Join me for a moment by envisioning the setting in which i scribe this posting...alone in my cold tent with complete dark and cold outside; my beloved dog, Donner, beside me already deep asleep; Wagner's Gotterdamerung playing on my iPad; a bottle (186 ml) of Sutter Home Merlot waiting for me to enjoy; in a deep canyon with the Colorado River rushing by five feet from us, a single railroad track just on the other bank' of the narrow river waiting to bring back memories of my years on the banks of the Hudson River; billions of stars above our heads in the clear night sky providing the only light outside; and hundreds - maybe thousands - of fresh new memories of the people, dogs, mountains, forests, canyons, rivers, mesas, deserts, lakes, plains, prairies, and Ocean (oh, the views!), camps, experiences, and campfires we just accumulated over these last 34 days. If you can envision that setting, that is what i am basking in right now. Life does not get any better than this, on the road anyway. Wow! What a way to end this incredible journey, or at least this Act. It is for moments like this that i make these journeys.
The day was one of chances. I really wanted to spend at least one day camped alone in the desert in the incredible Valley of the Gods, but after i studied the weather forecast on the route home, my better judgment told me i could always come back -and vowed to do so- and to move on, and so we did, up highway 191 to Moab and from there to I-70, the road that would take us home.
The day was one of chances. I really wanted to spend at least one day camped alone in the desert in the incredible Valley of the Gods, but after i studied the weather forecast on the route home, my better judgment told me i could always come back -and vowed to do so- and to move on, and so we did, up highway 191 to Moab and from there to I-70, the road that would take us home.
The struggle between the call of the road and the desire to immerse myself some more in this bounty of sheer beauty was not yet over, as i pulled into Arches to see if i could snag a campsite cancellation for just one night, hoping to recreate the glorious night we spent there last year, willing to accept whatever consequences were meted out to me after we moved on into the bad westher up the road. But my better judgment succeeded again as it forced me make an abrupt U turn in that spectaular park, and get back on the road. Intuition always served me well, and so i conceded, and we headed to I-70, 29 miles distant.
I digress for a moment. Seigfried's Funeral Music is now playing. On August 21, 2000, on my first road trip, as i sat with my dog Sonntag at midnight on a prominence jutting out onto the tundra on the North Slope in Alaska, 150 miles from the Arctic Ocean, in what was an absolutely gorgeous setting, the northwest sky filled with multiple brilliant colors of the setting sun, the snow-peaked saw-toothed peaks of the Brooks Range behind us, the vast Arctic National Wildlife Reserve immediately to the northeast on the other side of the empty Dalton Highway, i vowed to Sonntag that one day i would return to that spot and scatter his and his beloved sister Kessie's ashes there. Exactly one year later to the day, i kept my promise. With Seigfried's Funeral Music playing on my DVD player, i carried their ashes from the Defender to the exact spot of my promise and then scattered their ashes over the tundra to the sounds of the Immolation scene, the last nine minutes of Gotterdamerung. No one was there to witness that scene but my dogs, Leben and Erde. But what a grip on my memory it still holds after 18 years. That's the kind of memories these road trips create. (The exact spot of the scene was captured for posterity in the National Geographic with the photo of Sonntag and me heading into our tent at night in a snowstorm, which was taken the night after my vow, when we returned to that spot to camp again. (You can see that photo elsewhere on my blog if it does not appear below.)
I continue. Nature makes things somewhat pleasant for those of us from the east who are heading back home on I-70 from Moab by providing hundreds of miles of spectacular scenery until Denver. I took no photos. If you wish to see what i mean, get onto Googel Earth Street View and take the ride yourself. Put play Red River Rock and Take Me Home Country Road as you take the ride.
With the breathtaking scenery unfolding without end to the left snd right, and appropriate music wafting from my ipad, my mind was frequently preoccupied with developing a contingency plan for tonight. With a big snow strom about to hit Denver tomorrow, and the propsect that I- 70 would be closed, as it often is during these storms, do i head for Denver tonight and stay there in a motel or camp right on the Colorado River in the wondeful camp i stayed in last year in a cabin (the weather was too foul to camp in a tent)? At 5 pm, just minutes from the camp, i called my college roommate, Bob, who lives in Denver, about the weather. The storm is not expected until late tomorrow afternoon, he told me, which would give me time to get to Denver tomorrow, spend some time with Bob, and then, snow or no snow, drive the 155 miles to Goodland Kansas where we will stay in a rustic cabjn i know about there to avoid the expected 21 degree weather at night. (The Defender would welcome the snow wherever it falls.) The decision was easy - Glenwood Canyon it is, and so that's where we are.
I digress for a moment. Seigfried's Funeral Music is now playing. On August 21, 2000, on my first road trip, as i sat with my dog Sonntag at midnight on a prominence jutting out onto the tundra on the North Slope in Alaska, 150 miles from the Arctic Ocean, in what was an absolutely gorgeous setting, the northwest sky filled with multiple brilliant colors of the setting sun, the snow-peaked saw-toothed peaks of the Brooks Range behind us, the vast Arctic National Wildlife Reserve immediately to the northeast on the other side of the empty Dalton Highway, i vowed to Sonntag that one day i would return to that spot and scatter his and his beloved sister Kessie's ashes there. Exactly one year later to the day, i kept my promise. With Seigfried's Funeral Music playing on my DVD player, i carried their ashes from the Defender to the exact spot of my promise and then scattered their ashes over the tundra to the sounds of the Immolation scene, the last nine minutes of Gotterdamerung. No one was there to witness that scene but my dogs, Leben and Erde. But what a grip on my memory it still holds after 18 years. That's the kind of memories these road trips create. (The exact spot of the scene was captured for posterity in the National Geographic with the photo of Sonntag and me heading into our tent at night in a snowstorm, which was taken the night after my vow, when we returned to that spot to camp again. (You can see that photo elsewhere on my blog if it does not appear below.)
I continue. Nature makes things somewhat pleasant for those of us from the east who are heading back home on I-70 from Moab by providing hundreds of miles of spectacular scenery until Denver. I took no photos. If you wish to see what i mean, get onto Googel Earth Street View and take the ride yourself. Put play Red River Rock and Take Me Home Country Road as you take the ride.
With the breathtaking scenery unfolding without end to the left snd right, and appropriate music wafting from my ipad, my mind was frequently preoccupied with developing a contingency plan for tonight. With a big snow strom about to hit Denver tomorrow, and the propsect that I- 70 would be closed, as it often is during these storms, do i head for Denver tonight and stay there in a motel or camp right on the Colorado River in the wondeful camp i stayed in last year in a cabin (the weather was too foul to camp in a tent)? At 5 pm, just minutes from the camp, i called my college roommate, Bob, who lives in Denver, about the weather. The storm is not expected until late tomorrow afternoon, he told me, which would give me time to get to Denver tomorrow, spend some time with Bob, and then, snow or no snow, drive the 155 miles to Goodland Kansas where we will stay in a rustic cabjn i know about there to avoid the expected 21 degree weather at night. (The Defender would welcome the snow wherever it falls.) The decision was easy - Glenwood Canyon it is, and so that's where we are.
I have alresdy described the setting of this fantastic place in which we are camped. (We are alone except for a small group of Boy Scouts at the other end.) Tonight will be the last good weather (if sleeping in a tent in 31 degrees is your meaning of good weather), so our decision to move on this morning and then to stay put here tonight turned out to be the right one, at least i hope.
Every day on my road trips, i start the day's drive by playing Pete Seger's rendition of This Land is Your Land. Tomorrow, that changes to John Denver's Take Me Home Country Road, which is also appropriate because West Virginia is our destination, to decompress and reflect for a few days, and maybe read some more of that one good book i brought along, before heading back to DC.
My bottle of Merlot beckons my attention.
Ed and Donner, from the road on the grand Colorado River.
Below is the National Geographic photo i wrote about above. It has significance for this year's blog in that that very site provided the inspiration for OTR 2 and all of the fantastic road trips i have taken since. Make a vow to return somewhere, and you will. The red circle marks the prominence over which i scattered Sonntag's and Kessie's ashes, where i also want mine scattered someday with my other dogs'. (My first dog Montag's were already scattered in the Shedandoah mountains, where we spent many memorable nights in our tent after hiking the magnificent trails there.)
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