and saw something happening in the faces of the people who were there before me.
I glanced at those people ahead of me, and I was quietly motioned over to a
secluded corner of the forest by these couple of Georgian women who were
inviting me to join them to see a baby buffalo being born in Custer State Park’s
wildlife loop.
At the time, I stood
in utter disbelief (the beautiful kind) as I snapped my picture and stared at
the spectacle as did the women. We gawked and just watched for some 30 minutes
as we noticed that the umbilical cord was still attached to the mother while
the placenta awaited ejection from her womb. All the while, the buffalo
breathed its first breaths of pure South Dakota air in those deep green woods
that stretched up and down the western side of the state, and I too breathed in
a sense of wonder and understanding, a concept of life being given to me, too,
as I watched the great surviving symbol of the West standing on its legs in
stillness and wonder to grasp where it was and what was happening before it
joined the herd to walk and graze across the prairies and mountains for all of
the years of its life.
But
alas, the book that I borrowed all of those times from the library wouldn’t
talk about this being a “happening” in this state either. Instead, I would just
have to get there to find and to see that surprise for myself. Sure, it might
have reflected the “zoo” that South Dakota was, for there was and is a lot of wildlife
there. The ring-necked pheasants that fly across the farm fields prove this. So
does the beauty and grandeur of seeing for miles and miles on the horizon, driving
up and around and knowing that the best view is yet to come, as there are deer,
elk, antelope, turkeys, buffalo and prairie dogs that could be around every
bend of the road or trail. If you are really lucky, you can see mountain goats
there, too, which we did see for ourselves the next morning as they stared back
at us.
In
this, Nature is full of opportunity. There are so many options available if you
are looking and listening, but the catch is that you have to be looking and
listening.
How
many people can say that?
On
that first night in South Dakota after Wind Cave, Deadwood, Mount Rushmore, and
Custer State Park, D and I would set up the tent and fall asleep under a
relatively blue sky. After much persuasion and negative looks, I convinced him to
sleep in the tent. He didn’t want to for whatever reason, but it was a way to
stretch out that the already crammed car didn’t afford, and it was how we were
going to sleep the entire way across America while we weren’t staying with people. It also seemed logical to me
because we had a long way to drive, and there was no point getting uncomfortable
and cramped out early in the trip. Besides, it wasn’t like I was going to
fondle him or he would have to fight off fondling me or covering my head with a
pillow due to excessive snoring (that snoring problem would be a different
issue now).
Besides
he was an Eagle Scout, and seeing as there still is a requirement to camp in
tents to attain that position, it didn’t seem like I was asking him to sleep in
low temperatures in high altitudes in Mount Everest’s Death Zone. I also didn’t
think I was pulling teeth, but you’d have thought from his protests that I was
trying to skin him to make lampshades out of his back while he was still alive.
Nevertheless, he gave in to my logic – briefly.
In
some kind of weird twist on everything that was blue skies and beautiful in the
day, that night, the rains came back, and after 2½ hours, D was sleeping in the
car. I was so exhausted that I had fallen asleep so quickly and deeply that it
took me an extra hour or so to wake up after the wind started kicking in big
time. The tent held firm, but it was saturated inside. I couldn’t fall back asleep,
but I did have the ingenuity to gather up my stuff, and to move into the car,
which didn’t last long as it’s not a comfortable sleep reclining in a Ford
Escort.
From
the frustration of a cramped driver’s seat, the only decision was to head to
the shower building where I could at least stay dry and stretch out. There, I
dried my pillow, sleeping bag, and long sleeve shirts on the electric hand
dryers. It should be noted that I didn’t have a jacket, and for that matter, I
didn’t have jeans (just a single pair of sweat pants and lined Adidas running
pants). This seems completely illogical for camping in the mountains, but alas,
my East Coast confusion said that spring had sprung and summer was almost upon
us at sea level, so why would the big mountains on the western side be any
different?
And
there I was, and in that moment, I stared into the mirror contemplating my
situation. I had no desire to end the trip early in morale or otherwise. I knew
where I stood, and in that moment I declared to whoever was listening that I
was not going to let this event stand in my way. If this was all the more that
the heavens could test me with, then I was not going down, and so be it.
In
this declaration of supremacy over the evils that the environs and the weather
were trying to throw at me, I was victorious.
And
so I put on my shirt, having just finished drying it repeatedly under the
hand-dryer, and walked outside to the car. It was still dark, but the rain had
stopped, as it did for the rest of the trip. GOD had been listening, and we
were tight (fingers crossed). I went out and got D, moving this field trip
inside the shower building, where he quickly fell back to sleep on the shower
floor without any complaints about being told to sleep there.
I
would also nod out for an hour at a time on the cool tiling, and then I would
snap forward, as I would wake up again. Even in the chair, I couldn’t sleep
well since I was having crazy exhaustion dreams, but I didn’t let this distract
me from at least trying to nod off for any more possible sleep that I could get.
The
next morning, D was not very upbeat
from the rains interrupting his sleep, but I stayed in tune with the
ramifications of my victory, my karma, and my general happiness with all things.
As I did, I talked to all the camping people who would hear me the next
morning, and the next day, as I had been doing and would do for the whole trip
(at this time of year, they aren’t really occasional “campers,” but more
professional travelers to these campgrounds).
This
was a point I wanted to achieve since I had not done this at all for the entire
last trip, and it was one place where I felt that I had failed on the trip. And
with that, I took to the positive aspects of drying off the tent, sleeping bag,
and straightening out everything to a working order so that I could pack it
away safely in the car. With that, we could begin again on a brand new sunny
day, taking advantage of the free pancakes for the opening weekend of the South
Dakota park system kicked off prior to driving off into the Great American
Beyond to see what came next, which if the map spoke truth was Wind Cave and
Deadwood in South Dakota and Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.
Devil’s
Tower was the highlight of the trip. Not that there wasn’t anything good left
to see after we saw this, but hell, it’s hard to top the mountain from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
There are prairie dogs, vultures, and a whole lot of woods that surround this geological
oddity. You can see for miles and miles as you climb the boulders to get to the
tree line.
And
then, there is the ascent!
It’s
vertical for several hundred feet, and the extremist climbers who do this
(freely admitting to the difficulty of the climb) may make it look conquerable,
but when you get to the vertical part above the boulder field (as I did) and
look up, it’s still a menacing column that just juts out of the flat Wyoming
plains for absolutely no reason, well at least if you look around and see
nothing like it anywhere else in the eastern Wyoming landscape.
In
this, there is a truth to those who climb the mountain and those who don’t. You
either can do it or you can’t. It’s a 90° ascent, and it’s something your sense
of fear of heights can overcome or it can’t. It’s something that your ability to
technical climb can get you to the top of, or it will leave you giving up to a
sensation of what you can’t do. I couldn’t do it at the time, and I can’t do it
now. What’s more important is that I also can’t pay someone to put me there if
I were to win the lottery (like it always seems we hear about on Mount Everest
ascents for those able to pony up $65,000 or so) because I just don’t have the
ability, physical or technical, to get into the gear to shimmy up the cracks.
It’s a sense of purpose and accomplishment to get there and do it or not do it.
You either succeed with the attempt if you set out on it, or you don’t.
And
if you don’t succeed, this means you fail, and in looking at it now from the
additional experience of an early 40-something perspective, I like the
mathematical definite nature of that. Controlling the mathematical game is a
good thing. It’s about what YOU can do or YOU can’t do. There is no short
roping up to the top or assistance from outside. It’s you and you alone. I need
that.
And
to me, that’s the way accomplishment should be. There can’t be any points for
part way like some hippie math teacher giving partial credit for getting part
of the problem right, as if it were a trophy for participation. I like that
sense of control and purpose in needing to get things right or having to go
back and fix them the next time. Nevertheless, I do recognize and have felt the
anxiety and cost that can be associated with living on that fine line. With
that being said, when it comes to what this once physically un-inclined person
wasn’t able to do, I like the idea of being able to take everything I’ve done
physically up to this point that I’m hiking in at, and I like to be able to
apply it to some accomplishment I’m setting out on, even if it’s only 1,000+ vertical
feet to the top of a rocky Pennsylvania mountain.
Either
I can or I can’t make the summit. Either I can keep stepping and taking the
risks, or I have to turn around and come back some other time.
In
the past, I’ve taken short cuts at place like Mount Washington in New Hampshire
and Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park by driving to the top, and I felt
and feel nothing like the sense of whooping accomplishment of those dudes and dudettes
who mug for photos at the summit. In this, I get how a long distance trail
hiker like this guy Lakeland said he felt after accomplishing the Pacific Crest
Trail, only to see a girl crying tears of joy in that stupid reality TV way that
sees her mugging for the audience on documentary video camera for her
“accomplishment” of having made it to the end when she skipped the whole middle
section due to being too exhausted to carry on.
There’s
hiking your own hike and hiking the hike. If you claim to hike THEE hike, you
better have hiked the hike your bravado is whooping up.
Lakeland
did every single inch of that trail. She didn’t. She could state she did a
whole hell of a lot of it, but she didn’t do what he did, and for that, she had
her right to the pride of what she did, but she didn’t have the right to true
completion pride or to be bragging to this cameara crew about what she said
that she did but never actually did. She hadn’t put all of the effort into it
(even though she did put over a thousand miles into it, which is something to
be said for in and of its self, but it isn’t the whole shebang).
And
it’s not like Lakeland is some narcissist, who is filled with pimping out
levels of pride for what he’s done, but there are things he’s done and people
respect him for those great accomplishments. He’ll talk about them, but never
too much, and he’ll allow himself to feel the accomplishment in their words of
praise, but it’s not like he’s asking for a reality show or to be able to write
a book on it to let the world just pile love on him.
He’s
just doing it because he can, and he’s hiking his hike while doing it, which is
what it’s all about. What hike was she hiking anyway?
In
this, the point that I’m getting at is that there shouldn’t be a “grade inflation”
of sorts for what this gal did. She’s entitled to her accomplishment (and for
this, she did more than I’ve done of any mountain trail or series of trails, so
I don’t say this to take away from what she did). Like Bryson’s pal Katz, she
had seen mountains and the trail, and sure, much else of what she was going to see
would be repetitive and shades of what she had seen, but she hadn’t seen EVERYTHING.
She could go home and be comfortable with what she did, but she hadn’t done
what he did, and that’s where the difference is when it comes down to true
sense of accomplishment if that goal is to hike every single mile of a trail.
Even Katz knew that by walking out he hadn’t done everything, but he was
comfortable with his accomplishment, which is how said girl should have
reflected on it. Let her sleep that wonderful sleep that he and Bryson did. But
when it comes to the camera guys looking for a victorious person to talk about
it, then she needed to decline the right to be filmed.
Nevertheless,
nobody should whitewash the accomplishment at the end if it comes up slightly
less or much less than anticipated, and that includes me – unless that person
can trump the accomplishment with something more.
I
have seen the same sense of lying on accomplishments presented in a different
way, the concrete and glass and steel world way, when a former Golden Boy at
work, a man who was loved for no good reason by a boss who had hired him back
despite his lying about his ability to possess the skills (in required degree) that
it took to attain said job that I felt should have been mine (note - I did get
hired a few weeks later when an additional position opened, but he got more
hours, and he also got more perks and ass kisses from said boss).
What’s
worse was that a few years later, it was determined that he didn’t have this line
of credentials by other higher up people, but nevertheless, he was still given
opportunity to attain the degree (as it came out to the rest of us what he had
done)! However, rather than take the extended time to keep the job, he cried
about the unfairness of the situation because he felt that he was such a good
employee (despite being a liar). All the same, it was his lack of truth that led
him to this place (both the job and the imminence of losing the job), and he
thought that the love of the job he did would keep him on, but after he was
exposed, nobody stepped up past the promise (which seemed more about trying to
find a way to sweep his lack of meeting original requirements under the rug
than about giving him a second chance). And so it was that on that set day, he
was gone to more revelations of how he had allowed other people to bypass
requirements to get into classes that they weren’t qualified for.
The
mathematical precision of “yes” and “no” that ruled his life had left him in
the place that he fell, but nothing could take away the fake sense of love he
had received for receiving and giving shortcuts to other people who just wanted
the piece of paper and not the work that it took to get it. After all, he was
living in the delusion that it was OK for him, so why not give the charity out
to the rest of the world who deserved it just as much?
But
somewhere in there is a different feeling, and that is a feeling of where is
the justice in this for those who strive to push it out for every inch.
And
there is no answer to that.
And
so, whether it’s lying on a resume, cutting out huge chunks of the trail, or
finding a teacher to reward us with much higher grades than we deserve, doing
this or anything in its totality and difficulty has to mean something more than
doing things the easy way that involves the path of least resistance (or
judgment by those who have worked harder to do things the “right way”). There
can’t just be some sterile rubber trail or asphalt pathway to the top of every
single trail (real or metaphorical) to remove the difficulty and provide equal
access to those people who couldn’t see it without an escalator while killing
the wilderness (toughness factor) in each and everything that is out there. There
has to be challenging places where difficulty and separation still exists and
only the strong accomplish it (or they don’t – either way has to be an option
if the accomplishment is to mean something, and for that, there has to be a sense
of a fair bit of people not being able to attain it no matter how hard that
they work), especially if there is going to be some force judging others for the
end result that they did or didn’t accomplish in trying to get to a place of true
merit to determine entry into exclusivity.
Sure,
there needs to be “sacrificial” places and accomplishments where people who
don’t have the skill can go in and get a feel for what’s out there if they work
hard to get the additional skills that will allow them to do things that are
more “hardcore” style, but the places where starters and experts go are and
should be different, and they should be this way for the sense of purpose that
comes with working for and attaining things of true merit and purpose.
In
Nature, I’ve heard this said of places like Antelope Canyon in Arizona, where
the ladders and stairs are installed to give people a glimpse into what the
other slot canyons of the world are like (not so much by choice, but rather by
avoiding more mass casualties in flash floods like happened in 1997), but by
paying for the guided tour and being given easy access, you aren’t getting the
same experience that those who really can rappel and ascend can do (at least I
am led to believe because I can’t yet rappel and ascend).
Take
your pictures and feel your moments of nature when you are at these “lesser” places
(as I did), but don’t put your victory in line with those who climb to the top /
descend to the bottom and get the view that doesn’t come from a Sunday jaunt
through the park – especially if you are being driven there with a truckload of
people dressed for Sunday lunch at the mall.
And
with that, I tip my hat, 14 years later, to those who ascended through the
bear’s scratch marks to stand where the princesses or young boys were elevated
to in that mystical Godlike way that got them away from the evil and potential
harm that a certain badass grizzly bear hell bent on destruction and devastation
was going to cause.
For
me, I can say that I feel comfortable with the walk to the top of the rocks and
the edge of the “tower” as far as my accomplishment goes. I don’t need to
ascend and conquer this pillar to feel my sense of proximity to Nature, but for
the times that I do need to attain this, I want to know that I can get the
wilderness and the achievement all in one without watching other people take
the escalator to the top, or worse yet, I don’t need to watch people pay to be
transported to some sense of privilege that someone else who has worked hard to
get a shot at it can’t receive because he or she can’t afford it..
I
can live with being lapped by young and athletic kids, but to see someone
short-roped around the obstacles is a whole different story (this is not in any
way diminishing the superior accomplishments of bad ass climbers like Erik
Weihenmayer, a tough dude who was guided up Everest despite suffering from
blindness). All I’m saying is that I truly want to know, in those times when I
need to kick my strength heartily to get through some section, that I had something
more to give to it.
In
this, I’ll stand at the top of places like the Thousand Steps and state my
slower times with pride to those people who race to the top while training for
marathons or multiple journeys a week, every week. I know what I did, and I
know how I kicked it out, and I will serve praise to those who can do it
quicker, do it with less stops, and those who can do it with less heavy
breathing than me, but all the while, I will keep doing it to do it faster and
harder and better than before because I know that’s what all physical
accomplishments are meant to be and must be.
“More
and faster…”
With
any training, physical or intellectual, there is pride in accomplishment and a
sense of wanting to give it more to get more on future endeavors. This is a
place that transcends some need for picture taking excursions (though I do love
taking pictures while I’m at the end of my every there). If that doesn’t exist,
there might be some Buddhist sense of humbleness in the presence of God or
Nature, but short of living out the Tao Te Ching’s principles of
non-attainment, is there a true sense of being able to give everything just to have
a weekend comfort in stretching the legs or the mind or is there a need to be
something more than we were before we journeyed upward?
I’ll
take it either way, but either way says give it all to get up.
Back
at Devil’s Tower, the world is a different place. The prairie dogs still
scamper, the far side of the mountain still awaits alien visitation, the
vultures still soar overhead, and the rocks still surround these eerie place in
the High Plains of Wyoming, and there I am, taking my pictures and enjoying my
climbs on the boulders and through to my place of purpose in life. I am glad to
be doing it solo. I am overjoyed to be here. At this moment, everything is in
its proper place.
And
with that, life is good. I look out over the horizon, and I am filled with
smiles.
In
addition to these geological things at Devil’s Tower, there are Indian prayer
cloths that hang from pine trees. These allow you or me to get some kind of
understanding to what this mountain means to other cultures in terms of the
greater spirituality that I alluded to with said religious interventionist
escapes.
Folklore,
myth, and religion are wonderful things that lead to a sense of truth in who we
are. Just ask Scott Wolpert. I would, if he would agree to have a beer and
discuss archaeo-astronomy and the prehistory of America with me.
And
then there they are again, those vultures looming at the top should anyone slip
and fall from their ascent. But I already spoke of them. To think of them again
must mean that I am worried about them coming for me. Their heads are so ugly,
but they soar so majestically. I am transfixed by the way that they hover above
me. I want to get a better picture, but I can’t get their proximity to pull in
any closer than it already is.
And
then I am done with them, and it’s all aliens again, and it would be for you
too if you were to go there. You could still hear Goldie Hawn yelling, “Roy!
Roy!” as she seeks to halt Richard Dreyfuss from scurrying to get to where the
spaceships will rendezvous with the military and scientists, those privileged earthlings
who know what’s really going on out here, leaving her to eat his dust as he
seeks to walk up the platform to go on a real adventure now that he’s sans annoying
and non-believing wife and kids. To go to the place that the others who are
being returned have just been. Those kindly little shuffling Greys… they offer
so much more hope for a better future than the minions who race through their
mazes and inspire inspiration for Dave Matthews to write his best song ever.
But
for all that this mountain is in celluloid history, this isn’t about
extra-terrestrial contact. Instead, there is a sense of Nature here that can
lead us to being carried away to somewhere better if we go here. For that, I
like the idea that there are “places to play in and pray in.” We need to go to
them in any way possible. We need to open our mind to the sense of wonder that
comes from being a part of some special place in the universe. We need to get
ourselves right in the beautiful undisturbed world in any way that we can get
it. Either by walking on a couple mile jaunt through flat woods and over creeks
while ascending hills to the deeper more precious and completely radical images
of slot canyons, waterfall gorges, giant rocky peaks, deep mysterious deserts, ice
fields, or farm fields in the local everyday here and now. We don’t need to
open up access to the doorstep of this world with some kind of super highway or
even dirt road. For those people who are serious, let them strap boots on and
set out for an all-day adventure or an overnight backpacking trip into the
backcountry from some already accessed waypoint.
For
those of us who want and can set out for the distant peaks to share them with ourselves
or our best friends and closest lovers, there needs to be some mountains where
we can attain this.
And
when I go there, and I am transformed to some place of mystery and wonder, this
is my engaging in some form of astral projection except I’m physically moving
as my spirit tether guides me to where it is that I’m going. This is closing my
eyes and drifting my soul out into the universe to be free and to mingle with
other like-minded people and the ghosts and spirits of adventurers past. This
is me escaping from the humdrum of reality of the same road to work every day
of every month of every year. This is me saying goodbye to the people I choose
not to take with me or the obligations I’d rather not be attending to. Instead,
this is me placing value in the holy cathedrals that exist outside of the city
and apart from day to day interactions of row homes and community.
So
let the “aliens” take me away, too. Let my “spirit guides” come and help grab
my hand to pull me out on this adventure. I’m ready to go.
What
could be better than a day in Nature?
And
then, just like that, I am back at the parking lot. D, who never went on the
hike up and around the mountain, met me at the car, and we drove off into the
sunset, and the day was over, at least in how much daylight we had left, so we drove
off to a campground somewhere at the foot of Bighorn Mountain. There, we lay
down and went to sleep. I was in the tent, and D was stretched out in the car, the
place where he would stay the entire tent part of the trip, refusing to come
into the tent ever again (though he did lay on a campground picnic table one
night). Frankly, I never bothered to ask him again. He was a big boy. It was
his choice.
Yellowstone
is a beautiful park. There’s no denying it. I couldn’t wait to get there, and
so it was that we set off to drive there through the 10,000 foot high Bighorn
Mountain National Forest, all the while playing games with the horizon, wondering
just how far it is to those great white capped peaks against the sky.
I happily blurted
out, “Fifty miles, at least!”
D just sat there
staring at the immensity of it all. What can you say when the world around you
just looks so impressive and beautiful. Eventually, the drive was punctuated
with a Sunday morning breakfast spent staring at a sports section in a
Billings, Montana, newspaper. The headlines all seemed to jump out and amaze me
as if I was the only intended reader.
The now historic
headlines stated emphatically that the Chicago White Sox were playing tough
(history shows us that this doesn’t last). I moved down the columns of print
and wondered aloud, “What did the Cardinals and Big Mac do last night? How
about Nomar, Larry Walker, I-Rod, and Mike Sweeney?”
This was the only connection to a civilization
that I realized all the more just how it easy it would be to walk out on.
Except for that baseball thing.
If necessary, I
could move across the world, but I would need to look up the morning scores and
watch ESPN or MLB video, even if I were living on some boot-shaped land mass on
the Mediterranean.
We soon left and
headed out towards the peaks. Eventually, we reached Cody and drove on through
to the other side, looking for that grand destination that is Yellowstone
National Park.
The other side
of Cody is a dam where the sun shone magnificently off of the waters that rush
through nearly 1,000 feet below. The water is the most amazing shade of
greenish blue. All the same, the mountains are so parched in their sunburned
splendor. We stare into the chasm and take our pictures.
And then we drive
on. It’s what we do.
Along the next
part of the journey, the roadside elk horns are piled up in a sculpture that
attested to the profession of many of the locals. We moved further on, and we saw
the warnings of grizzly bears in the vicinity. With that, I stated how we were
without D and his 12” bowie knife! In contemplating their massive size, I
realize that we would do better with a .44 magnum handgun, the most powerful
weapon in the world that could blow your head clear off. Unfortunately, we
don’t have that either. It’s a good thing we aren’t in the backcountry. We’d
really be screwed if Yogi showed up to mess with the party.
Thus, we drive
on, snapping pictures along the way, as the stereo cranks out the tunes.
Everything is so full of glory. The Wyoming highway is so beautiful that the
clouds manage to somehow sneak in and go gray all around us without our even
knowing until it is an ominous sense of something that is going to happen. With
that, there is a single question:
“Can we make it
to Yellowstone before the rains came?”
Road trips
across America have a way of doing this. I can remember driving the Devil’s
Highway, Route 666 in New Mexico, and feeling a sense of doom with the eerie
clouds overhead. Nevertheless, Satan didn’t come out to destroy everything in
his path. To be honest, the only things that made the journey difficult were
the Native American store owners refusing to let the honky tourists use their
bathrooms while refusing some of their credit cards. Fortunately, that was a
different time. People still carried cash in 1998. People could always hold it
a little longer in the front unless it was coming out the backdoor rapidly.
The drive through
Wyoming seemed long and tense with the non-communication between us, but before
we knew it, we were pulling up to the gate and ascending into the snowy white mountains
of Yellowstone. It was then that I realized that the danger of this moment was
not in getting rained on, but rather in getting snowed on. Fortunately we
avoided that, as it shaped up to be a really beautiful May afternoon until we
pulled out of the park in a slight drizzle later that evening.
Nevertheless, between
those two bookmarks of time lay a world of adventure.
So there we
were, stopping to marvel at the first geyser. D was now awake from the pit stop
I made to photograph those snow-capped peaks that greeted us at the beginning
of Yellowstone. Interestingly enough, the snow only seemed to be on this side
of the mountain and some of the other areas in Big Horn Mountain as everything
else in Yellowstone is adorned in a beautiful green spring color. Even today,
they make for awesome photographic memories.
At the end of
this long introduction to the park mountain road was Yellowstone Lake, which is
quite an extensive pool of water. In fact, the lake is so omnipresent that the park
seems to figure eight around it, which we do as we go looking for the next
sights that we will see.
On the south
side of it, we stop to enquire as to why there are so many people with cameras
and high-powered telescopic lenses pointed out at the field. The line of cars must
have stretched at least a good quarter of a mile long, so it wasn’t easy finding
parking to venture up to see what was going on with these masses of humanity
congregated together like they were going to the state fair to hear Foreigner
play.
As it turned
out, somewhere out there on the horizon, roughly 2-300 yards away, lurked a mother
bear and her cubs. With the naked eye we could see bumps that moved, but that
was it. With my 200 lens I could still only see bumps. Then they vanished. In a
zoo kind of way, it seemed exciting, but thinking about it in hindsight, I’m
not sure how to describe it. There were lawn chairs and everything short of a
television announcer. It wasn’t in keeping with the spirit of the trip or
Nature to be there gawking at the bears, but we were there, hoping for a better
vantage point of this once in a lifetime moment that you can only get in the
main avenues of a National Park.
Soon enough, we
gave up since the bears had no intention to move closer, which was good because
some well-meaning person would have probably tried to share his or her
pic-a-nic basket with them. With that temptation avoid, the bears disappeared
to only God knows where.
And yes, it was
an experience that you can only have in the touristy national parks. In the
real state parks and wilderness areas, nothing usually comes that easily except
in campgrounds where idiots leave their trash in easily accessible ice chests
or dump their trash in garbage containers that aren’t nearly as bear-proof as
people would like to believe they are. With this, the bears become invited
guests, and then, they have to be transported away or shot for their own good
when it’s actually someone’s idiocy that led to this preventable moment that is
a bear that no longer fears humanity and prefers easy eats.
Call it a
learning moment for people, but call it a bitter end for a bear, especially a
moment that was controllable. Either way, it’s just sad.
The number of bears I
have seen in my life is minimal. In 2009, my wife and I saw a bear running
downhill in Dolly Sods Wilderness area while driving toward our hike. However,
it was 4 years before I would see a bear again, which was when I saw a brownish-colored
one road walking back in the forest that was situated a few miles from Ricketts
Glen. He was very casual in his demeanor, but he wasn’t casual enough to stop
to allow me to get a picture of his profile in striking contrast to the scenery
around me. Instead, the Fed Ex truck honked at me on the side road and he was
gone.
Prior to that, I had seen
bears in my youth while I was at my dad’s hunting camp. Many of these were
night time encounters with bears running over the hill. I don’t remember many
of them, and frankly, I don’t count most things I did as a child toward my
running total of life’s accomplishments. It’s not that they don’t count: it’s
just that many of them are too old and historic to truly be remembered. It’s
the same with my bobcat encounter.
Such is the way I am.
Nevertheless, later in
that fall of 2013, I had one of the most defining moments of my life when I was
walking through the woods trying to find Priceless Point. The journey up the
Standing Stone Trail had led me across the Ramsey Path and onto an abandoned
road that I meandered up and up in search of this beautiful vista (which it
turns out is now on private property – nevertheless, I didn’t know that at the
time). If guidebook writer Scott Brown gave it a 5+, it had to be good.
The further along I went,
the more I noticed that the “trail” wasn’t maintained. The fallen limbs and
raggedy forest debris made obstacles to walk around. Nevertheless, I eventually
got to the top of the mountain only to find that there were no vistas in the
immediate vicinity, so I started down the path in search of what would be down
the way that I had yet to travel. As I went, I had to cross a downed tree,
which was supported end to end on stacked rocks. The tree was a little higher
off the ground than my inseam, so I shimmied over it, and when I did, I heard
this "belchy reverberation." I paused and looked, and so I figured,
"OK. I made it. I’m safe. It’s time to keep moving even though I KNOW that
this concept that the rocks are settling again after my chubby body went over
them is not a sufficient explanation for why this noise is occurring.”
A minute or so later, I
heard another one of these “RRRRRRR” sounds. It wasn't a growl, but it sounded
loud and close, which made me wonder stupidly again what else it was when I
knew what it was.
As I did, I thought,
"Hmmm... a loud bird." I wanted it to be a loud weird big bird.
That’s better than what my mind told me that it most likely was, even though it
in no way sounded like the “ROARRRRR” that I expected its voice to actually sound
like. And even though I wanted to see what I was thinking in the back and
middle of my mind that it was, I didn’t really want to see it this far up, this
far out, and this isolated from any other human being who might be able to run
for help if it turned out I were the slower of the 2 of us.
I'm not sure if I heard
one or 2 more of these “RRRRRRR” noises, but as I did, I looked up in front of
me as I heard a different type of movement, and sure enough, a bear cub was
coming down a tree like the trunk of said tree was the Batpole! This chubby little
bear cub was down in a woosh! I hardly got to see him, but I knew who and what
he was.
Now I instantly knew with
100% certainty what the noise was in the front of my mind. It was what I told
myself that it was. My bear mace was in my backpack, and I was in suspended
animation as the next sense of movement came.
With that, the second bear
cub on the Batpole gave me a solid backside view to which I froze in amazement
and fear knowing that it was cool to see him, but the "belchy
reverberation" was actually mom calling for them to get the hell out of
Dodge ASAP.
I never got the camera
out. I never even tried. I just gawked in amazement. What else was I to do?!!
With that, I retreated
back to behind the fallen tree and got my bear mace out and held still waiting
to see what would transpire. I was at least 2 miles uphill from my car, and
there was no way I could get down through a rocky and steep section that would
come if I made it out of the unkempt trail section I was now in. Mrs. Bear
would have made mincemeat of me if that was her intent. I couldn’t wonder why
she hadn’t already. Was she thinking that I had to be completely stupid to not
leave when she was growing away?
Fortunately, nothing
happened for a few minutes, so I held my place in the space between those 2 logs
while I pulled out the bear mace to place in front of me. After a few minutes
of nothing, I quickly texted my wife to let her know what I had seen
(unfortunately, there were no pictures for proof – she and everyone else would
just have to believe me). Even in the outback, I got it off to her, and then, I
finished my thought process of what I had just seen, and if worse came to
worse, there would be some idea of what had happened if I didn’t make it out of
the woods that day.
Nevertheless, the noise
was gone, and now, I could continue the Priceless Point search.
With that, I started to
move forward again, but no sooner had I started than I heard rustling in the
leaves. This seemed to be where the bear cubs had moved to. If they were still
within about 50 yards on my right, then mom was still on my left side.
With this, I turned
around as quickly as I came.
“I’m out of here!”
The only sane action was
to move down the mountain, so I wandered down the mountain, wondering as I did
if I was going to see any of them. I never did, but the bear mace felt secure
on my chest in case they came out, which they never did, so I made a decision
to go see Monument Rock on the retreat from my mountaintop wilderness adventure.
I was entitled to some
super view to go with my once in a lifetime bear sighting.
It was definitely a moment,
but it was definitely scary, too. It was the kind of moment that you can only
have in the real backcountry when you choose to commune with the realer, purer
Nature that exists out there.
Nobody on that road in
Yellowstone would have that moment from the paved highway that ensnared the
lake at the center of the National Park. I would have to wait 11 years to get
my shot at it, but when I did, it was well worth it.
Later that year, I would
see another bear while driving into another section of the Standing Stone Trail,
which is where Priceless Point was located. I would see turkeys and deer all
along there, too. In addition, I would see a coyote with a bird in his mouth,
totally ignoring me as he cut across the trail back to Flat Rock at Colonel
Denning State Park. I would see my first rattlesnake, and I would see a baby
copperhead hiding in the rocks of the Horseshoe Trail.
I would even get to be
with my dad for his first bear growl when we returned to the area above the
Ramsey Path to look for Priceless Point. I knew what it was. My dad’s ears
perked up as he heard it, too. It was one of those moments when the student is
now the teacher, and it was only possible in some place that can only exist off
the beaten path.
Here was a person who had
shot a black bear in the 1980s, but here, too, was a person who had never heard
one. It’s a scary sense of understanding that somewhere, on the other side of
the valley is Mr. Furry Black Bear, but it’s also exhilarating and filled with
the sense that here in Nature is a good place and here is a place where the
inhabitants run free and wild as they are supposed to.
“Howl, Mr. Furry Black
Bear! Share your face with us! Come walking out into the open so that we can
wave to you and greet the potential of all that is! Teach us your mighty and
all-powerful lesson!”
And then walk away
quietly. I don’t want to open my $50 can of whoop ass on you. I don’t want you
to make mincemeat of us. I just want to say I saw you and that you saw me and
that it was a wonderful day.
Nevertheless, there are
people who don’t like nature, and there are people who have even less interest
in Nature. I remember driving into the Grand Canyon in 1998. It was one of
those monumental journeys that everyone is told that they must makes, so
everyone who does what they are told throws their family in some mega-overgrown
RV in search of the Big Ditch and drives alongside everyone who really would
want to go in an endless parade of traffic to get back into the Colorado
River’s highlands.
And I am no different. I too
threw myself in a purple Ford Escort on the same journey, and I made it to the
parking lot at South Rim with the extra time that I had gained by Arizona being
in a different time zone attitude than the surrounding states.
As I looked around for a
parking spot, I felt more like I was at a tailgating party at a Jimmy Buffett
concert. Kids were playing Frisbee, dogs were running around, people were
sitting in lawn chairs, and there I was, wandering past the fencing to get past
this parade of insanity to arrive at a view that could leave me overwhelmed in
poetic appreciation while all of these people seemed more interested in
stretching their legs after a long drive than stretching their minds around
erosion’s millions of years of work.
As I walked through it
all, I half expected to see coolers with beer cans strewn everywhere as people walked
out dressed in pirate costumes while carrying fake parrots on their shoulders.
Would someone still be wearing Spuds McKenzie T-shirts in 1998?
Fortunately, I didn’t
have to endure this sorry trip back to the 1980s, but it wasn’t far removed
from it as I still had to endure a giant mall parking lot in the middle of
northern Arizona.
The whole thing felt like
the part in The Guilt Trip where Seth
Rogen and Barbara Streisand are staring out at the Grand Canyon, unable to
stare for 10 minutes before they are bored and need to move on.
And I thought to myself,
“How could all of these people not care for what else is there?”
At its closest, the river
is 5 miles away. The cliffs stand 4,460 feet above the river at the Bright
Angel Trail, which is 7.8 miles downhill. It’s not like anyone was asking these
kids, adults, grandparents, and hikers to go into the chasm with Lassie beside
them for good measure. It was all about taking in the moment of the seemingly
endless field of view in the foreground from the top of the cliffs looking
down.
And with that, they
didn’t care that the looming “purple mountains majesty” in the background
vanished into the haze. They didn’t stop to see the figures on the North Rim
wave back at them to thank them for showing up. They just weren’t people like
me who just felt the overwhelming sense of smallness and miniscule time that I
represented compared to the eternity it took to carve this paradise as I, a
nearly 30-year old man sat staring out into the distance of My America, wearing
a Homer Simpson shirt that would soon be ripped on a rather sharp branch.
They were bored and
boring. They were my fellow visitors who just checked the Grand Canyon off
their list after taking a few obligatory pictures.
With that, I swore that
only 2 things would bring me back to South Rim again. One was the fact that I
would show it to my wife when I met her if she hadn’t seen it already (this
happened 12 years later in 2010). The other reason was to see it from river
level. Barring that, I’ll never go back.
I’ve made good on that
promise, so far, and I prepare to keep my promise.
This is still better than
my regard for Niagara Falls. I’ll never go back there. The buildup of
civilization and tourist hell that surrounds these 3 waterfalls is truly evil.
Described as more of a carnival than a cathedral in Ken Burns National Parks, I
completely agree. I’ve seen it flow free in summer, and I’ve seen it frozen
over in winter. There’s nothing left of this once great natural wonder that is
left there for me. If you want it, you can have it, and you can call it nature,
but don’t you dare call it Nature unless you do so while you’re there. That
way, I don’t have to hear you ramble about the incorrect and sacrilegious.
Think about it; the
river’s force has been slowed down, and the barrels have gone over the edge.
What’s left to do to destroy it that hasn’t been done (I’m sure there’s more,
but I don’t want to give the forces of capitalism any ideas on how to make that
happen)?
Fortunately, as a person
with a wife who has seen Niagara Falls, I don’t have to create a concession to
take her back to the Canadian border to see them, and frankly, she seems to be
OK with that.
Instead, I’ll take her
forward to see the other waterfalls of this world that we can call our own.
Whether these flowing falls are in Ithaca, the Poconos, Sullivan County, West
Virginia, or some other location along the way, there will always be better
options until we get to the next set of mega ones in dream destinations - like
the ones that adorn the paths of Yosemite or waterfalls like the ones that were
on the back trails of Yellowstone, which offers quite a variety of waterfalls
to choose from.
Back at Yellowstone,
the land where so many of those magnificent waterfalls were, D and I drove on,
detoured by the snow covered roadway ahead, we stopped momentarily at a gift
shop, traveling on with Cool Blue Gatorade and trail bars in my stomach for the
all so important fuel. We stopped at a Geyser trail with names that sounded
like Hell’s fury erupting on earth. The cauldron bubbled and the steam floated
up and away, drifting across in the wind. The trail moved onward as the buffalo
stood and grazing silently as the tourists stopped to take a quick look, before
they shied away in boredom to the endless paparazzi attack on their privacy.
While they were there,
I just watched, trying to explain to those people all around me that you could
stand close if you didn’t make sudden movements or act like a complete asshole
to provoke them. Nobody listened. Their zoom lenses sufficed, which isn’t
necessarily a bad thing, because when it didn’t, they got up closer and closer
with a million clicks. With that, I envisioned someone being kicked into the stratosphere
because that’s what an angry buffalo does to those people who annoy it.
Moving further along
the trail, I served as the photographer for the families looking to all be in
the soon to be framed vacation picture. I was only too happy to do this as it
was the only way I had pictures of myself at places on the last trip (and
certain spots along this trip). This to me is just good citizenship (and as I
said, it’s the only opportunity for pictures without that “selfie” feel to
them).
Next up was the upper
canyon views of Yellowstone Falls, a waterfall that stands higher than Niagara,
and in my opinion is a far more gorgeous a view (even if Niagara didn’t have
all of the buildup). Yes, Niagara is prettier than a junkyard, but its infinite
beauty has been compromised so much that it’s almost negated in worth, which is
the greatest crime of all.
As per usual, D and I
split up, hiking our own separate ways (something we did whenever possible so
that we didn’t get overloaded by too much camaraderie). At this point, I went
and took lots of pictures while he wandered a trail that I later wandered in
part. I proceeded to take pictures for others, as these Germans took pictures
for me. The further along I went, the more the mountains seemed to slide off
straight down after a slightly sloped start, falling down hundreds of feet into
the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It was scary, but it was also impressive in
such a way that made you sense that there was no better feeling than being here
to watch rainbows appear in the canyon. In the end, it was all about being glad
to be alive in this here and now.
Upon coming home, I
would be asked by a girl that I worked with if I had thought about throwing
myself off of any of these peaks. If I had any doubt before, this kind of clued
me in definitively that she was beyond help and un-dateable, even if she were
throwing her naked body against mine, which she never did, but it wasn’t a
thought that was ever too far out of the question. Nevertheless, her statement
also made me realize that no matter how close I may have walked to the sheer
dropoffs, I was alive, and I had survived my fear of heights, so there was no
need to be afraid when I was in control.
At that moment in time,
a fact that was largely attributed to times like I spent in Yellowstone, I felt
that I was completely in control of my destiny. All of the negativity of the
“real world” was behind me (or in front of me if I lost my grip on this new
reality), and I had the world and all that was in store for me there, in this
national park and in life, to look forward to in the coming days, months, and
years – if I wanted it to be.
I’m not sure what
became of her, but frankly, some people are even so far beyond help that an
endless vista, a waterfall, and a natural wonder couldn’t even touch their
unhappiness.
I hope I never reach
that point or a point in my life where associating with miserable people like
that is ever a necessity or interest of mine.
Along the way to
Mammoth Hot Springs, which is a really cool step-like attraction where the
geyser water trickled down to the valley from the hilltop, we passed elk, the
burned out remains of a forest fire past, and a river of rapids where salmon
could be seen fighting the current – provided that it was that particular season.
The traffic in these
areas is hellish and rather contentious. Apparently, it sucks to be on a family
vacation if you can’t maximize the time that the guidebook tells you that you
have to see these 25 different sights in 2 day. Thus, after cutting off someone
who wanted to turn left from the right hand lane and pissing them off something
fierce (what can I say if you don’t know traffic laws), we made it to Mammoth
Hot Springs intact and remotely sane.
The site itself is
really cool, but in pictures it looks so much bigger. The book I had with
pictures of this wonder were taken artistically and convincingly enough from
the right angle that they made it seem like it was 20 stories high, but in
reality it only stood about 10 stories high tops. Maybe this is why after we
left it, I drove us straight into Montana (who knew?) and searched out the
“real” Mammoth Hot Springs (which we already had seen – go figure). When I came
to what I thought was the entrance, I found out we were actually below the
place that we had seen. However, I did get a whole bunch of pictures of elk
lounging on the ranger station lawn, as well as some other elk that were
grazing on the lower springs.
Unfortunately, these
images of the monster elk began a series of pictures I would lose on the next
day in the great bald eagle picture debacle. These would include moose
pictures, a second huge waterfall picture, pictures of me sitting on boulders
in a rocky section of the road, a dam whose waters crashed over a waterfall,
which was very picturesque, and then the final pictures of Yellowstone, which
included Old Faithful.
Along the way to take
these soon to be lost pictures, we reached the Yellowstone geyser field. As we
did, the drizzles began. With this, we skipped them and pulled into the parking
lot of the huge hotel after stopping to gawk and photograph the second and
final group of moose we would see on the trip.
And in this monument to
architectural wonder, I embraced my tourist side too, as we walked to find out
of its giant log cabin presence when the next eruption at Old Faithful was
going to happen in order to get prime viewing place.
With eighty minutes to
go…
D was not keen on
staying just to see “water and steam.” I was very vocal on the idea that I did
not come that far not to see this geyser go off. As I own the car, I won out to
the unstated but implied sense of a certain action that could be done to him.
As he pouted, we killed
time by eating and talking to these women who worked at the gift shop burger
joint. These women remarked about their lives, other campers, and the death of
someone who died climbing a peak relatively nearby.
The young one kind of
shook her head at us. I guess we were a mismatched pair looking back on both of
us. D stood 6’3, and I’m 5’7 on most days I don’t feel like stretching it
another inch. We looked very different other than that as well. D was all indie
looking in that thrift shop hipster way, and I was in whatever state of I don’t
care, I am on the road, leave me alone, white guy in t-shirt and gym shorts
kind of way.
I was also so energetic
and optimistic about the road. D was mopey and up his own ass toward anyone
that wasn’t as hip as he was. In addition, the rain, as well as the feeling of
being freaked out by the isolation exhausted him to the point where he would
have teleported to the civilized world of California in a heartbeat. However,
what he didn’t know is that Nevada would not help this out at all, and to be
honest, I didn’t know how bad this would get for him.
I don’t think gift shop
girl meant anything mean by it, but I think she sensed the tension that
permeated through from the trip. It wasn’t necessarily brimming over, but it
was more and more omnipresent as we went along. My friend that we would stay
with in Biloxi noticed it right away, as did my other friend in San Francisco.
I am sure that D’s relatives noticed it when we stayed in Los Gatos, but then
he wasn’t really around them since he was on their computer (this was before
the world went 4G, so he would definitely take advantage of a wired world
option). I don’t really think they minded or had great illusions about him
talking to them about anything earth-shattering, but I do think that they
noticed he wasn’t very in tune with this idea of the road that takes over if a
trip like this is to succeed.
And so it was that we
saw Old Faithful, which was the bomb diggity. Literally. Blasting high into the
air, we watched the steam pour out of the Earth’s vents while a million
flashbulbs exploded in brilliant fireworks everywhere. Afterwards we left,
driving through towards the Grand Tetons in the dark.
It was cold and wet,
and very dark on the windy roads that night that we left Yellowstone. I didn’t
want to drive into the Tetons that night since I wanted to see the sights and take
tens of photos of the peaks to have for memory sake, so we camped in between
the parks and waited for morning light to break.
Wouldn’t it be just a
little ironic to state that after all of this hullabaloo that I would lose the
pictures that I took of this great national park and that D didn’t care enough
to take photos, so I had nothing that could replace them with?!! And as a
result, wouldn’t it really be ironic to think with how important and meticulous
that I was with all of my pictures that I would have (almost) no original
pictures of Old Faithful?!!
That night outside of
the Grand Tetons we camped in 40-degree weather at a campground that was still
closed for winter. All the bathrooms were locked, and this gave me the
privilege of being able to say that I know how to shit in the woods from
personal experience. Not that everyone cares to know, but oh well. Some people
do. Other people even write books about it.
And as you go on and
you get into big mountain country, the bear signs begin to appear, and with
that, there is an exciting feeling that I will get to view a grizzly, though in
the back of my mind I hope it’s not in the middle of the night. Fortunately we
didn’t see any. Unfortunately we wouldn’t see any up close either (after the
quasi-sighting at Yellowstone) all trip.
When we drove through
the Tetons the next morning, it wasn’t as impressive as it would have been had
we went there before the other side of Wyoming. It wasn’t new and unique, since
we had been through Yellowstone and Bighorn Mountain National Forest during the
days that transpired before.
The rocky tips of the
mountains looked beautiful, however. There was a huge lake, Lake Jenny,
serenely resting in front of them as we stared through the trees over the lake
and gazed upon the white capped peaks.
I’d like to say that I
remember more of the park than that, but I really don’t. Such is the product of
pure exhaustion from a whirlwind driving tour through a park. The car gets you
where you’re going, but the car and the fact that you’re in it for so long
getting here, there, and everywhere, just seems to detract from the wilderness
nature of a cross country hike.
Thus, the truth is here
and it’s clear: for all of my desire to be in Nature, I was just a tourist
getting a taste of the natural world’s highlights while so many other people
were just wandering back along footpaths into the recesses of a particular park
in their singular-minded preparedness to have a minimalized quest to see
something instead of so many things in a bigger journey to see everything.
And here is the other
truth: if I was only ever going to see the highlights of trip, what was the
tension and frustration of being cramped into a car with the wrong passenger
doing for the things that I was actually going to get out of this trip?
At the time, the only
answer is the sound of an engine roaring as we went on and on and on down the
park’s road.
By the time we got to
Jackson Hole on the other side of the park, it became time to dry out the tent
and to clean out the car. It also allowed for time apart in that D went his
way, and I went mine. By this point, the sense of being overloaded with just
one other person was building, and the pressure needed to be released, so this
is what we did to manage that.
An hour later we were
on the road out of Wyoming. We were headed rapidly towards Idaho, when D
sighted a bald eagle. I pulled over for a picture, and recalled that on the
last photo, a goldenrod-filled field on the outskirts of Jackson Hole, the
camera had made a noise like it was rewinding. What it turned out to be was
actually that the film being was pulled taut at the end so that some of the
unusable film was pulled onto the photo frame. I didn’t know this, and so I
opened the camera to change it out, but what I really did was expose the film.
Adding insult to
injury, I then pulled all the film out trying to get it out, effectively
killing all my photos in the exposing sunlight. At the time, I didn’t want to
believe this, but in actuality. I knew the answer, and for that, I should have
thrown the film into the trash. Instead, the rest of the afternoon was spent
trying to find a 1-hour photo spot, which isn’t easy in Idaho. Even in
Pocatello where the state school is located, there weren’t any real malls, at
least there weren’t any to find in the year 2000. However, we did find a strip
mall, and in it was a photo shop, where the proprietor told me that he would
check the film and only charge me if it showed something.
A short while later,
just as I feared, the film didn’t show anything, so I politely thanked him all
the same and headed off, trying to shake off the frustration I felt at my
stupidity and loss of photographic memories.
In hindsight, the
pictures I took looked so beautiful at the time, but how were they compared to
what I saw in real life all of those years ago? What about the waterfall and
the geysers? Is any of this as beautiful as it was then? Would having those
pictures have changed anything in what my mind stored or was there some other
need in having proof that all things existed as based upon what I could capture
on film? And as I think of this, my mind conjures up Images of friends and
places so long ago, things never captured so they were lost in the recesses of
forever or long enough to go back and get them again since my mind can no
longer wrap around the image of who or what they are.
And off we went,
heading towards the emptiness of Nevada and all the nothing it entailed,
driving rapidly (as fast as 100 mph) in the flat desert wasteland, stopping
hundreds of miles later to watch the clouds envelop the sun in the last hour of
sunlight. Then we drove off again towards Ely, Nevada, eventually deciding to
stay there overnight.
So there we were in the
Hotel Nevada, checking in there for sole purpose that they had Internet
connections and gambling privileges, where we could celebrate D’s 21st
in style.
D had been in a
desperate state from not having checked his e-mail since being in Madison,
which was where he faced the wrath of an over-zealous library lady who timed
his connection out at a half hour. As soon as he got in, he connected to the
World Wide Web, and I focused in on the first of several Budweisers and
productive time spent at the one-armed bandits. Of course, I lost everything I
put into the machines, but it didn’t matter since I was there to absorb the
Western culture of this town located on the intersection of Routes 50 and 93.
Soon enough, D began to
set into his own beers, and when a short hour and a half had passed, he was
well soused, and needed to be put to bed in his first happy mood in days.
As I helped his
stumbling self to the hotel room, I felt as if the tables had been reversed and
all of those young days of being a reckless drunk were beyond me, and now it
was my turn to do the same things that others once had to do to me.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t done with my drinking and gaming, so I went back
downstairs with the thought that life is short; why sleep?
Thus, I sat back at the
bar, and in a weird bit of kindness, I looked for my basket of pretzels. They
were with the guys next to me, who offered them back without my asking. Then we
started talking, and they told me of their lives, which had brought them to
Ely, Nevada, as well as what life is like in a small town in the middle of
nowhere. Brett and Bill were a talkative and friendly pair, and sitting there,
being bought shots and beer, since I was the guest, was definitely the happiest
point of the trip from a non-nature point.
It felt good to be
talked to, liked, and interesting. After all, isn’t this why we talk to anyone
anywhere ever? As we rambled about nothing, I would have liked to have traded D
in for either or both of them. Whatever it took, I would have done it if I
could, even if I knew that I couldn’t. And yes, there is something about
fitting in anywhere. I don’t know if I looked like I belonged, or if I didn’t,
but at that time, it just felt good, so the point was to flow into it.
And with that I did.
And somehow, just like
that, the drunken conversation that we were having transitioned into the music
of Hank, Senior and the 3rd but skipping Junior., hunting and my
future teaching profession, and somehow randomly quoting e.e. cummings in the
middle of this. Granted, it probably would have been a more victorious story if
I were chatting to some gal who wanted to take me upstairs to ravage my body
with much-longed for affection, yet there was something right in being on the
barstool with a couple of Western dudes at that given moment in time.
And I was happy. I was
in the right place at the right time, and I was living life as a road trip
dictates that it happen.
Damn all else.
This was the same
feeling as the fact that to be in the right place at the right time for the
rest of the trip meant taking pictures of old couples and anyone else who
needed their photos taken along the way, even if it was less than altruistic to
do it for the reason of getting my own photo taken in all of those non-D
moments that the trip seemed to consist of. It was right to talk to and meet
people, even if it was only in few minute bursts here and there. Besides, I
couldn’t pack anyone up to keep forever and forever and ever.
Everything was grand,
and when I finally had to stop drinking because I knew that the first hangover
in ages was on top of me and looming in the morning, not too dissimilar than
the fear of what would happen that first Basic Training morning, I went to
sleep spinning with the knowledge that I was here where I was meant to be.
I was somewhere on the
Loneliest Road, headed towards something that I still did not know, but I was
pretty certain that it was something worth seeing and experiencing.
So I woke up
hung-over. This is no real surprise. I predicted it, I knew it was coming, and yeah.
Here it was.
The hotel’s breakfast
was made up of a few egg shreds and toast, plus some soda to kick the caffeine
intake and re-hydrate myself. I went back upstairs in the middle of breakfast,
and I tried to make myself purge the night before into the toilet bowl located
directly under where I was resting my head.
Nothing worked, so finally, I swallowed some Tylenol and a hell of a lot
more soda, and then the idea that I could move towards something on that given day
finally took over the thumping headache that I was feeling.
Eventually, D
appeared, hung over as well, but moving, and we set out for the day, wandering
the grounds and hallways of the building, which was a scenic residence where
all these famous people from the early 1970s (and the more modern Steven King)
had once stayed. When we were done, we made our way outside with all of our
belongings to greet the day and push off across Highway 50.
I was decked out in my Boston Red Sox best for
some reason that shall to this day remain unknown to me. I say this since we
were heading towards the sweaty hot desert (which used to be the ocean floor) that
is Great Basin National Park. We were going hiking, and I was wearing a $90
Pedro Jersey.
Go figure.
Sometimes you wonder, sometimes you know.
Alas, we drove
on past the prison that Brett (or was it Bill) worked at, going towards the
middle of a raging furnace that was void of anything but parched earth. We made
it to the end of that long stretch of highway, and through to the park’s
entrance on the strength of Widespread Panic’s new disc, which I had bought
after hearing one song (“The Waker”) play in a Madison, Wisconsin, music store.
Unfortunately, that was the only good song on the album. Along the way, I
skipped back to that song, and hit repeat a couple of times, and then we were
there in the park pursuing the journey to whatever it was that made this a
national park.
As expected, the
park didn’t really feature much in the way of mega attractions like Old
Faithful, El Capitan, or Delicate Arch, but there it was, waiting for us, so I
led our little road trip party in, and we went up to the desk, and sought out
information about the cave (Lehman Cave) that was the central attraction. It
was $8 to get in, and D refused to pay this having paid $8 to get into Wind
Cave. His rationale was that he absolutely knew that he had seen anything a
cave could possibly offer. So once again, we split up, and I decided to hike up
the hill directly behind the cave and visitor station, just to see what was out
there while I was killing time. Other than some dried up vistas, not much else
was there, but I will say that the parched earth and hill that I was walking on
offered a small challenge, so I hiked up for what was meant to be a small jaunt,
which was going to kill an hour of time.
Because it was
so short, I didn’t take water. I also didn’t take a compass, and there I was in
my Pedro Martinez jersey, which after my Mark McGwire shirts, was my most
prized clothing possessions. I looked every bit the baseball fan I was.
I also looked
like an accident waiting to happen.
With that, I
wandered around and around, and just like that, I reached the top of the hill in
under a half hour, staring at what was at the time a nameless white-capped
peak, which would later come to be known by its proper name as the 13,000 foot
Wheeler Peak. It was a beautiful and picturesque hunk of mountain, and I was
exhilarated at having made it to this point in my journey, knowing I could turn
around and be down the hill and back at the visitor station in 15 short
minutes.
That said, my
thinking was all too incorrect and short-sighted.
One hour later,
I was back at the visitor station. I had contracted a sharp prickly thing (only
GOD knows what it was) as I walked the fencing to find my way out of the maze
that I had gotten myself into. Fortunately, unlike the afore-mentioned Homer
Simpson shirt, I still had an intact jersey to wear for the rest of the day.
And yes, I had
gone wide coming down the mountain.
Yes, I no longer
had any idea where I was when I was up there on the side of a mountain that
looked all too alike.
Yes, I knew that
if I followed the fence and kept Wheeler Peak at my back, I could make it down
as I had been trained to do when I used to go hunting with my dad.
And yes, I
finally did make it down, but not before running myself ragged and dry, catching
branches and stickers on my shirt.
And yes, I was
filled with the thinking that I should have had my head examined for staring
out on this whole jaunt, which leads to wonder and stress that culminate in a
person like me thinking, “Am I going to make it out of this whole thing OK?”
But then came the miracle, and I found
construction workers at a cottage who I enquired about directions. They gave
them to me, and I made it into the visitor station out of breath, begging the
kindness of the ranger woman, promising her eternal karma and stating
emphatically that I was stupid and would be so grateful if she would just let
me go on a later trip.
It wasn’t like I
could deliver those things, but what the hell? I could at least offer!
She looked at my
dumbass self and with permanent karma already flowing through her, she spoke
kindly to me.
“Get a drink,
relax, and you can go on the next cave tour.”
So I did, and
she went on with what she was doing, thankful she didn’t have to rescue me or
bag and tag me.
In the end, the
Cave tour was all right. Yeah, being in the cave was neat, but the patrons were
imbeciles that made me seem like a genius in comparison (isn’t that the way it
always works?). One of the great truths of the universe is that just because a
person is in a national park doesn’t mean that said person has any concern or
interest in the actual nature that is included in the park. To illustrate this
truth, these people would ask questions that ranger gal had just answered, and
she would nod and shake her head at their stupidity, which wasn’t too different
than how the woman at the desk must have been speaking about me wandering
around the hill behind the visitor center.
At least the
ranger gal had me to talk to in between their stupid remarks. I wanted to know!
I liked it here! I was interested in what she had to say! Hey, I could have
been interested in her! There’s nothing like a gal who is into Nature to hold
you tight and keep you warm at night (though it’s another truth to add that I
never had a chance with her). I’m sure I was more annoying to her than they
were since she probably smelled the desperation on me, a scent that overpowered
the sweat and stank, but that’s OK. My interest in nature was sincere.
I really do mean
well.
The caves did
feature an extensive maze of tunnels, which took me into several amazing
features and also past areas that were closed off due to the graveyard nature
they had come to take on from the Native Americans who had used them for sacred
purposes. Other than that, they were pretty bog standard in their stalactite /
stalagmite presence. This isn’t to say that D was right about having been
there, seen that, but it’s probably fair to say that the $8 he had would have
been better applied to buying a CD by Modest Mouse than in walking around bored
out of his mind.
When I left the
tour, I started talking to these Southern Californian gals who were on the tour
about the road trips we were collectively on, and though I would like to say that
1 or both of them offered me a night of desert passion in exchange for some of
my Granola Bars, I cannot speak truthfully to the cause. What I can say is that
they informed me that my hopes of entering Yosemite were dashed since the roads
that went in from the eastern side were closed off unless a vehicle had chains
on its tires. It didn’t take much thinking to realize that my driving abilities
in the snows that fell in flat rural Berks County Pennsylvania were marginally
sufficient at best, so I didn’t need to be driving in deep frozen big ol’
mountains in the outback of California.
We bid each
other goodbye, and I rejoined D, who was now back in time with the trip, and
just like that, we were pulling out again to head for our next stop, somewhere
down the line.
I can’t say that
there was much else to do on this God-forsaken chunk of land that is eastern
Nevada, but off we went in search of something that was out there to make the
best of our time together in this park. This mission would motivate us to drive
up to the 10,000 foot road that led to the peak of Mt. Wheeler. The still snow-capped
summit looked ominous in the distance as our eardrums popped and our cameras
flashed. In the blink of an eye, we too veered off into the distance.
It was so incredible
to look across Nevada and to know that even here, in the absolute nothingness
of the world, even here was something beautiful. Here were some good people
that I wanted to be around, here were some of the places that something inside
of me needed to experience, and here was some truth that I was being introduced
to in some way that I would remember this journey, one day, years later, and it
would change who I am and would be as well as what I thought about this
journey.
It felt so long
ago that I was at home, and it felt so far away from us ever going home again
since we had not even made it to the Pacific Coast yet. I knew that we had made
it a long way, and I wanted so badly to know that D had the possibility of
enjoying himself, even if it was only to just shut off his whininess.
Nevertheless, I had long since given up even trying to convince him that this
hunk of the world could offer his interests in life anything. As we headed out
across the highway, he was nearly salivating for his Uncle’s house in Los
Gatos, even if it was only for the Internet connection.
At the time,
this destination seemed so far away. I knew we were rapidly heading towards
California, and we would be there within the very near future, and with that,
we would have to get in touch with his uncle, or the absolute worst possible
scenario would happen to D, which was that we would have to find something to
stall us on the way in.
The only place I
could think of was Lake Tahoe, so I pointed the car off for there, and we
commenced our journey again.
The journey to
Tahoe was one that would take us back through the town of Ely, on towards
Eureka and then to Austin. It was another “empty” desert drive that seemed to
go on forever. Even for me (the more optimistic of the two of us), the beauty
that I would see at points quickly became lost in the sleepy isolation and rain
of Nevada.
Such is the
reason that this highway is called the Loneliest Road in America.
As drizzle
intensified, it was clear that something was coming to a head. With that, the
rains started to patter harder against the windshield, and with the drizzle
drops of rain, there came the clouds and the threats of all things really heavy
and nasty. Fortunately, things let up just enough in Eureka to take pictures at
the sign welcoming us to the one mile stretch of mining civilization.
There are
memories of a place in the Nevada desert. They fill the pages of another story
(Eureka, Nevada), which is the story
of the last decade and a half of my life (and then some). They are the words
that reflect the Toiyabe Mountains, the stars over Western skies, and the most
life-affecting decision of my life. They are a place of absolute peace and
certainty and direction. And while they are in the past, they are in the now.
That night, August 27, 1998, was the moment that would change my life.
The next morning I awakened, packed up the tent, and
headed off towards the east and all that it had to offer. The desert of Nevada
looked different in the day. I drove off, and the first town that I saw was
Eureka, Nevada, which I only noticed for the sign that stated that I was
entering into it.
“The Loneliest Town on the Loneliest Road”
The great poet e.e. cummings once wrote:
l(a
le
fa
ll
s)
one
liness
This expressed his belief that nobody sees things
the way that you do. This had become my way of life, my expression for being.
Suddenly, subconsciously, it all made sense. This town would become a symbol of
whom I was. It was a place that would set forth the idea that I was being
taught everything I was learning, both in college and peripherally through
life, to be a teacher.
The only
question was, “Who was I going to be teaching?”
Two years later,
I reflected on this place that sat behind the haze and rain of the moments.
In its early
days during the 1860s, Eureka came to be as a result of silver strikes in the
Silver State. By about 1878, the town had grown to be quite large as 9,000
people had come to live there, frequenting the saloons, gambling parlors and
dens of prostitution, and the three opera houses that the city was full of at
the time. Eureka was once so big that there were five volunteer fire companies
in its premises. Apparently, they were necessary if life got out of hand.
At the height of
its grandeur, Eureka processed 700 tons of silver, gold, and zinc in a day,
sending them across America and to companies that operated abroad as well.
However, by 1879, things were changing as floods caused the price of charcoal
to drop, which saw the Carbonari, an Italian charcoal burner’s association, go
on strike until they were ambushed. In the ensuing battle, five of these men
died and many others were wounded. This signaled the beginning of the end, and
in 1882, peak production occurred. By 1891, the most important mines were shut
down.
Now when people
look at what Eureka was and what Eureka is, it’s hard to tell the difference,
since many of the buildings are refurbished to look exactly like they did when
Eureka was a bustling world of excitement, prosperity, and hope for hearty men
and the women who love them. Somewhere in these buildings and hills lies a
town, a shell of its former self, but definitely not a ghost town. It is a town
that still exists and tells its story provided that the person traveling
through wants to listen rather than to just keep driving through.
The only
question is whether anyone wants to listen.
There was only
so long anyone was willing to listen to the call of Eureka’s history in the
rain. Thus, our stop off ended all too quickly end, and with it, the Ford Escort
would be thrust back into nowhere land for a good 70 miles before hitting
Austin. Fortunately, this time, it had pictures of the memories of it.
At the time, in
the back of my mind behind the music we were listening to and the sound of the
tires on the road, there was a different reflection of what I felt about myself
and who I had become. Sure, I was feeling very good about being in Eureka since
it seemed to represent so much of everything that I had come to embody in my
life, but something else was growing darker and more alone.
Sometimes
loneliness isn’t “one-ly.” Most times it’s just being all “alone.”
I can’t say
exactly what it is, but in about four years of being back in America, I had
grown deeper inside myself and though I found many people to associate with, I
could not name two people that I would take with me on a desert island if
stranded there. This trip with D confirmed how choosy that I needed to be the
next time that I set out on the highways of America again. It is true that I
could take someone and their spouse, or I could take someone I knew, but I had
spent so little time with any one person, I didn’t even know who I could be
with that wouldn’t kill me if they couldn’t handle my stinky feet or bad
singing, let alone my general nuances.
This is where I
had come from the once great, passionate moments of travel and affection that
had made my life feel like it had purpose and meaning when I traveled to all of
those little old English places that I went with T. For that reason, it was hard
not to romanticize and get all nostalgic to the things that I had lost in the
transition of my life.
There were
points where I was surviving and almost thriving in the isolation, coming home
long enough to make contacts and to exist in my own chosen America, somewhere
out there on Route 50, and there were other points where I felt so dead inside.
This isolation and one-liness that I was living out came to exemplify this
rainy highway, which despite some really beautiful pictures of sunsets that we
sneaked in, was marred by the fact that I had no desire to sleep in the car in
the middle of a rainstorm. I had no desire to see if the flickering lightning
would crash down upon us.
I no longer
really had any desire to be with D on this trip, but sadly, I knew I had to
make the best of it since there was no airplane to send him home without me.
And when I
thought about that, I had to think about the reality of this situation. We had
to get to somewhere, and I brought this idea up to outright refusal and hostility.
Now, I also had
no idea why D would fight this idea to stay inside a hotel (other than cash),
but in a situation like lightning, I just felt it was obvious that being in the
car wasn’t a good alternative to anything that ended up in a building.
Perhaps, he was
running out of money, but he never did say why he wouldn’t pay for the hotel.
All the same, when I paid, I guess it didn’t matter anymore if we were going to
be in a building or not.
Trips are filled
with many unexpected expenses. Before that hotel experience, I would shell out
$2 a gallon for gas in Austin, an exorbitant amount at the time (the most I had
ever paid in America), and I would pull the car over in Fallon to find out the
price of a hotel, which was met with stiffest unstated resistance to its cost,
and then a silent ride to another rest stop where I asked what was wrong, and just
like the time before it, I would get no answer.
I no longer had
any idea what to say or what to do. I just drove on, paying for the hotel room
in Sparks (outside of Reno), where D went and played the slots, and I lay in
bed, reading Into Thin Air before I prepared
to get a decent and restful sleep. With the stress of future time to Los Gatos
and San Francisco, I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have liked. What I did
get was civility in being apart from D long enough that we were talking comfortably
by the time he returned to the room as if nothing had ever happened.
So it was the
next morning I woke up knowing that I had some added sleep to a sleepless trip
(but sleep is not what we go on these trips for!). Things seemed a little
mellower at the moment, so we packed up and headed into California slowly. Along
the way, we were searching for some welcome to Reno sign (The Biggest Little
City on Earth), which we never found as the city just sort of happened, so we pulled
over to eat at a Denny’s.
It might have
been greasy, but at least it was cheap.
As we drove into
California, the day drug on and on. We did stop in Tahoe, where my car was
coated with asphalt in the wheel wells, a fact that carried on until the day
that I traded it in for a Chevy S-10 truck. It was like a scar that I proudly
showed off anytime that it was mentioned, and it was mentioned a fair bit.
In Tahoe, we
looked around the lake a little bit, and we saw the important spots such as the
hermit’s house on the island and the places where we could go walking in the
water. Along the remainder of the drive, we stopped for more food, looked in a
lousy record store, and beat onwards to find our way out of the construction
maze all around the lake, and headed into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which
would eventually lead us to Sacramento and downwards to Los Gatos.
The imminence of
civilization at the far side of the emptiness of our drive was nice, well at
least until my head exploded while were driving down a huge mountain and
escaping from the altitude. As the pounding commenced, I wondered and concluded
if this was as bad as the drive down out of Bighorn Mountain. In the end, I
couldn’t decide, but I did decide that it was not near as interesting to see since
there was no beautiful canyon and river to drive through.
As soon as I
could, I pulled over to a gas station, and like the wuss I am, I moped around
while eating ice cream, and I read Baseball
Weekly until I felt I could drive again. At the time, there was a sense
from D that he hoped I felt better, and perhaps, it was kindness, but most
likely, it was just a need to cover this last stretch of ground.
As our car
drifted out onto the highway, a million other cars whizzed by, going right and
left, east and west, north and south, and into the great wide open. The
interstate is a place of going. There is no being. It’s all just the places
between. Quickly we joined them, and so from there we went through all of the
grand wind farms of Southern California, which I didn’t get a picture of (which
made me want one all the more).
I can’t say why
I didn’t take the picture. I just didn’t think to pull over. Nevertheless, the
wind farms were an incredible sight. They just go on for miles with their
blades spinning in the setting sun as they stand on top of the golden hills of
the Golden State looking down and out.
Looking at them
made me feel so mellow, like a hippie or an Environmental Science teacher. I
would have liked to think this showed I learned something from the class, but
the reality is that I just learned that wind is better than fossil fuels. The
size of base that these towers need devastates the mountain top, and the blades
plays hell on the birds that soar through the areas. In the end, there is
nothing good that man does for the environment. I guess that Dante just needs
to make sure that he never thinks about the lobster when he does what he needs
to do to support a large population’s ability to live and work and feed itself in
the new economy.
Like everything
else that came before us on the journey, the windmills were gone and the golden
fields of California appeared as we descended out of these hills and left the
drive to take place across a more everyday horizon. It’s impossible to doubt
the beauty of the golden fields, but as viewed from a highway, a person cannot
find them as interesting as he or she does the Rocky Mountains for very long.
It’s just not
possible.
And the drive
went on like that. And it went on. It went on some more. Then, it went on a
little bit longer. Finally after what felt like an eternal final stretch of the
drive, we made it to a gas station where we got the final directions into D’s uncle’s
place. Comparatively speaking, we got there in no time, and after we said
hello, within 10 short minutes, D was on the Internet, and I was talking to his
cousin, who was cool enough to give me plastic pages for my baseball cards.
The whole family
was really nice, and his uncle was a really laid back California mellow type
person, doing his computer work from home in his shorts and T-shirt. As we went
to sleep that night, at the slightly less than halfway point in our trip, I
asked D what he expected and wanted to see with the rest of the trip. I knew
that he had a few concerts that he wanted us to go to, and I was down for that,
but there wasn’t much left for him other than to retreat to the old familiar
things like CD and book shops in a different town or to be on the Internet in a
different time zone altogether.
During the
conversation, I tried to explain to him the things that I feel when I am on a
trip like this. There was no parallel or dissenting discussion let alone an
explanation for what had already transpired. He nodded appropriately, and that
was that.
As our conversation
ended, I told him that I would put him out on his own in San Francisco so that
he could enjoy the Haight while I drove up to the Muir Woods during the day
time hours of the next day. Surprisingly, he dissented to this positively since
he wasn’t sure he could spend a day in San Francisco. I looked at him with
surprise knowing what I did of all of the cool hipster things that exist in the
city, but when faced with a definite answer, a person doesn’t question these
things.
He just flows
with them because an argument with irrationality isn’t worth having.
Things almost
changed in my schedule the next day. In a fleeting instant, I thought I could
make it to see the Giants play the Expos in their brand new (at the time) park.
There just seemed to be something about maybe getting to see Vladamir Guerrero hit
one into McCovey Cove, but that was not to happen since we got moving late.
This was due to a sudden emergency tire change that we found out about when our
oil change was occurring. The threat of an air bubble bursting was just too
much to contend with, so everything was squared away, and we headed on up to the
Muir Woods and Point Reyes.
On the way up
the coast, we stopped at Stinson Beach, which was where I first saw the Pacific
Ocean some three years earlier. It was chilly, and the bikinis weren’t really
worth looking at, though I must admit to peaking at a few because there’s
always something worth looking at when it comes to gals in bikinis.
As that time too
ended, we headed up the coast, driving on another never-ending journey through
the fields and forests, hoping to eventually make the “what looked like a”
short trek, and we arrived at the lighthouse that the map had promised us.
When we finally
got there, it was a blustery day, and the winds, which were up near 60 MPH, had
shut down the lighthouse. We were able to walk out to a souvenir hut and to stop
to check out the flowers, the cliff-side views, and the whale skull, which were
available to gaze down at while going to the lighthouse. Nevertheless, the
winds were brutal, and there was a definite hoping that our hats and glasses
weren’t blown into infinity. Unlike the weather station on Mt. Washington, this
hut was not chained down, though it probably could have benefited from it. As
with all of our other treks, we took our pictures and headed back to the car.
And like that,
we left on towards the grandest woods I have ever traversed, singing along with
the car’s stereo, which was Rainer Marie’s “Atlantic” (Maybe I’ve lost my faith in history, and the only thing I believe in
now is the sound of the Atlantic…) as we sped off on the windy country
roads.
Of all of the
songs that we played, it was truly the song of the trip, in that it was
something we both liked, and though it was funny to bombard him with Alan
Jackson, The Dixie Chicks, and David Allan Coe (lest we not forget Garth
Brooks) when the shitty college white boy angst noise got too much and it
became my turn to pick a tape, those songs didn’t quite sum up the trip quite
like that song did.
Eventually, we reached
the Muir Woods, which were almost dark, so my pictures reflected this lack of
vibrancy in their eternal shadows. Once again, I had hoped D would have liked
them more than he did, but I think at this point he just wanted to be in the
familiar confines of a city (and not a forest), so we traipsed around the
spectacular opening corridor, and we left for the Haight since he deserved to
find his version of happiness somewhere.
Alas, that was
not to be either.
We parked and
went in the biggest new / used record store in town (Amoeba), and he refused to
go in. I didn’t know this right away since I was already inside looking around.
His refusal was based on the fact that they asked him to give up his postal
carrier bag at the door. This was too much for him to do. So I got a few CDs,
looked for a few for him while he waited outside, and eventually, when I
finished, we ate and wandered around town looking for smaller record stores
that would respect his right to be unencumbered in his desire to walk in wearing
a bag that was big enough to steal half the store.
Unfortunately,
they were not to be open or even there. The big store had put them all out of
business. It was Amoeba or nothing. At the time, things like this mattered
since it was pre-Napster and Amazon.
Oh well, I
thought.
Pout pout, he
thought.
The ironic thing
was the next day that I spent with K, and he went back around the city looking
for music by himself, he ended up in there anyway. He even gave up the postal
carrier bag in a moment of utter hypocrisy or just the willful feeling that the
torture can end if he just capitulates in the moment.
What do you do?
What do you do?
I know what D
did.
So we ended up
back at the home base, doing nothing much except for a little packing to get
ready to leave the next morning, as D went on the Internet, and I watched Baseball Tonight on ESPN, which as we
all know was (at the time) the greatest show in the world for the 6 months that
it was on (now, there’s a whole baseball channel: MLBTV).
And just like
that our drive ended, and we headed up towards San Francisco where everything
natural would shift to the sights of the city. The joys of the parks were now a
thing of the past as the strain of time and change and difference were taking a
final death toll on the friendship that I had built up in several visits and
many letters with K (but that’s a whole other story). Instead of optimism and
excitement, there was just another sense of travel that would need to be
accomplished before we got to Biloxi, Mississippi, to see my friends W and H
and their son. And as it occurred, I thought about her changes, my changes, and
our changes, and the distance between us, both in who we were, would be and all
things.
It was sad, but
it was something that was to be.
For now, there
was just a chance to stretch out and rejuvenate before we got back in the car
to drive down Big Sur and across the Southwestern desert like a bullet from a
gun, fired through the heart of Needles, Tucson, and off through El Paso and
toward Big Bend National Park. There was so much yet to come, but nothing comes
before it does.
At the moment, I
was just happy to be out of the car.
