Not Really Snowbound

What a week! Started work Monday (wonderful, more soon), move into my apartment tomorrow, shelled out for a new laptop after the inglorious demise of my motherboard, and broke in the Kingfisher in our first Colorado snowstorm. I wish I had pictures or witty observations but when you combine all of that with the final few weeks of capstone craziness, this is all I've got for today.

The snow is melting. I'm saying goodbye to the Motel 6 by the highway. I'm writing my change-of-address cards. And looking forward to some small nugget of stability. Already my poor body is shedding some of the stress-based malfunctions. The road from Romania has been long and challenging (and expensive), but infinitely rich.

Ferris: "Nothing - wha - what do you mean nothing good? We've seen everything good. We've seen the whole city! We went to a museum, we saw priceless works of art! We ate pancreas!"

The Playlist

Made the last leg of my extended road trip over the weekend, driving the Kingfisher from Cali to the Fort. Took a slightly less-than-direct route to avoid I-70 over the mountains and in the meantime picked up some spectacular autumn New Mexico-ness. Stopped in Old Town Albuquerque for some green chile tamale lunch with a sopapilla for dessert. Then a quick stop in Taos for a red chile wreath for my door, and a winding color-filled sunset drive east to Raton with crepuscular ungulates roadside at twilight (just pronghorns, but ungulate is such a great word) as Vin Scelsa played George Harrison's Beware of Darkness.

A while back I made a mixed CD of music for a friend on the road. Turns out, coming full circle, it was the perfect blend for this trip of mine--heavy on the I-40 and with an emphasis on New Mexico. So today we're going to take a lesson from the Pioneer Woman and have a contest. I don't know what the prize will be, maybe some dried red chiles?

Here's the playlist. Following are thematically appropriate lyrics from the songs. Match the songs with the lyrics. Write your answers in the comments. The first best guesser wins something fabulous.

Playlist: I-40 Blues

1. White Freightliner by Townes Van Zandt
2. Don't Talk Back by Kasey Chambers
3. Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show
4. Joy by Lucinda Williams
5. Revelator by Gillian Welch
6. Waltz Across Texas Tonight by Emmylou Harris
7. East in a Westbound Lane by Brian Graham
8. Last Train Home by Nanci Griffith
9. Hymn 101 by Joe Pug
10. I've Been Everywhere by Johnny Cash
11. California Stars by Wilco/Billy Bragg/Woody Guthrie
12. Mad Mission by Patty Griffin
13. New Life in Old Mexico by Robert Earl Keen
14. Navajo Rug by Jerry Jeff Walker (originally by Tom Russell)
15. Snowin' on Raton by Townes Van Zandt
16. Light Enough to Travel by The Be Good Tanyas

a. "I'm gonna go to West Memphis...
I'm gonna go to Slidell..."

b. "Well, New Mexico ain't bad, Lord,
people here they treat you fine."

c. "Well it's two eggs up on whiskey toast,
home fries on the side.
You wash it down with the roadhouse coffee
that burns at your insides."

d. "West Texas dust beneath your nails.
You're headed down that heartbreak trail."

e. "I'd love to feel your hand touching mine
And tell me why I must keep working on
Yes I'd give my life to lay my head tonight on a bed..."

f. "If you're goin' to Winnemucca, Mac, with me you can ride
and so I climbed into the cab and then I settled down inside.
He asked me if I'd seen a road with so much dust and sand
And I said, listen I've traveled every road in this here land."

g. "Me and this road, you know we've got an understanding
It won't leave me at home and I am
Too tired to do just what I choose."

h. "Up in the morning, up and on the ride.
I drive into Corning and all the spindles whine.
And every day is gettin' straighter."

i. "Living in the shadows, running from my fate,
Goin' where the wind blows and no one knows my name."

j. "Push the pedal to the floor, let that little engine roar.
Pushed it like I knew she could, 1000 mules below the hood."

k. "Walkin' to the south out of Roanoke,
I caught a trucker out of Phillie, had a nice long toke.
But he's a-headed west from the Cumberland Gap
A-Johnson City, Tennessee."

l. "Oh Mother thinks the road is long and lonely,
Little brother thinks the road is straight and fine.
Little darlin' thinks the road is soft and lovely,
And I'm thankful that old road's a friend of mine."

m. "I've come to be the manger that you sleep in,
I've come to be the stranger that you keep,
I've come from down the road
And my footsteps never slowed
Before we met, I knew we'd meet."

n. "Been on a road that just don't seem to end.
Well, that broken old heart of yours won't ever mend.
You crossed over bridges and bridges and bridges they burn.
So many rivers and so much to learn,
So many bridges and so much to learn.

o. "I broke the windows at the logging company
Just to get a little release.
I had to throw down my accordian
To get away from the police."

p. "Sometimes you find yourself flying low at night
Flying blind and looking for any sign of light.
You're cold and scared and all alone,
You'd do anything just to make it home."

Here's a freebie from the Late Great Townes Van Zandt. You cannot count the miles until you feel them, and you cannot hold a lover who is gone.

I would share some pictures with you, but when I made the left at Albuquerque my hard drive apparently went south. Techno-challenged at the moment.

Above, still looking for elk. The signs are everywhere...

This last shot of Pike's Peak brings to mind my second grade teacher, Mrs. Sexton. As we were headed out on our Colorado family road trip at the end of class in June, 1976, Mrs. Sexton asked me to think of her when I saw Pike's Peak. We didn't make it there on that trip, so this was my first viewing. Here's to you, Mrs. Sexton. I remember you fondly.

Time Spent Outside

Time spent outside will not be deducted from your allotted days. So say I. Instead of spending yesterday inside working on my wilderness paper, I followed Ed Abbey's first rule of wilderness preservation and actually found some wilderness to go play in. In reality, I've been on a pursuit of aspens.

Tuesday, I flew from Denver to Reno to recover my remaining things in the Owens Valley. I took the shuttle bus down 395 to Independence. Maybe I've never traveled that road without being the driver. It's gorgeous. And I spotted a few patches of turning aspens. Truth to tell, it's still a bit early here.

But yesterday, I left the paper behind and the NPS paperwork behind, and the move details behind, and the apartment-hunt nonsense behind...and we had a small adventure. Brian and I started at Silver Lake, on the June Lake loop of 395, which has the finest stand of aspens maybe anywhere, but certainly accessible on a road. Still a bit green, but we waded into the lake and enjoyed the smells of fall.

Then we continued up the road to the turn-off to Parker Lake. Never been there, but friends Misty and Scott used to spend their October holiday up there. It's a small hike (very small to Brian who is a backcountry ranger, more of a deal to out-of-shape-sea-level me) up some hills to a beautiful little lake rimmed in cliffs and trees. Lots of aspens and stately pine trees along the creek on the way up. Then a nice half-submerged log to sit on in the lake. Brian decided to go swimming...well, he jumped in and jumped out. I goaded him on with promises of sushi. Upon which I delivered at Yamatani in Bishop on the way home.

A small adventure. But so heavenly. A trip to wilderness. As Wallace Stegner called these wild lands, the geography of hope. And a nod to my Taoseño, John Nichols, for introducing me to the glories of the Last Beautiful Days of Autumn in the land of aspens. Let winter come. I'm not ready, but I'm willing.

Above, aspens in Vail, Colorado, about ten days ago.

Silver Lake. The skinny dipping came later.

Parker Lake

An added bonus, this view of Mono Lake from our trail.

It Never Gets Old

Spent a afternoon and overnight with a park friend at Desert View on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. At sunset, we visited the rim. Forgive me Glacier, forgive me Tetons, forgive me Zion and Yosemite and Yellowstone. But the Grand Canyon is to my way of thinking the most spectacular scene I know--the immensity of it all. And down there is the river, the object of our affection. We hike down to it, we run it in rafts, we mythologize it and celebrate its heroes. I say we...I've hiked and mythologized it, but have yet to run it in a raft. Someday. And alas, I recently was on a short list for a job there that I gave up to take the sure thing in Fort Collins. I don't regret my decision, bird in hand and all, but...but...

Sitting with our feet dangling over the edge last night, we had a conversation about one aspect of the experience of visiting the canyon. Mandy relayed a story from her brother who visited and was afraid of standing by the edge for fear that he could not contain his urge to fly. She did not share this sentiment, but I immediately identified. That is the fear I too have. It's not that I will fall, but rather that the desire to fly out into the beautiful empty space will overcome me and I will have to take wing. Only to discover rather abruptly the gross miscalculation of my inherent flying abilities. We worship the condors with their advantageous wingspans because they evolved the secret. Better yet, the ravens not only soar over the canyon spires and buttes, but make a game--child's play--of their talent for flight.

Today I left the canyon and continued north through the Navajo reservation and Monument Valley, home to relict sandstone outcroppings made famous in magazines and John Ford movies. The red stone that one's memory cannot believe, but has to be reminded anew that this color exists in the fabric of our continent. Red rock, green sage, yellow rabbitbrush, a black and white horse.

This landscape is part home--the smell of the ponderosa pine, the rivers in the desert, the immense sky--part unknowable labyrinth. I have not even scratched the surface with my small, contained passage. But it is a wonderful place to find myself alive, still after all these years alive and whole and open.

As Mary Oliver writes,
Dirt, mud, stars, water.
I know you as I know myself.
How could I be afraid?