endings...

back officially on the grid. wrapping up our two plus weeks away. yesterday concluding our long anticipated week long stay at Red Feather.

we are back on the road again, this time heading home.

I currently sit amongst a copse of trees off the interstate in the midst of the Dakota prairie grasslands, and with the breeze cooling the wide-bright sun, i may be close to a perfect summer day. (generations of men lived and died by the sweat of their brows to settle and homestead these rolling plains, and I can see the beauty today which may have been their yearly silver lining).

We spent a rainy night (surprise surprise....how many nights has it rained on us now?), but a lovely crisp morning in the truly wild, and moonlike landscape of the Dakota Badlands. It was a long bumpy (12 mile down a dirt road) ride through the rain, the prairie-dogs and the roaming buffalo (no fences, right on the road), but ending up being quite a spectacle. the low clouds obscured our long views but brought an intense lightning show, of which I've never seen. the vibrant yellow orange sunset sky was reminiscent of a wildfire consuming the land just over the hills. excellent.

and there is much beauty around me, and many things to marvel at, but i cannot deny that there is an air of mixed feelings.

our time at Red Feather was hard. hard work. long days. with equally hard realizations that this may be our last time. life, and it's inevitable changes, marches on. I think Carly and I have both, inadvertently, been comparing each new Red Feather experience with our first time back in '06, the one that started it all. but first times are always special, and rarely repeatable.

this knowledge that we've changed, and Red Feather has changed, and life is changing, coincides with the long drive back home, and our return to another life, jobs, responsibilities, et al. and while this breeze breeds a peace under this leafy treed sunshine, i feel many things: joy, anticipation, heartache, love and loss.

i spoke before about how this trip has meant much for me, and with each mile we traverse, i see the meaning more and more clearly. these memories that Carly and I have shared have joined many others (both on and off the road), and have begun to form a wonderful base on which to launch ourselves into so much more...

gambling...

sometimes, when on the road, off the grid, or in the wild, you have to gamble a little bit. with proper planning you obviously hedge your bets, but at the end of the day, every decision has a bit of gambling in it, when the world around you is in far more control that you are.

are we going to have enough gas to make it to the next dot on the map? i think so. (PSA: not all montana towns have services...)

if i go down this trail, are there going to be elk/moose/bears? pocket knife: check. bear spray: check. healthy fear/respect of nature: check.

which route do i take to get where i'm going? are the roads closed? mountain passes impassable?

and the one the one that affected us most yesterday: do we leave the comfort of our great campsite on the East Side of Glacier (at the edge of a meadow, under the snow capped mountains, with the rushing of a river in the distance, mind you...) and travel to the West Side of Glacier for another type of experience? Two hours over winding, gravely, no-guardrail, beautiful mountain "highway" (barely paved road is more appropriate). Each way.

either we stay or we throw the chips in and gamble that it will be an equally awesome experience.... no coming back.

well...........i've had a lot of luck on the road in my traveling over the years.....yesterday was not one of those lucky times.

no sooner had we made the arduous journey to West Glacier, but angry clouds rolled in on us, and the bottom dropped out. middle of the day. middle of the summer. cold, angry, dark, dark skies. and we learned a valuable lesson. no campsite looks good when it's torrentially pouring rain.

sadly, the mountains, the lake, and all the glacial beauty was kind of darkened as well. but all was not lost. like most times, a little patience goes a long way.

the sun broke, the lake shimmered, the mountains glistened, and hope returned to our little world. we made our camp, took our pictures and picnic-ed down by the water's edge (at 9pm actually, which doesn't seem weird when it's light until 10:30pm), enjoying some warm food as the sun slipped behind the mountains across the lake. a perfect (salvaging) finish to our day.

we gambled our effort and experience, and for a while it was looking like a clear loss. we hung our heads for a bit. but all was not lost, and like many times on the road, when we looked for the silver lining, we weren't disappointed...

the longest day

So I’ve been thirty for a few days now, and let me tell you, if these last four days have been any indication of the year (or decade) to come, I am in for a ride.

[I need to also thank all my friends and family, and especially my wife, for my birthday gift. Carly requested and compiled well wishes, encouragement, thoughts, blessings and memories from thirty friends/family. It is indescribable to know that you are loved. She is great. You all are great. Life is great…]

And to that end, I have been filled with such joy these last days. After our stormy start, and enough detours to last a lifetime, let me tell you that things have fallen into place, and The Road, in all its romantic beauty, has proven again to be a old friend, with new mysteries and adventures, revealing even more God-hewn-wild-country than before.

Carly and I have found a wonderful rhythm as road trip companions, mixed with memory-filled-music, mapping routes, morning sunshine snoozing (by her mostly…), telling and re-telling old stories, and sometimes just staring out into the big sky, marveling.

As I’m writing, I’m remembering that a lot has happened since I last wrote. We had planned to stay Sunday night at the Badlands, a refuge for the outlaws of old, and a place with an untold and other-worldly beauty. But it wasn’t in the cards. Storms move fast and hit hard out on the prairie, and having had our share of thunderstorms, we thought we’d pass. We headed on.

Having taken the time to see Rushmore and Crazy Horse, we stumbled, not upon a mountain hotel which had been the plan, but a quaint camping spot nestled in granite boulders and pine trees overlooking a small lake. It poured all night on us, except when we needed to break camp the next morn. How kind.

Next stop was in Billings, for a shower, a warm bed, a few sweet moments with friends, and to buy some bear spray. That’s right. Bear spray. Can’t go to Glacier without bear spray. Come on.

Which now brings us to a tent on the longest day of the year, at the base of a snow capped mountain range, overlooking a glacial melt lake, thousands of miles from home, at the top of the world, it would seem. I feel like I’d need fifty June 21’s to take in and appreciate all that we've seen.

…and it may come as no surprise to you, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now. It’s been a good day…

detours and undeterred

When going on a road trip, one must make concessions. You have to give up some small part of the experience to gain the whole. If you choose to take the ‘blue highways’, you’ll see much of true America, but either you won’t get far, or you’ll spend your entire day trapped behind the wheel of a car. You might miss some interesting little things, if you take the interstate, but you arrive quicker, allowing time to relax and enjoy your destination. Each divergent decision reveals to us a different scene, a different slice of Americana.

But at the end of the day, perhaps, I subscribe stronger, to a philosophy that has suited me well these past years. That, like many things, it is ALL about the journey and not about the destination. No matter where you end up (as long as you were trying to go somewhere), that is where, for the moment, that you are supposed to be.

This is not an admission of a belief in fate or predestination, but a realization that HE who is in control of our lives, sees much, and may often direct us to places we didn’t know we needed to be. (granted, now I’m speaking both philosophically and geographically.) And that much can be learned ‘along the way’ if we are not always 100% focused on ‘getting there’.

Road trips certainly hold this to be true. The world is too big, there are too many opportunities for us to be waylaid, and there is much to see between here and somewhere. Detours on the road (and in life) can become some of the best times.

Yesterday, though, tested the limits of this philosophy. After we had dried off from the morning storm and gotten some hot food/coffee in our bellies, we set out to drive 500+ miles across a few states. With the sun shining, the music playing, with my best friend at my side, it seemed like nothing could deter us. Wrong. As we progressively got closer to our destinations, detour after detour, flooded river after closed road, derailed our plans for a simple 9hr drive.

Needless to say, after driving through a partly flooded interstate, we became intimately knowledgeable of the back roads of corn-growing, flag-waiving, truck-loving Nebraska. We must have been diverted off our path 3-4 times by a sign impelling us to find a different route.

11.5 hours later, the arrival at Ponca SP, on the cliffs of Nebraska, overlooking the wide Missouri river just a Lewis and Clark had done (awesome!), was a long time coming but well worth it. We stumbled upon a quiet, secluded camping spot in a grassy field at the end of a road. Dinner, smores, fire, relaxing. And now I enjoy a crisp-air, birdsong-filled, quiet sunrise this morning, all to myself.

I’ve seen a few detours in my life and on the road, and I’ve benefitted from each one. Yesterday was no different…

rough start

[i was supposed to have posted this yesterday]

I had the best intentions to steal a few minutes yesterday, in the midst of packing, to write. But as is most often, the war for more time, is lost to the details of packing & preparation.

I had spent the morning considering what would be an appropriate topic to write about as a 'going away' post. and had nearly given up on good ideas when i saw something that sparked something. I saw a guy mowing his lawn. shocker. but it struck me, this action/mentality of mowing (and keeping) a lawn. (especially in TN, where it grows plentifully in the summer.) i suppose it boils down to an essentially civilized desire: to tame the land.

a friend recently shared a great quote with me, on how our forefathers lived amongst the wild and dreamed of civilization, whereas we now live in unabashed civilization, and we (some of at least) dream of the wild. my caveat in all of this, i think, is that many still want to tame their piece of the land, while happily relegating 'the wild' to sequestered parks and the history books.

not i.

i'm learning more (now that we're on the trip) about how important this particular road trip is to me. but at least in a small part, we're heading back out into the wild country, heading to one of the wildest and most untamed portions of our country: Glacier NP, and this fact excites me with that wonderful mix of wonder, adventure and healthy respect.

last night was definitely one of those times where the idealized venture "back into the wild" loses all it's excitement and adventure and quickly becomes a lesson in healthy respect for the natural world. last night we spent the night in Babler State Park just outside St. Louis, MO. the darkened campground at 11pm last night seemed innocuous enough, but as the light pattering of rain and tornado sires woke us up at 5am, simple instinct kicked in.

A thunderous, lightning-cracking storm opened up on us and our little tent. We stuffed as much of the gear into the car, and Carly furiously leapt into the front seat. By that point, there was no point in running around, as I had been drenched to the bone. I proceeded to breakdown the tent in the pouring rain as Carly looked on, with mixed emotions of laughter at my pitful, wet plight, and fear for my safety in a clearly dangerous storm. A short while later, with wet gear and clothes in garbage bags, we drove on and headed west to escape the storm.

And we did.

And as we drive on, I consider, “isn’t that just how it is?” Life is full of a mixture of fear and laughter in the midst of storms, and if you keep driving, there’s blue just beyond…

the return

why do we apologize to our blogs?

perhaps we'd like to believe that the masses have been checking our site every day, waiting-on-baited-breath to hear and read more. but i think that truthfully, a blog is nothing more than a representative of your life, your discipline, your commitment. I think we apologize because we realize this. that sadly we are not as focused/disciplined/committed to certain things in our lives. Exercising, blogging, gardening, personal spiritual time. they all take time, energy and discipline.

I'm sorry blog. I'm sorry i neglected you. thanks for keeping all my posts, though, and letting me go back and see where i've been. that's always nice.

....so after the obligatory apologizing, real blogging can begin.

I guess my return to blogging mostly stems from from two sources. (again, as mentioned before, I would love to write and say that I just woke up this morn and felt the unquenchable need to blog and that i was a changed man, but, alas, it's not true.)

First, Carly and I are about to embark on a ROAD TRIP. Woot! With any luck, we'll try and blog about our 2.5 weeks of travel, camping, and Red Feather. It'll be the first time we've really had an opportunity to go on the road since we've been married and moved to TN. (We were fortunate enough to make it back to Red Feather/Hopi last September, but we flew.) I suppose this is the funny and not so funny truism of life. as life hands you newer and newer levels of responsibility, you realize that you are more unfettered/free/footloose now, compared to the 'future'. I'm glad we have this opportunity.

Secondly, I've been inspired by a lot of my friends out there, who blog about their lives. It's not an everyday thing, (and I think they'll agree) but the occasional opportunity to put your recent life experiences down in words. Thanks fellow bloggers!

Stay tuned for more musings.....

bereft yet full

i'm wrung out
with no idea of what's next
tears and coffee drip out of me
-very little blood left-

reaching the end of wit
floods smallness and humanity
brimming to my eyes,
the palpable reminiscence
of my lacking ability
to control the world.

the air goes silent,
-ringing-
people mouthing so many helpful
distant things.
vision blurs
the future dims
and each labored footfall
against the wind
hurts.

poetries and scripturings--
prayers by me
for me
from some other wayfarer
who's walked this trail before
or begrudgingly foretold the story

peace is felt in the flow
of a pen
or in the little blood
there is left...

no words but the inspiration within me....

i find beauty in the jagged edges on a map,
-the unkempt lines that separate us-
seeing that the land, still our better
even yet defines us.

give me broken, untaut borders
and the rocky, beguiling coasts
so that i may never find myself confined.

no cabin fever here

long over due. often need an impetus of unique qualities to get me back here with my pen.

fresh percolated coffee rests to my right, the fire in the place ticks its approval of our being here. warming and burning the logs chopped with our own collective hands.

i forget how healing this mountain get-away is until i am rested in its rustic clutches.

just a few friends and i, nestled away from the cold, enjoying the simpler pleasures of and in the high country. a mountain brewery, rich-fine coffee, a deck of cards, a board game, and four pairs of snowshoes.

in taking a moment, i have found exactly what i was looking for.

prescriptions and precipitates...

two little pills every meal. one packet in the morning and one in the evening. think positively so as to preemptively overcome. listen only to the soothing sounds of Iron & Wine. Call me in the morning.

this is the prescription i wrote myself a day or two ago. while not admitting that some sickness may be attacking, i feel the comings on. the two pills are 'purple cornflower', known as echinacea. the two packets are emergen-C. nothing drastic here. assume no defeat until it's too late. always was a trail blazer. blazing trails potentially into sickness and idiocy.

actually, i something much stranger than all that happened today. after literally freezing temps on mon and tues, rainy cold on wed and thurs, the ever fickle natured weather sprung on us a 75 degree day. clear and bright. a long standing truth is learned. weather is held in check and known by no man. the earth and it's maker are mighty and whimsical.

another truth. the world, beyond the weather, is less and less known. and as i am now, i must prepare for the winter and the seasons ahead. thicken my skin, protect what is dear.

storms are a-comin. meet me in the shelter. i'll bring the Iron & Wine.