Fogged In With Sock

Recounted December 30, 2012

Petaluma, California

We left with a little bit of extra time, which we spent getting out to the freeway.

There was fog streaming through the air, not a solid bank, but waves of opacity, spinning horizontally and changing in density.  It was late commuter hour, about 9 am, and I was heading to my first interview in San Francisco. Architecture opportunities had not come a knockin’, despite submitting a plethora of resumes, so I was interviewing for a position of Building Auditor for a real-estate development, community-advancing firm near the intersection of Bush and Leavenworth Streets.

On the way, I had been reflecting on our long strange trip, and what I had learned. Obviously I hadn’t learned enough to not take a dog to an interview, though there seemed to be a few good lessons, like avoiding Dayton.

There was the fact that we seemed to be headed west in tandem with Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now tour, promoting community radio stations, calling attention to the violation of public lands by the BLM and fracking industry.  Then there was the apparent demise of WPFW, the last vestige of Jazz radio in Washington, where I had known any number of the programmers and the occasional performer.   It spoke to a higher calling, the Pacifica Radio Network, with its sister station, KPFA in San Francisco.

I thought of a beautiful, athletic girl I had seen at a rest area in Utah, before she got into a Colorado-plated Audi station wagon with a mountain bike on top. I thought of seeing a girl in a red sweatshirt in Idaho that evening, standing on a red curb and how I thought it would make a good photograph, only to see her get into an Audi station wagon with a mountain bike and Colorado plates…

Kaya had enjoyed a big time the previous week, the first time I had taken her into the city. After exploring around Sutro Heights and the Land’s End Lookout, a clean architectural gesture on this historic site, we had headed for the Embarcadero.  Sutro Heights is named after the baths that were built adjacent to the Cliff House, by Adolph Sutro, after he liquidated his mining interest.  The Cliff House has been rebuilt no fewer than twenty times, and was once a French Chalet cantilevering over the cliff above North Beach. The process of the redesigns is well documented in The Lookout building, as well as at the Cliff House Museum and restaurant. An advantage to visiting the Cliff House is seeing that seven decades of film and entertainment personalities have left signed photos from their visits.

Kaya seemed to enjoy the overlook above the breaking waves, and after buying a t-shirt we headed up Geary towards Fisherman’s Wharf. We parked in front of the Maritime Museum, and began walking the dozen blocks through the Italian Restaurants and Street Performers. I didn’t realize that Kaya was developing an admiration for the pigeons that were everywhere.

We stopped to listen to a blues musician, Sean King, playing slide in front of the entrance to pier 39. He proceeded to play “you’re in the doghouse now.” We sat for the tune, then proceeded up the pier seeking seafood. That was where Kaya’s newfound predilection began to manifest, as she charged headlong into a herd of these urban pierfowl, immediately captivating the attention of a large group of Chinese tourists. She became a quick film star as they pointed their cameras at her, taking a step back.

Tragedy was narrowly averted as 100 pounds of Black Bear reared up on hind legs, checked only by the restraint of the leash.  We took temporary cover in a Chinese Fish and Chips place, immediately knocking over our beer….but that was last week, and we journeyed our way home ahead of the traffic with little more harm than a parking ticket, $62.

The interview went well, lasting for ninety minutes, and we went exploring Golden Gate Park.  The redwoods surrounding the military base were mature, renovations were taking place at the Officer’s Club and we proceeded to a peaceful overlook, on the Pacific Coast Trail.

Before the Park, however, I had taken Kaya for a stroll over some of the steeper blocks of San Francisco, divining the location of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Xanadu Gallery (built as a bookshop for V.C. Morris). As I was trying to make a photo of the façade, one of the collection’s curators opened the door and asked if I would like to see the interior. He indicated that any number of people pass by on walking tours, though few actually visit the interior.

I indicated Kaya, tied to a parking meter while I worked the camera, and made use of the phrase, “companion animal.” He initially demurred, but shortly later returned and asked if she was well-behaved. This was as good as in, but in regaling him with her 4 semesters of obedience and Canine Good Citizen Award, I realized that being admitted into a Frank Lloyd Wright gallery with a dog was a certain liability, not unlike being loaned an ipad, yet potentially generating greater harm.

Kaya, of course, was dignified, received treats and accolades, and ascended the ramp to the collection on the second floor. We lingered under Mr. Wright’s low ceiling, a matrix of large and smaller convex lenses, within reaching distance, suspended amid scrolling fretwork. Keeping our visit brief, we headed back to the vehicle through Chinatown, entering through the gates.

Winding up at the West end of Golden Gate Park, we found a new overlook, a landscaping gesture that incorporated and integrated the design of ruins from an adjacent fort, started by the Spanish in 1790. Remarkably, the heavy concrete construction of later generations of the fort provided dramatic framing for views of the Golden Gate Bridge, and I got a passing tourist to include us in a couple of frames.

Returned to vehicular travel, we crossed under the bridge, by the Art Deco Restaurant and Gift Shop, around the circle, and left the city over the bridge.

We stopped at Vista Point, at the West end of the bridge, where there is an overlook of the bay and cities beyond, Alcatraz Island in its lonely splendor, and found a film crew making a commercial. I shot some panoramas with the ipad, and then let Kaya out, where she began to work the crowd for affection. If I only got to meet half the girls she does….we walked around the overlook, watching the crew and talent and headed west, into the sun.

Twin Peaks

Recounted 28 November

Petaluma, California

Leaving Orick early, we headed into Redwoods National Park, fascinated with the views of visceral topography, the undisturbed forest seeming to extend into infinity in all directions.  The sense of changing scales, from the intimacy of being among the trees, in microcosms of rainforest ferns and dripping moss, to splendid vistas between the passes, and the rare glimpse of the coast, put me in a Twin Peaks state of mind.

Passing Trinidad, I found the cell service that had been lacking since Gold Beach and caught up with a Virginia expatriate friend, Jack, near Arcata.  We went into Arcata with his lovely girlfriend, Cheryl and had an excellent cup of organic coffee and a highly recommended two-egg breakfast.  Cheryl took The Kay’ for a stroll as Jack and I walked the central square and hit a grocery where I bought a pound of organic coffee produced by a friend of his.

Passing the statue of President McKinley, we discussed the problems with the homeless on the West Coast, as migrations seem to end here, and the notion that the dog had to be on the leash in the midst of a number of slumbering civilians. I had heard initiatives being proposed for Portland on the radio in Oregon, and noticed a couple of road-worn street worms in Redmond. We didn’t discuss the Occupy Movement, or any of the parallels in finding public respite.

He invited us to spend the night in his large garage (more lounge than garage), with his Burning Man Camper, tables and chairs, and a pool table; and after a well-deserved sleep, we headed back for Trinidad.

My cousin Ben had regaled me with Trinidad lore when I visited in May, and I was excited to explore the pristine harbor and a number of small, secluded beaches north towards Big Lagoon.  Kaya got into it, surfing from the passenger window, as most of our driving was on tiny, winding, partially paved/partially washed-out paths through the coastal hills and valleys.  We lounged for the afternoon, enjoying the sun, sand and sea, ultimately seeking out a seafood shack.  Sated, we returned to Jack’s for the evening.

We discussed the transformations of the legal terrain of the West Coast, Jack pointing out that he spent more time living in Portland than California. I rhetorically lamented the decision to trek across the desert and mountains of Eastern Oregon, resulting in our missing out on Portland, a city with seven bridge spans across the Columbia River, and spectacular waterfalls to the North.

Somewhere, in the unwritten text of The Next Adventure, I began formulating a tour of waterfalls.  We had missed seeing Twin Falls and others on the Snake River in Idaho, some falls in the river gorges of Utah and now those of the Pacific Northwest.

Hat's Off

Recounted November 28, 2012

Petaluma, California

As we headed out of Capo Blanco, with some interesting advice from a friendly ranger, I stopped for a drink at a convenience store. And I thought I was from a county overrun with unreconstructed hippies!

There was the requisite Grateful Dead sticker on the prow of a van, the one with wings on the skull, not dissimilar to a pilot’s association sticker I have seen. The Florida plates belied my premise, as a fellow of much hair explained to the dreadlocked, dank Floridians that he had taken a job on a fishing boat, being from Maine, and did anybody have any smoke?

I muttered something about thinking along similar lines as I got out of the truck, knowing this is not the question to ask, got my tea, and by the time I returned from the store, had established some suspicions.  Half of the guy’s conversation was hand gestures, and it was just a bit too slick for me.

We meandered through Brookings, across the Chetco River and through serious sawmill country down to the California border. Some of the sawmill operations were of a scale that I can only communicate to East Coasters as, “bigger than the biggest sprawl mall you can think of.”

There were tremendous resources of lumber, unsawn logs washed up on the beaches, that I began immediately incorporating into mental designs for rustic beach house architecture. The vastness of the stores of lumber, whether in the mill yards, washed up on the beach, or standing in ineffable glory was breathtaking. I have since discussed the notion of an enterprising seaside lumber harvester, replete with sawmill, on a barge cum derrick, with a like-minded friend who found somebody who actually does it.

I stopped briefly in Crescent City, in heavy winds and horizontal rain. My aunt had recommended I look it over, and filming North over the cliffs, I was relieved of The Hat That Could Not Lose.  It first went skyward, then tumbled as though shot down, down, into the cliffs and crashing waves. This pink hat had survived another twenty hats and traveled to Assateague Island and Vermont last Summer, on Greg and Kaya’s last Big Adventure.

I decided to stop for cigarettes, fearful of the cost, in the small crossroads of Klamath. There was a bit of point of sale confusion, when I declined a bag for the beer, and was told it was The Law. I asked what law forbids beer without a bag and provides slot machines in convenience stores. The clerk said, “Welcome to the reservation.” As I left, I realized the “town” was circumnavigated with fences.

Down into the Redwood forests, moss dangling from the mothlike bunches of evergreen needles, ferns of prehistoric proportions dripping water, condensation, life….We were listening to NPR, which was underwritten by the Northern California Growers Association, and I was pleased to say to my loyal companion, “Kaya, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

Tremendously enjoying the open vistas among the hills of Humboldt County, we explored into several Virgin stands of the majestic Redwoods, avoiding the places advertising Drive-Through Trees. The sun began to arc towards its ultimate rays as we came into the small community of Orick, and decided to patronize the only open lodging, the Green Valley Motel.

Entering the office, which was empty, I saw signs forbidding dogs and alcohol. Having picked up beer to buffer the experience of watching the third presidential debate, I inquired if we had the pedigree to stay. The nice lady responded, “If you’re only staying one night, I won’t charge you.” She said the beer was fine, though she was going to watch the game instead of the debates.  It was soon revealed that she was talking about not charging me a doggie fee, but expected me to pay for the room.

I stopped by the only other open business, across the bridge, Mama’s for an excellent dinner of fish and chips. On the stool next to me was a guy, Javier, who was touring from North to South on the coast via mountain bike. He was about to interrupt his sojourn to jet home to New York for Halloween, then return. He seemed to have been in the area for a few days, and knew everyone.

Somehow, as I drove back to the room and debate, I found myself considering one of the first landmarks I had seen in California, the notorious Pelican Bay Prison.

The debate was disappointing, and I probably went surfing for the innocence of Indiana Jones when sleep crept into the plan and I was awakened by a knock on the door.

“Hey man. Could you turn that stuff down? It’s blaring into my room, I can’t sleep.”

The poor guy.  I had taken a turn toward the unconscious with the TV blaring some vapid drivel, and the way the motel was built (I avoid the word designed here), my TV was in an alcove in my room, which jutted into his room, the one next door. It reminded me of the scene from Brazil where the workers share a desk through a wall.

In the morning I heard him playing acoustic guitar, and apologized. He said he appreciated my turning off the noise and mused that he couldn’t understand how someone could sleep through such high volume.  I explained that I was an electric guitarist.

Southbound

Recounted 3 November, 2012

Petaluma, California

We left Eugene and headed for Florence on the coast.

Alan had insisted on showing me the house site on the river that was the inspiration for the Stamper family dwelling in Ken Kesey’s seminal novel, Sometimes a Great Notion. The house, which had spent decades cabled to the shore, had finally been claimed by the river, but we would have been able to see where it had been.  Unfortunately, after waking to rain Saturday, which precluded coastal initiatives, and Alan having commitments Sunday, Kaya and I travelled Sunday with directions, blessings, and warm memories.

As we entered the final leg of the first phase of the journey, Alan’s kindness brought me to consider other human warmth we had known enroute: Bernie’s dinner out and tour of the Cummins property, Michelle at KZMU tracking down song titles and discussing the legacy of Edward Abbey in Moab. We had enjoyed a gentle conversation with a couple traveling from British Columbia, in a VW van, traveling slowly across Idaho; our kind neighbors from Seattle, in the Winnebago along the Colorado Riverway….

Alan had managed to contact my cousin, James Grundman, of Corvallis, by phone, after the requisite confusion between email and voicemail addresses, and I burst into laughter as Alan asked Jimmy, “So what are you going to do with the cheese?” I spoke with Jimmy briefly, and was disappointed to learn he had guests from Texas and would be unable to meet us.

Alan had also insisted that we travel north to enjoy the Coastline of Southern Oregon before heading South into California.  Our Northern destination was a rock outcropping known as Devil’s Elbow, which we never knowingly attained, but turned around South of Yachats.

It is a belief of mine, while traveling, to not retrace routes already seen. However, on the Pacific Coast Scenic Byway, it’s the Byway or the highway, which runs 50 miles inland and is not the objective.  Southern Oregon transformed between driving North at noon and driving South at 2pm, as the rain lightened, sun shone on the sea and we began to have small adventures in the State parks and overlooks. It was not at all like retracing steps.

We also enjoyed our first beach on the ocean since leaving Virginia.  Kaya was filled with vigor, charging up the dunes only to dart for the water.  The rounded stones and massive driftwood trees arrayed in the lea of small coves made a perfect landscape for an afternoon’s respite from the road.

This was the early thinking.  Alan had also advised me against taking the PCH, saying it was too long and winding, so I knew we had a major leg of our journey in store, and was set on reaching California by Evening.

South of Woahink Lake, Dunes City, and Siltcoos Lake, the beach opened up into a broad swath, an excellent foreshadowing of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. We met some friendly German travelers, and more people from British Columbia on the wooden decks at the roadside overlooks, and took time to photograph a few panoramas. I was surprised to find that the National Recreation Area had maps in the turnoffs that Showed ATV trails through the dunes, some quite challenging.

The rain continued to wax and wane as we passed through Reedsport, an odd mixture of industry and harbor town, past the Umpqua Lighthouse towards North Bend.

Fascinated by the architecture of the bridges, Conde McCullough's concrete Art-Deco masterpieces, both in design and integration to their sites, I proceeded toward Coos Bay, and stopped to document the bridge at Gold Beach, over the North Fork of the Rogue River.  The rain increased in volume and velocity as I walked the narrow elevated sidewalk, and I felt fear in my heart as a tractor-trailer appeared to lean my way on the turn approaching the gateway stanchions.  I had an image of this clip of video being reviewed as my last, and settled for photographing the bronze plaque commemorating the completion of the bridge, in juxtaposition to the view between the towers.

I feel comfortable describing the detailing as Art Deco meets American Indian, with obvious Navajo inflections, which I also use to describe the design/brand on the elevator doors of Mario Botta’s Public Library off of Market Street in San Francisco.

The name Rogue caused a sensation of thirst, followed shortly by hunger, so we stopped at a grocery store for provisions, and began checking out the State Park Campgrounds, as plentiful as they are elaborate.  After some confusion at how all of the State Parks seemed to offer RV sites and no tent sites, we assuaged our fear of pitching the tent after dark and settled into an RV site, with water and electric, at the Capo Blanco State Park.

The great disparity between roadside Idaho, with its impeccably cleaned visitor’s centers, as opposed to their wide-spot-in-the-road chemical toilet counterparts in Utah, to this bounty of services in a Coastal rainforest was truly humbling.  A brilliant, iridescent Blue Jay, exotic to me, decided to hold court on the picnic table, bossing Kaya around, and demanding eggs benedict, don’t overcook the hollandaise.

Despite its brazenness, it was too wily for me to get much footage of, though its “song” certainly provides the soundtrack for some mossy videos. 

After a rousing breakfast of sausage and watermelon, having run out of eggs, we headed for California.

Less is More

3 November, 2012

Petaluma, California

 Goin’ where the weather suits my clothes.  I Know You Rider, traditional.

Crossing Oregon was like crossing a continent.

From the rolling desert hills and dunes with the prairie grass waving in the wind, across the dry Mountains of the Malheur National Forest, the morning light ascended to midday.  As light rain or heavy dew in the evening had brought the piney aroma of the conifers, I was reminded of the rain our first night camping on the banks of the Colorado, and how the fragrance of the sage and junipers had seemed to clear the head of the night’s sleepy dreams.

From the western foothills of the Malheur, through Old Mining towns, the landscape revealed blossoms and oases of river bottoms amid the desert tundra.  We stopped in Mitchell, a small town with a large colorful history, and had a lively conversation with a shopkeeper.  At one point, a young girl entered the store, and overhearing, “floods and fires…” stated, ”Daddy started that fire.” Her mother conceded, “Yes, your father and brother started the last fire, but…”

I regained cell service around Redmond, and checked in with my cousin, Alan, whom I was planning to meet that night.  I was reminded of a nice woman in Baker City, who had offered me the use of her phone, after our dogs had trashed the layout of café tables at the Corner Brick, when she found out mine wouldn’t work.  Barbara Stanley had maintained a conversation on the phone with her mother while carrying on one with me as we righted the tables, and asked if I was related to the Baker City Hunsakers.

From Redmond, where we walked a circuit in the center of town, I managed to slip to the Northern of two routes over the Cascades, which resulted in my being late for a dinner invitation from Alan, and driving an extra 50 miles after dark, enduring the oncoming glare of lights, as we neared Corvallis and Albany unintentionally.  After righting course into Eugene, I enjoyed a drink and the pleasurable company of Alan and his friends, who had carried a discussion of Napoleon into one of Modern Turkey and Libya.

Waking at Alan’s after an evening of reminiscence and Japanese beer, Eugene was a new world.   The clouds were massed in the Southern Sky, and I first mistook them for mountains, in the long light of early morning.  It was a godsend to be in a room instead of a tent or hotel, and Alan’s house features some fine woodworking from the Arts and Crafts movement, well-considered details wrought with excellent materials.

After coffee and a breakfast of granola/muesli/ hazlenuts all borne on a dollop of yoghurt from (Ken Kesey’s) Springfield Dairy, Alan began recounting Kimball family history, and I began recording and filming.  He periodically paused to put a log on the fire, and I relaxed into the state of security that can only come with family and a fire in the stove. Not being Fellini or Tarantino, I critiqued my efforts through my filmmaker brother Eric’s eyes, and occasionally changed the scenery in the lens, filming artifacts around Alan’s home, including artwork by his late wife, Martha. 

Alan took Kaya and me for a driving and walking tour of Eugene, where I discovered a building by Morphosis, a new Federal Courthouse, and guessed it was Richard Meier’s work.  I’m caught on tape speculating that it might be a knockoff, possibly Morphosis, and recounting Morphosis’ founder, Thom Mayne admitting to being a “Piece Thief.”  I had seen Mayne state in a lecture at the National Building Museum, c. 1991, that he stole ideas from colleagues, and turned them into buildings.

We toured Springfield after Eugene, and an unincorporated town in between, which was becoming part of Springfield, expanding Springfield’s tax base and legislative power beyond that of Eugene.  It was an interesting juxtaposition from the unspeakably courageous Oregon Trail pioneers to modern cities quibbling over dominion. An odd tangent was that Springfield is considered by many to be the setting of the Simpsons.

The Willamette River runs split through Eugene, with the Middle Branch running near the Market District and the Northern Branch near the Northern edge of the city.  Alan and I discussed local pronunciations of more generally ethnocentric names and Willamette was clarified as having the accent on the “a.”  Alan’s father, Les, had expressed it as, “It’s Willamette, dammit.”

Falls

27 October, 2012

Petaluma, California

After a night at the Highlander Motel, on the outskirts of Mountain Home, Idaho, we set our sights for Oregon.

The topography of Idaho was a bit like that of the high plains, with wide vast valleys between the mountain ranges.  In the crisp, cool air of late October, it felt like I could see for a hundred miles.  The mountains, with their snow-capped peaks receded to the outer limits of view, and ultimately, the suggestion of a memory.

This is a land of many waterfalls, along the Snake River, which flows into Oregon.  A kind pair of travelers from British Columbia had recommended a motel in Bliss, which proved to be the Jupiter Inn, and full.  As I entered the premises to verify the No Vacancy sign was correct, I discovered a similar sign on the office window, and satisfied, began to leave to resume our search for lodging.  An attentive man opened the window, and suggested a couple of prime properties in the next town.  When I suggested that I was looking for an economy, dog- friendly room, he got on the phone and found us one, writing down the pertinent numbers, and reserving the room for us.

We crossed into Oregon in Ontario, and followed the signs for the Oregon Trail Interpretative Center. Our Winnebago-traveling neighbors in Utah had recommended a visit here, and I felt compelled to honor their suggestion. 

The Center lies a few miles off the highway, among ranches and pastures in what is irrefutably cowboy country.  I found an equipment museum, or perhaps cemetery on the way, outside of Baker City, which was impeccably organized and comprised a history of machinery from 1870’s mining trains to 1960’s painted-up school buses.  We found the exit for the Center and began ascending a long narrow lane to the parking area.

As I was filming a panorama of the mountains to the South and West of the parking area, Kaya was exploring the trail, a section of the original Oregon Trail, where one in ten people did not survive the crossing.

Kaya saw a girl get out of a car and come to the rail overlooking the trail, and from 100 yards away, made a beeline towards her.  Kaya’s into female energy, as we have a dearth of it at home, and can detect the dog-friendly woman from a seemingly unaware distance.  The girl was excited and embraced this large friendly bear, and then agreed to shoot a few stills of us with the mountains in the background, to use as a Christmas card.

I accidentally managed to enter the Interpretative Center through the back door, only to find friendly and helpful people at the welcome desk, where I mentioned having left my dog in the car.  As I wrapped up my first hour of careful reading about these road-hardened emigrants, and was beginning to canvas the other exhibits, worrying about checking on Kaya, I was approached by the first guard I had met.

“Did you say you had a dog here?”

It seems Kaya had decamped the vehicle and begun circumnavigating the facility in ever decreasing radii to determine the location and welfare of her boy.  Nothing compares to the unconditional love of a dog, even if it occasionally results in getting busted.

The guard was friendly about it, revealing that this was an aggravated charge, with precedent established by a woman having left a dog tied in a parking area earlier in the year. Said dog bit a tourist, and followed that up by biting the director of the Center, who went to personally investigate.  I decided not to play the Companion Animal Card and we confusedly left the Center by a different road than we arrived, a romantic planning gesture to the Oregon Trail, I believe, and went into Baker City seeking sustenance.

I spied a café with outdoor seating, and parked around the corner, noticing old brickwork and a chute into a dumpster, indicating renovations underway.  We rounded the block and I reviewed the menu, tied my horse to a table, and went inside to investigate.  I was rewarded with a Stratocaster and a Les Paul in glass cases on the wall, and after reconnoitering with the instruments, confirmed that Kaya was welcome outdoors, and ordered a sandwich and a beer.

My Aunt Jean had asked me a couple of days before if traveling across the country was similar to traveling in Central America, and I had replied, “No. The changes are more gradual.”  Here, outside Baker City, I experienced a sensation that was straight out of Costa Rica, that I had traveled in time back to the heyday of the cowboy, or vaquero.  The open ranges and occasional ranch, the sand, the cactus, the timelessness of the prairie grass, had all conspired to take me across these perceived barriers into the Land of the Spaghetti Western, a metaphor that is so wrong at so many levels….

After lunch at the Corner Brick, we again rounded the block to grab a camera, and before we could begin touring this small time-capsule of a city, I saw a worker from the renovation project.  I asked if the history of the old building was known, and Robert Anders replied, “It was a saloon and brothel, built in 1890. The old elevator still works. Would you like to see it?”  He proceeded to explain that he was remodeling the building, which he had purchased for $120k, into a gallery and a home.  I had seen some of his work in the window of the gallery, on the first floor, on our first pass.

Robert is an artist, a metalsmith, a printmaker, a builder and a gentleman.  He gave a comprehensive tour and listened with amusement when I described making windows from scratch with the salvaged douglas fir from the beams at the Skyline Ski Lodge.  He told me he had asked the Marvin Window Company for a proposal to replace the windows, six-foot tall arch-head beauties with weeping glass. I suggested the proposal would be worth more than he paid for the building.  He agreed.

After hours enjoying the central blocks of Baker City in the setting sun, we headed south into the Malheur National Forest, to make camp for the night.

Arriving at the bad hour of 7:30, I was looking over the information sign for the campground when a jacked-up jeep pulled up and some friendly elk hunters recommended the site, offering to help light the way to set up the tent.  I demurred, yet set up the tent in the truck headlights, careful to keep the motor running, started a fire and settled back with a cold beverage.

Shortly afterwards, Kaya and I went up to thank our new neighbors for their offer of help, and were treated to a cultural awakening: These guys made their jeeps and guns from scratch, and one of them, Jeff, was an expert woodcarver, carrying some of his pieces in a metal box in his pocket.

The first one he pulled out was a watch chain, a complete circle, cut from a single piece of wood.  Then he showed me a butterfly that hinged at the wings, a small elk sculpture, and photographs of larger pieces.

The evening wore into a telling of tall tales, mushroom clouds at the burn pile vs. acetylene-powered potato cannons, when I asked if they had ever heard of the Dukes of Hazzard.  Suddenly, in newfound silence, to utterly rapt attention, I explained how Ben Jones, who played the Cooter Davenport character in the popular series, before being elected to two sessions as a congressman, hosted the Hazzard Homecoming each Summer in my native Rappahannock County, Virginia.

It was as if the Messiah had appeared on a can of Billy Beer.

I sent Ben an email to tell him how the conversation had unfurled, and how I never expected to ride his cuffs in the glory of the Dukes, but never heard back.  I left my contact information with one of Jeff and Stan’s nephews, but would not expect to hear back until the summer, if ever.

Flora de la Luna

18 October, 2012

Bliss, Idaho

Editor’s Note:   This one is dedicated to Amy Goodman, who not only works the night shift, but the day shift, all points in between, and apparently, a few dimensions beyond that.

“To live outside the law you must be honest.”   Bob Dylan

We roared back into Moab from the South, at 90 MPH, with an angry tractor-trailer on our heels.  I had decided to abort my delusions of hitting Needles, The Maze, and Mesa Verde, in lieu of talking a grieving relative back down.  Our conversation had been truncated by my rise onto the Spanish Trail plateau, wherein all cellular communications fade instantly.

I had also realized that I was heading South and East, the latter a taboo, while the Big Picture called for West and North.

Kaya was bent, I was bent, and the ipad was quite bent, and slightly broken after a dozen days on the road and reluctantly giving up our magnificent campsite in the Colorado Riverway, where we had seen the elusive Bighorn Sheep just that morning.  I had a serious hankering to see some Anasazi cliff-dwelling ruins, as these are the final remains of the last Real American Architects.  Kaya really didn’t want to leave, and it portended storms in the sky of our mutual acquiescence.

South of Moab, one encounters industry.  Drilling rigs, earth-movers, platforms and heavy equipment rental agencies abound, interspersed with oases of potential, like the Lazy Lizard Hostel, where I purchased my first shower in days.  It generally appears there is no water in the desert. 

Kaya is also generally right.

But we had spent the previous two days in Negro Bill Canyon, where the flowers continue to bloom in mid-October, and the river cuts through the mountain with the alacrity of polygamous Mormons to St. George.  The bounty of our travels through the pristine Canyonlands and Arches National parks was affronted by the sacrifice of a rise graffitoed with the massive painted words, “Hole in the Wall,” and its requisite arrow pointing at the souvenir shop located in a shallow cave.  The letters must be a hundred feet tall.

Coming back into Moab, the topography again took center stage, with the river gorges and buttes close to the road, receding only as we entered the valley where the town first located.  Moab is actually a fault, geologically, and at its widest point is maybe one-half of a mile between the canyon rims far above.

Unfortunately the Bureau of Land Management, a federal agency charged with protecting and maintaining public lands, has put nearly 52,000 acres of land into a lease/sale arrangement for mineral exploration.  This will include hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” a violent process that shatters its way to new deposits along with the aquifers that protect the water supplies beneath the ground.  It speaks to a brobdingnagian process of destruction, the diminutive outposts of Lilliputians spiking their chemical hypodermics into our sacred land.  It would only become a darker shadow on the plain of mankind’s achievements if the actions were synchronized, to jar loose tectonic plates in places like the Moab Fault.

I’m reminded by the quote from an unnamed Vietnam-era general, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”

Love and Happiness

15 October, 2012

Drinks Canyon

Moab, Utah

“Take only photos. Leave only footprints.”  John Muir

I would never have seen the sheep were it not for Kaya.  I had just thrown a lump of moldy cheese into the river and noticed she was fixated in that direction.  I, of course, thought she was after the cheese, and cut her a slice of the fresh stuff to distract her.  When Kaya can’t be lured into a different mode with cheese, something is amiss.

The Bighorn Sheep once ruled the slopes of Utah, roaming herds climbing the ragged slopes with finesse, well beyond the fancy of predators.  According to the literature from the Arches National Park, just over the rim of cliffs above this slope, they now number around 50. I was initially disappointed because they seemed small, until I considered that I was looking across the Colorado River from the campsite, and they were about one-tenth of a mile away.  I have seen a couple of skulls around town, and the term “sheep” strikes me as inappropriately diminutive and milquetoast.

Of course I sprinted for the truck to grab the ipad and make a movie.  Though I got some footage, about 12 minutes, between the human handheld factor, the tenth of a mile, the preliminary development of the camera, the one-sixteenth of an inch dimension of the aperture.…I’m sure you see where I’m headed with this.

Yes, a ram might be a more fitting word. And this ain’t no motherboard.  They proved to be a ram and a ewe and by the time the footage was stabilized by leaning the ipad against the water pitcher, they were a couple.  I was wondering why they were running around and around this large boulder, and thought I saw one ride the other down one side of it, and had to look again.  I think she may have been saying that she might like to have coffee first, maybe ease into the morning, but far be it from me to counsel another’s domestic predilections.

The river was quiet this morning as I coerced the laptop back into play to write about it, and over its whispering burble I could hear their hooves clattering on the stone known as Moab Tongue.  The river changes as frequently as the appearance of the landscape and became loud and vehement Friday morning after a preview of a thunderstorm came and went in a neighborhood near us.   I could see the lightening flashing and flickering in a canyon upstream that was obviously not spared the deluge.  The Colorado went from green to brown that day, and it is only today, Tuesday, approaching a verdant tone again.  It still is more opaque than my memory of how it appeared Thursday when we arrived, after what I can assure the reader will be our last night in a motel.

Kaya and I returned to Negro Bill Canyon yesterday to locate the leash we left up near Morning Glory Arch on Sunday, and I was filled with a sense of Déjà vu all over again.  Sunday morn had found your humble scribe not feeling too hot, three days without a real shower, head scraped repeatedly from hitting the top of the door into the cap on truck, a repetitive ritual. If I would only take the flipping hat off, and wear it like a catcher or a drummer, I would see it and avoid further injury. We’d partied a bit the night before, in good, earnest Saturday Night tradition, well free of those restraints that most people would consider creature comforts.  

I was careful to bring water and a long-sleeved shirt, and keep an eye on the Kay’, as this was our first extended foray into the desert, at the peak hour of solar noon.

Editor’s note:  Pause to put more fuel on the fire, not quite ready to begin the huevos revueltos con pimientos, salchichones y queso, as the written word has taken me again.

Ennywhoo…the darkling mood went the way of the honest politician as soon as we were out of sight of the parking area, and never returned.  The sheer glory of the grandeur of the canyon, the penstemon still in bloom, the scrub oaks, the lizards and cactus, the gnarly Bonzai Junipers in their timeless endurance, graying and bending with the winds, the ever-alluring surprise around the next bend….hog heaven would founder in the arena of Devil’s Garden.

But back to yesterday:  We had begun the day at our favorite Moab laundry, charging batteries, shaving, listening to Frenchmen get excited in their skype connections to loved ones and home.  We had needed some sundries for breakfast, and this guaranteed a late departure into the canyon, though I had wanted to see why the Arch was named Morning Glory.

In town, Kaya likes to socialize with all of God’s Creatures, and we met a full-bred Akita, Kaya’s half-brethren, to oversimplify.  He was a beautiful white, fifty percent larger than she, hair three times as long, and they exchanged a civil, albeit undignified discourse as his mistress explained she had just lost a dog who greatly resembled mine.  She was walking him with her husband, who was walking a red chow cross, and as I didn’t have the omnipresent ipad, I didn’t get a photo of him until driving, later, a sloppy through-the-windscreen moving piece that deteriorates into the steering wheel, the lap , and ultimately darkness at high noon.

We have aspirations of making the Squaw Flats Campground at Needles, near The Maze, on the southern end of Canyonlands National Park by checkout time, as campsites are first-come first-serve, and if we blow it, we’ll probably find ourselves in the backcountry camping without a permit.  The peril here is not a ranger issuing a citation, but rather that issued by the Spotted Rattlesnake, a nocturnal, friendly fellow who seeks out warmth on cool desert nights.

“It’s just something you know is right, even if it’s wrong.”

  

Andre Leon Talley, speaking of film noir in the October 16, 2012 Moab Sun News.

The Night Sky

14 October, 2012

Drinks Canyon

Moab, Utah

“This is Frank Zappa, and you’re listening to the best radio station in the world, because of its location: the city that God built.”

I knew it was a good station, KZMU, a public, community-sponsored, commercial-free platform, with an array of music crossing most ethnomusicological barriers, and 100 percent solar-powered. The first track I tuned into was Traffic’s Glad.   It gets hokie-level  local as well, Friday lunchtime featuring a call-in trading post, where one guy had 15 sheets of sheetrock leftover from a project, free to anyone who would carry it down from the second floor, “Bring a helper and a truck.”  Another had parts for a Toyota truck that sounded like it had been rolled in one of the extreme 4-wheel drive tracks that circumnavigate the parks, and occasionally pass through Federal territory.  Rolled like my borrowed ipad.

It was just like Frank to do a radio promo and never mention the station, or actual location.  He had a thing about commercialism.

Yesterday, warned by my well-traveled Winnebago friends that the parks would be packed through the weekend, Kaya and I decided to play low-key, muck out the truck after the first ten days on the road, engage laundry and recycling facilities, succeeding with the first, in a spotless, wifired net-laundry with a private bathroom where I could shave and brush my teeth.  As there is no shower in a Utahn park, being desert and so forth, I purchased a solar shower from the thrift store, where I had ventured to find a bag to protect the already-compromised ipad.  I was able to synch some devices and submit travelogue #4, possibly forgetting the subject, Superlative Squared, but I can’t check that here in the canyon.

As the afternoon approached Golden Hour, after reading park literature and studying the colorful maps for a while, we decided to go back into Arches, and explore our way to Devil’s Garden, a contrast to Garden of Eden near Window Arch, where we frolicked Thursday, unknowingly violating an impressive portfolio of federal statutes.  Again the landmass formations were stunningly breathtaking, though some of the tourists were aggressive, rushing their way through another expensive experience.  I wound up with some photos of Edward Abbey’s nemesis, the road-locked flotilla of Winnebagoes, and could not help but consider how the last Cheney administration put money into the National Parks, to expand parking lots.

 I also got some spectacular amateur footage and stills, still working on my technique and patience in creating panoramas.  Slowing it down, steadying the camera and moving the feet ahead of the direction of the camera have become key.  Lacking a tripod or turntable, I have been standing on the tailgate to be able to shoot continuous film 360 degrees without the truck appearing in it.  Kaya has several cameos, some quite uncanny. (Most of my moving footage features hitches where I move my feet and trip over something, such as a prickly pear.)

Kaya has proven a great traveler, providing her soothing balm and earnest eye when I get bent, befriending man and beast alike, though she prefers females, and even got to meet a beautiful white Akita, a male, 50 percent larger than she, in complete civility, if not dignity.  She was super squirrely in town this morning, as we finally sought out the elusive, anti-google recycling center, to find it closed, and settled on a watermelon and provisions for super rice, one of her favorites and a constitutional formidifier.

I dumped two bags of bottles into a utility recyle bin at a day-care center nearby and left feeling quite the criminal.  I kept the other two, which probably dated back to Indiana, purely out of shame.

So the tooth grows long, the reader weary, the rice burnt (checked it, not quite there- it takes longer at higher altitudes, though we are nowhere near as high as we were the last few days, 5600 feet at Grandview Point when the storm hit yesterday,) but the focus here, if you hadn’t noticed, was to describe the night sky.

  As Moab has strict night lighting ordinances, and is the only major outpost for a hundred miles in any direction, the sky is not only crystal clear, but the constellations may be viewed in three dimensions, defining the closer stars from those further out.  I can actually make out the Andromeda Galaxy and star with the naked eye, having forgotten binoculars. Whoever said that it gets darkest before the dawn wasn’t talking about Utah, as it begins to lighten over the ridges about four in the morning, a prime viewing hour to enjoy the meteors.

Oops! The rice is surely burnt this time.

Words in Vain

12 October, 2012

Drinks Canyon, 

Moab, Utah

No food, gas, water or lodging.

It was almost as if the National park people were trying to deter visitors.  Today we visited Canyonlands National Park, amid ever-changing weather.  Amazingly, though we arrived just as a massive thunderstorm hit, (I had failed to document the dust storm that came over the mountain as we ascended,) the views were tremendous, and came to different fruition every time we turned our heads.

The thunderstorm had hit at 3 am this morning, and as I had failed to put the rain fly on the tent when we returned from Castle Valley, I got up and scrambled outside to apply it, flashlight between my teeth, not knowing the location of my headlamp. This is something I should have resolved today, as I am typing the same way, but I was intent on salt and water when we made our morning rendezvous with Moab.

The scenery was briefly clear as we arrived at the visitor’s center, and I purchased an annual pass. Feeling a bit gnarly, after my first night of camping in a week of travel, I was determined to see the Green River overlook, and perhaps Grandview Point.  With rain and hail coming in from the West, the skies cleared over the views to the East and South, and I was able to make photos that ranged from the ridges disappearing behind clouds and rain, to clear long vistas in full or appreciating sunlight.

Words fall and turn to ash in their vain failings at describing the majesty of the Utah landscape.  Magnificent.  Stupendous.   Exhilirating.  Spectacular.  No.  They just don’t cut it.  I have decided to apply Bernard Tschumi’s definition  of Architecture: That which connects the Earth and Sky.  A definition of Art:  To explain why we are here, also applies. Though these gorges, bluffs, canyons and islands in the sky have been here for eons, virtually unchanged, there is nothing static about their appearance.  In a moment’s time, the same view can change in color, texture and distance, with only miniscule changes in the light.  The reds and purples in the brightest light retreat into blues and indigos with the passing of a cloud.  With a tempest approaching, the dust forms eddies in the gathering winds, the temperature drops suddenly, the rain and hail begin, and the thunder and lightning begin the symphony, and announce the drama commencing in God’s theatre.

“From here one looks down on the backs of soaring birds.”   Edward Abbey

As we departed Virginia on 10/4, a date that translates to, “OK,” 10/11/12 brought some reflection.  My unspoken objective behind this mission is to enjoy the last vestiges of the American Dream. I was concerned through the first many states that it might fail.  However, here, the Dream is alive.  Here is America, strong, vast and even stronger.  The only problem I have observed is the people, and there aren’t enough around here to cause harm.  The ones who gravitate to Moab seem a full step further towards enlightenment.

To consider that I am writing this from the birthplace of active environmental activism, and its unruly sister, ecotage, is to see the results of land and natural resource protection in stark contrast to the drive on Route 70 through Colorado, “resorts R us,” or the surface mining of Pennsylvania and Ohio.  On the other hand, it took me several days to locate a recycling center, and Halliburton trucks are common, with their locked-down thick-walled cylinders and military shipping containers.

That said, there is an elevated consciousness, a good spray of “No Fracking in Moab” signs, and only one sighting of a flaming gas vent alongside a drilling rig so far. The National Parks remain not only pristine, but truly glorious.

Showdown at Big Sky

10 October, 2012

Moab, Utah


What is Denver, but Tulsa with a view? Bill Stewart

Things got a little weird in Denver, so we split for Utah.  

Heading 70 West out into the Rockies, we made good time, despite facing headwinds again.  At one point it seemed the truck wouldn’t even roll downhill.  I’m beginning to adhere to the original mantra of taking the time to enjoy the journey.  Perhaps it’s a realization after the fact, as we bolted to Denver from Wichita yesterday direct, nearly 600 miles in less than 9 hours.  If you rush, you miss the experience, and probably wind up hurrying up and waiting, and in our case, freezing as well.

After three hours of searing between the ridges and through the tunnels, running off the road trying to absorb the incredible scenery, we broke for lunch in Parachute, Colorado, site of a famous train robbery.  We had a delightful Salvadoran meal, and met an extremely nice Hispanic lady, Theresa.

 Entering Utah was a complete rush, and I tried to get Kaya to drive so as to captivate more directly into the landscape.

I have never seen the slickrock country in person, or the bluffs jutting, seemingly randomly, out of the desert floor.  As we came into Yellowcat, Utah, I began pulling over every five minutes to make photographs, trying the camera on the ipad as well as the mini-nikon.  The rest areas of Utah are oriented around spectacular views, bluffs in the foreground, juxtaposed against tall eroding sandstone slopes in tones ranging from buffs and beiges to the most vibrant of rust and vermillion.  Many of the outcroppings are decidedly Egyptian, affecting pharaohs and the sphinx.

Missing the exit 182, after looking out for it for 90 miles, I backed down the onramp, as an alternative to the half-hour it would take to get to the next exit and turn around.  It’s not like there was anyone else there.  It is a great unheralded pleasure to have a mile between one’s vehicle and the nearest one, especially in a magnificent, surreal landscape.  Some might say moonscape.

Repositioned, once again towards mountain-biking Mecca, Moab, we came south in the fading light, which just increased the contrast on the bluffs and the timeless peaks beyond. After passing Arches and Canyonland National Parks, I was surprised by the popularity of this outpost, once praised for its very remoteness by Edward Abbey, who would be appalled at how hopping and built-out it is. It’s also seriously funky and down-to earth, with climbers, paddlers, parachute pilots and the communal brace of well-seasoned mountain bikers, many with their personal braces and bandages, courtesy of the slickrock. There is a plein-air painting festival this weekend.

I think we may stick around for a couple of days, as it’s Summer here still, and terrifyingly beautiful.