"It's alright, baby girl"

Late summer '13 in Blacksburg

That's always been the mantra I whisper in Emma's ear when I have to leave her alone for the day, or when emergency vehicles scream by us on our walks.  It's not the words–those are for me–it's the way you say it.  My mother likes to point out that she's a 'delicate flower.'
     I've been repeating the mantra more often since she was  diagnosed: when the pain is particularly bad, when her pills come out, and when she is nauseated from the tonic of medicine, food, and pain.
     It's been a long road since September–longer than I would have thought, honestly.  While we were discovering the truth, a dizzying array of statistics were hurled my way.  Even with those estimates, I would not have thought I'd be typing these words in last few days of 2013 with Emma curled at my feet, looking better than she has since September.  I think I was pessimistic as a defense mechanism–it seemed appropriate to set low standards for 'successfully managing' terminal cancer.  Appropriate or not, here we are, approaching the median survival time following radiation and chemotherapy.  

Chasing me on the beach in Nags Head, NC

     We had a nice holiday in Nags Head, North Carolina.  The weather was beautiful, and the cancer was more dormant than awake.  This is how I rate the weeks of my life now, good cancer weeks and bad cancer weeks.  I will take the good ones any time I can get them though, no complaints.  
     Before I get you too excited, she isn't cured.  We've just bought her some more time.  Apparently, Emma's psychological frailty–crippling at times–belies her physical tenacity and will to live.  It stands to reason that a creature as mindlessly and effortlessly happy as Emma loves life so deeply that her will is an all but indomitable force–unless you happen to have a vacuum cleaner.
   

Climbing the mountain

Isabella prepped and excited for today's climb up Afton Mountain and the Blue Ridge Parkway! It's a tough day, but well worth the pain and suffering. I've been thinking about this ride for three years, and I can't wait to take it on now, after a considerably larger number of miles under my belt. 

The goal:

Trail angel, gone but not forgotten:

And then the payoff!

After a long day of climbing, there's the descent into Vesuvius VA. Let me say that if you are not comfortable on a bike, don't do this, and if you are comfortable, proceed with caution and have a blast! There are a number of turns that will make you wish you had checked your brakes, and perhaps reacquaint yourself with whatever believe in. There's something about the adrenaline rush, it reminds you you're really alive for sure. Now that I'm safely down the mountain and approaching my destination, I surely feel alive. Thanks to the donors, thanks to the other riders. 2 more amazing days. Tomorrows ride through Lexington was one of my favorite - probably because of the downhill, but the bucolic landscape helped to complete the scene. 

Wrong way

Presenting the check to the James Q Miller MS Clinic

Meeting some of the patients and staff. Your donations at work!

And for the presentation,

The 2013 team withe the check

Glendale, VA

Hammock city in Glendale outside Willis Church. 

It was a pretty hot and steamy day, in fact a lot like in 2010. When I did this leg back then though, I remember still being a little afraid of this trip. We hurried through those first miles - possibly to prove we can. It's too bad too. You go through some beautiful and culturally rich places that you may never see unless you really try. The Historical Triangle, Yorktown-Williamsburg-Jamestown, is a pretty cool place. 

I also want to take the time to applaud the region for maintaining and expanding the National Capital Trail that stretches a good part of the way from Jamestown to northeast of Richmond. 

Some of the trail from today - outside Jamestown. 

Now I'm swinging in my hammock with some great friends, enjoying a June evening in Virginia. 

Waiting

"I stay my haste, I make delays, 

For what avails this eager pace? 

I stand amid the eternal ways, 

And what is mine shall know my face. "

From "Waiting" by John Burroughs

On our way

Packed and ready. On our way to Yorktown and the beginning of the 2013 TransAm adventure. It's nearly 3 years to the day since I left Yorktown on my bike. 

Our route to the coast closely follows the bike route, not surprisingly given the terrain of Virginia. Afton Mountain is even challenging in a vehicle. 

I've gotten word that cyclists are descending on the Duke of York hotel already - this is happening I guess!  

It's that time of the year again

Searching sandbars on the Missouri River in South Dakota

I am always taken a little by surprise this time of year.  Typically, Blacksburg's worst weather is just before Winter loosens its grips on southwest Virginia, breathing life into the saying "it's always darkest before the dawn."  This year, was no different, except we had to pry Jack Frost's fingers free, leaving me unsatisfactorily prepared to meet the spring and all that comes with it.  Since I head out to South Dakota each year around the first of April, relapsing late winter is a common occurrence–just as I acclimate to shorts and sandals, I pack parkas and knit-caps.

This year marks the 9th year of our demography study of Piping Plovers on the river.  Through droughts, 100-year floods, and droughts again, we have intensively monitored the responses of piping plovers, least terns, snowy plovers, and assorted other shorebirds to the myriad of natural, and some wholly unnatural, variations in the Missouri River.  (If you are particularly interested in the VT Shorebird Project, here's a link with more information: http://fishwild.vt.edu/vtshorebirds/index.html).  My springs are filled with the characteristic 'peep-lo' of piping plovers, and I am reminded of the comforting feeling that the birds are as good at keeping the date as any calendar printed.

Nuray releases a plover on Hilton Head Island, SC

Although I am involved with other species and projects, the plovers dominate my time and attention.  They are certainly charismatic little characters, but following the migratory pattern of a anxious little bird has both advantages and disadvantages.  The birds migrate for survival, to secure a safe and hospitable stretch of beach on which to endure winter. These refuges are often remote islands off the southeast Atlantic and the Gulf coasts–not bad places to be as long as the weather cooperates.

Migration isn't for the faint of heart though, either as a bird or as a person.  I've been migrating for a while now, first here for a few months, then another place for a few weeks–such is the life of a wildlife biologist, and to be frank, I can't imagine what else I'd like to do.  Perhaps you need to revel in being a little thin, that feeling of taut hunger, lean, spare, but prepared.  Build up your flight muscles, but don't carry any unnecessary weight as you fly.

The fleet at the dock in Oyster, VA

Tomorrow I leave for another week of riding with Bike the US for MS, re-enacting my 2010 debut by riding from Yorktown to Blacksburg, VA.  While I would love to stay longer, it's migration time after all.  I just left Virginia's eastern shore two days ago, across the Chesapeake Bay from Yorktown.  Might I recommend you visit if you ever have the chance.  It's remarkable how quickly the din of city life falls away as you take the bridge-tunnel (a feat of engineering worth seeing once in its own right) from the densest population center in Virginia (Virginia Beach, Norfolk, etc.) to potentially one of the least.  I'm not sure what i expected, but I was pleasantly surprised.  Granted, it helps that we were charged with collecting data on Red Knots using the Virginia barrier islands as a refueling location on their way north, which afforded us the opportunity to survey the largely deserted islands. For more info on the knots, click here.  The knots gather en masse here and elsewhere, having to thread the needle of arriving in the Arctic on time to breed.  And it is with the knots beginning their journey north to the tundra that I head again east, to the shores of Virginia with my bicycle.  Another year, the plovers peeping, the knots gathering, and me loading a bicycle onto a car for another migration.

Home

 I like to leave the baggage claim tag on my suitcase when I put it away.  By the time I grab it again, the intervening time has winnowed away the worst of your memories from before, and you just remember the really great moments.

From lakes to plains

Riding out of Bismarck. A long day, but full of pleasant surprises too. Met a ton of great people in New Salem, Glen Ullin, and Hebron, ND.

Tested out the new wheel today, and had two flats. I suppose the riding conditions have been tough on Isabella (I did finally decide on a name) - now that I've used that name and Emma, I am out of names for a baby girl. A bike and a dog.

I borrowed Alex's wheel and BGs whole bike (except for pedals and a gentleman's understanding about bike seats) while Isabella was acting up. I'm hoping the flats was the last of it.

The trip has been as restorative as I knew it could be. I've reunited with friends from across my years and made new friends as well. It's funny, I know I have an earlier shelf-life, so to speak, than the rest of these guys. I have to remember to stop "savoring" too much or too often. Some things just can't be forced.

Meat, wrapped in meat

Thank you Minneapolis/St. Paul for solving this.

Blessing

Waiting

It's not fun.

Driving off the spleen

"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago -- never mind how long precisely -- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off -- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me." – Heman Melville, Moby Dick




Years ago, I remember reading this passage, and to this day I knew where to find it when I was growing grim about the mouth.  Ishmael, heads to sea, I am not as specific about my escape, just that it happens.

Banding Least Tern Adults in South Dakota

I am sitting in an airport (yes, another airport), waiting for a delayed plane that will take me to Minneapolis via Chicago, and eventually one a 1000 mile bike ride through the Great Plains and to the edge of the Rockies.

Lunch at Voss'

It's been a long couple of weeks to be honest.  Emma and I drove out to South Dakota to deliver a truck, and to see how all of the operations were going out there.  In itself, this is an arduous journey, but as always, I like to go as over the top as I can. By the time Emma an I arrived back in Virginia, we were packing for a visit to CNY.
Mom and I left from Harrisonburg to visit with family and friends and to celebrate the graduation of my cousin Samantha.  I like visiting CNY because I can pick and choose my dates.  After years in VA, I am not prepared or even remotely interested in braving the cold and snow.  And if I am going to brave the cold, I think I may pick somewhere else.  As for late June and July, it's can be pretty hard to beat CNY's weather.

 

The View from My Grandparents' Grave Site

It's our custom to drive around while we visit to some of the foundational places in our lives to see if any changes have happened since our last visit.  The changes tend to be fairly drastic between my visits, which are fewer and farther between than my mother's.  That is the nature of change though – if you are there to watch it, it never seems as though much has changed.  Well, not until it has drastically changed.  If you don't watch it happen though, then even small changes are like slaps in the face.  I am happy to report though that all seems to be as it was, or at least close enough not to crowd out the nostalgia.

Now, before I start knocking hats off, I am headed west to ride for a few weeks.  Heading west to drive off my spleen.  I want to thank all of the folks that have supported the ride this year, and in years past.  It is greatly appreciated and I hope to make the most of this chance.  I hope to keep up with the blog again this year so stay tuned.

Little things

The holidays are often a time of reflection. Thankfully, you can find the answers to life's troubling questions in the damnedest places.

Reunions

Reunion (courtesy of Dictionary.com):

–noun

1.  the act of uniting again.

2.  the state of being united again.

3.  a gathering of relatives, friends, or associates at regular intervals or after separation: a family reunion.

The last day of college, spring 2001

I am always fascinated with words like this that are co-opted to mean something clearly related to the original meaning, but also clearly a reduction, such that the actual meaning is lost.  In this case, I would say that it's "uniting" that is the problem.  Does this just mean getting together in the same place at the same time, literally occupying adjacent space?  I hope not.

Reunions are somewhat bizarre. For example, whether it is the large, controlled-environment reintroduction of a high-school or college reunion, or the simple reconnection of old friends, these are rare opportunities where one can straddle time and live in two moments simultaneously.  Nothing and everything have changed.

The drive from Vermillion, South Dakota to Clinton, NY is not insignificant.  To add insult to injury, the route is not necessarily a jewel of the interstate system.  Still, it was going home.  I was on my way to Hamilton College, where I and the rest of the Class of 2001 had graduated 10 years before.  I realize that not many of my post-Hamilton friends comprehend the idea of a college reunion, but you must remember that our graduating class was smaller than freshman biology at many large universities.

We like to make ourselves at home

I don't know about you, but I had some amazing friends in college.  Unfortunately, I have become one of those friends that largely drops off the map for a while, popping up now and again on Facebook.  I guess it was hard since I took a drastically different path and ended up on the other side of the country right out of school.  Those are just excuses though, and the only way to change it it to change it myself.

At any rate, I was afforded 2 days with some of the old crew, and it was great.  I think that the last time that I saw some of these guys was at Ted Stewart's bachelor party in Boston!  And for some of the folks that I saw at the reunion, it was a full ten years!  Everyone looked great, happy, and pursuing their dreams.  I guess that is to be expected given the crowd, but it is always nice to hear it and see it firsthand.

Within moments of reuniting, we had assumed our personas from 10 years past (well a slightly larger, slower, less flexible, and follicly challenged manifestation thereof).  I am not sure what the record time is for befouling a dormitory common room, but I am confident that we were at least competitive.  The moment when I realized how quickly the room had become a sty was precisely when I thought about straddling time, existing in two spaces.  It was refreshing - and we did do the right thing (props to Calvin for spear-heading this) and did the lion's share of the cleaning ourselves rather than leave it for someone else.  That act alone is a sign that there is yet hope for us to grow up, perhaps by the 20th reunion we will have cleaned up our act, but I am not holding out hope.

Team Pace-Cloud - partial reassembly

As if that were not an amazing enough experience, I was fortunate to have another reunion of sorts immediately following the trip to Hamilton.  Slowly, the pieces of team pace-cloud were reassembling for the tour through Virginia.  Pepper and Bridget had agreed to route lead, and Tara decided that she would raise money and ride her home state of Virginia.  I was stuck.  How could I turn that down?  I looked at my calendar and realized that although the Hamilton reunion would keep me from doing the beginning of the state (I have to say that I was ok with missing Afton Mountain), I could race to Virginia from New York and make it just in time to ride into Blacksburg with the team!  Also, if I played my cards right, I could finish out the state of Virginia as well.  I just couldn't pass up the chance, and I am ever so grateful that I decided to do it.  As you can see from the photograph, our reunion was incomplete though.  Miss Liza Starr decided that sweating away in some hut in Cambodia was better than sweating away in some tent in Virginia...wait, I think she might be right!  Liza, no hard feelings, I wish you had been there, but if I were in your shoes, I would have done exactly as you had.  Never pass up a chance for an adventure to somewhere you have never been, you will regret the lost chance.

Although I had to be less "flexible" to straddle the intervening year since I had ridden with Tara, Bridget, and Pepper than the ten years at my college reunion, it was no less rewarding.  Here is the crux, what it means to be united.  We slid immediately into our positions and our old life from the road the year before.  I think it was a little bitter-sweet since Tara and I could not continue for the remainder of the trip, but "you can't go home again," I suppose.

I met my friend and now fellow BTUSFMS alum, Dan Nuckols, at a mutual friend's wedding.  Dan had been in the van, speeding back from San Francisco.  I could see it on his face, the loss, that nostalgic hollow face.  We talked a lot about his trip, about the 2010 trip, and what it means to "go home again."  A reunion juxtaposed with a separation.  I would say to all of the finishers for this year, as they decompress, that though you may not be able to go home again, you can visit.  Like I did in Virginia, in NY, in ND, as I will again whenever I can.  

Loose Ends

I have to confess that I have been working on this post in my head for longer than you would guess. I am not a morbid thinker, far from it, but, in this case, no matter how much I tried, I could not help thinking of what the end would be like from time to time. Anyway, these are some of my thoughts about the end of the trip and what it means to me now that it is over. I apologize if these thoughts seems scattered, but perhaps my previous explanation of this blog’s origins will earn me some leniency.


So I am sitting in a hotel room, approximately 5 days from the finish of the trip. This is a surreal feeling, but it does remind me of a poignant fable. Most of you have heard either the statement or perhaps the fable behind the statement. To paraphrase, simply an ancient monarch once asked his wise men to bring him a statement that was an ultimate truth. The wise men deliberated a long time, and when they were called in front of the monarch to produce this undeniable truth, they said simply "This too shall pass." We are never good at accepting this truth. The reality is, that we hope that the good moments will never end, and we believe that the bad ones will never go away. We grip onto our joys like so much sand, squeezing harder, all the while forcing more sand out, and we wear ours scars like badges of honor - scars we think shall never heal. We are wrong though, and the wise men were right, this too shall pass.

It is this thought that has followed me for the last few days, probably since the beginning of the trip, but the specter has loomed ever closer with time. I am not sure what it will be like for the others on the trip to move on beyond this experience. I would be a fool to think that I could imagine what it is like to walk a mile in another's shoes. For my part, I figure life is like following a thin thread through a dark room. You are never really sure where you are going until you have gotten there, and once you have finished there, you move on, grabbing another thread and blindly following it in hopes that it is the "right" way. So I feel like two months ago, I dropped the thread I was following in that dark room, following another for a time, and now, for better and for worse, I will have to search around for that lost thread from two months ago blindly in the dark…this too shall pass.

I am sitting in the airport in San Francisco now, three days from the end of the trip. I am still checking the helmet mirror I am no longer wearing, thinking of getting coffee for Tara when I wake up, of assuring Bridget that today’s ride will not be too bad (even though she knows she could do it regardless), of watching Liza say she’s tired and then watching her fly up the hill in front of me, and countless other moments that are part of the ether of memory now…this too shall pass. And that is the point right? Otherwise we wouldn’t call them moments, but even epochs, eras, ages, and eons end – we just measure time in smaller increments, but fleeting, though a relative term, is still fleeting.

I was somewhat surprised that I haven’t shed tears yet over all of this. I suppose that I had steeled myself against this inevitability. That is not to say that I am not sad that this moment has passed, but I am glad that I had the foresight to know that it would end, to prepare for it by drinking in every moment as if it were the last of the trip, taking the time to look up at every vista, to eat every single calorie I could, to laugh as often as I could, to share with everyone as much as I could, to just be as much as was possible. For those of you in the “outside” world, I imagine time passed much as it always does, second after second, minute after minute, hour after hour, until the two months had passed, just like the two before, and like the two after. For me, I was fortunate enough to be pulled out of that spinning, even if for just a little while, such that minutes, hours, and days fell into a singularity and time was compressed, squeezed down so tightly that it stopped – and for that both brief and agonizingly long moment, I was exactly where I wanted to be, exactly where I should be. It is not often in one’s life that he can say something like that, it’s a shame. This trip has taught me that if you squeeze time down small enough, split the atoms of moments, life will seem so much more full, as if those moments never ended, just merged. This idea does not fly in the face of the fable that I talked about earlier, in fact it distills the most poignant aspect of it – if time is fleeting, then make the most of it while you can…this too shall pass.



Now, as we scatter to the four winds, all fumbling in the dark for the lost or new threads we must follow, I cannot help but think about where we will all be. I don’t lose much sleep over this though. I can hardly tell where I will be in ten minutes, let alone in years, and if I cannot tell where I will be, then how on earth will I ever figure that out for anyone else? Have no fear fellow riders – I have a promise for you: if you exert one iota of the effort that you showed on this trip in your “real” life, you will be wildly successful at all you do. Go forth with eyes open to the beauty around you in everyday objects and scenes, go forth with the belief that you can change the world, even if it’s for just one person, go forth with the knowledge that you were part of something massive, much larger than the sum of its parts, go forth with the strength, both mental and physical, that you have harnessed here in this moment, go forth and never fear a hill, literal or figurative, there is always a lower gear, there is always the time, and there are always the friends to help you tackle it…this too shall pass.

I cannot thank you all enough for making this an amazing, life-changing experience – a moment that I will squirrel away and protect viciously through time. I will miss so many parts of this trip, but what I will miss most are my friends.



I tried to find some literature to add to the end of this final post, something that would tie together all my scattered thoughts…I failed at finding one thing, but I succeeded at finding more than one. I hope these end up meaning as much to you as they do to me:

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.



Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.



Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



And you, my father, there on that sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light


Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.



He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep



I Taught Myself To Live Simply by Anna Akhmatova

I taught myself to live simply and wisely,

to look at the sky and pray to God,

and to wander long before evening

to tire my superfluous worries.

When the burdocks rustle in the ravine

and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops

I compose happy verses

about life's decay, decay and beauty.

I come back. The fluffy cat

licks my palm, purrs so sweetly

and the fire flares bright

on the saw-mill turret by the lake.

Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof

occasionally breaks the silence.

If you knock on my door

I may not even hear.

The Company You Keep

How much time do you spend with yourself and no one else?  The typical answer I imagine is not that much.  We are by nature social animals, and we enjoy the company of others most of the time.  Every once and a while (and this measurement differs from person to person), we find ourselves alone, whether by choice or by accident.  On this trip, being alone is often a daily affair.  Sometimes it's because you can't keep up, or the others can't, and sometimes you just feel like being solo.  Either way, there is a great deal of time to yourself out here on the road.  You are probably wondering where I am going with this, and, given my past posts, I don't blame you.

On the way out of the Powell Reservoir (yes, I refuse to refer to this as a lake), I found myself alone in the canyons and desert, and I liked it, I cherished it, and I tried to keep it that way for the entire day. I realized one of the greatest issues with being alone is that many folks are not comfortable with themselves.  Sitting alone with nothing but your own thoughts for hours can be a scary proposition even to the most hardened individualists.  The fact is, all of us have things that we would rather not think about, that rear their heads when we are alone.  Try as you might, sometimes you can't fight the cloud away.  Nor should you really.  We are an amalgamation of all our experiences, good and bad.  You can learn so much about yourself if you take the time to delve into your own thoughts, even the worst of them.  Now I don't spend all of these rides thinking dark thoughts - far from it, but what makes it difficult to be alone are the dark thoughts.  If it weren't that way, no one would have a problem being by themselves, we wouldn't search out friends when we were in a low time.  I think it is unfortunate though that we avoid these moments merely because they are uncomfortable.  Discomfort leads to understanding and to change.  These moments are necessary for all of us to grow mentally and spiritually.

I have spent a great deal of time to myself in my life, so much so that it is no big deal out here on the road. In fact, I search it out from time to time.  Many people embark on journeys like this to find themselves - I applaud these people.  I wonder, however, why it takes such a major move for someone to find his/herself?  No matter though, at least they are trying to do it.  I think it is very important that we know ourselves.  I also think that the desert is a good place to do this.

The desert is a funny place.  It seems like only criminals and people that are a little insane are at home here...think Ed Abbey.  As harsh as all the environments that we have passed through have been, the desert is king.  As with everywhere else, the payoff is equal to the pay in.  I am surrounded by a maze of red and white stone canyons, junipers struggling to sip the few drops of moisture in the soil.  Actually it is funny - I described the beauty of the plains as it's haunting emptiness, and the rockies by its consumption of space - the desert, oddly enough - possesses both of these characteristics.  The colors are stunning - reds, browns, greens, whites - it looks like the face of Mars, but with small, stunted trees on it.

One of the aspects of southern Utah that I really admire is that this is desert living done right.  For millenia, humans have lived in desert environments, but the trick has been living within your means.  The desert teaches you that times of plenty are not guaranteed.  Life in the desert should be thrifty.  With the development of water moving technology we have moved away from this.  We have created massive kingdoms in the arid places of our country.  Southern Utah, however, is sparse - it's desert living as it should be.  Here in this beautiful wasteland, I and many others have looked deeply into themselves, plumbed the depths of our souls.  I suppose it is as likely to be a negative experience as it is to be a positive one, but I think that the overall effect should be positive.  I firmly believe that the better you know yourself, the better your relationships will be.  Maybe I am wrong, but that is what I think.

The climbs and the heat are brutal here, but they are infinitely worth it.  Anything that is worth doing is worth doing well.

Big Country

Slowly, out of the hot haze of the high plains, the Rocky Mountains emerged like foreboding clouds in the west.  We have been in the mountains for a few days now, and I am sitting in a coffee shop in Telluride CO.  Most of the group has fallen in love with one or more of the mountain towns we have been haunting - and to be honest, I don't blame them. I was a bigger fan of Salida and Gunnison than I am of Telluride.  Here's the thing - This town is full of people that are WAY to over-privledged.  Trustafarians.  Anyway, that is just the grumpy me speaking since, if I had the money (which I don't), I would be setting up shop in a place like this.  Aside from the expense and the people whose reality is on another plane than mine, this place is beautiful.  I met an older gentleman in Montrose who worked for Cummins Diesel engines, and he said that he had traveled all over the world, and the two most beautiful places, in his opinion, were Tibet and Telluride.  That seemed like a pretty damn good sales pitch.  I've never seen Tibet, but this guy was not selling me the Brooklyn Bridge about Telluride.  The town is nestled in a narrow valley, and surrounded by massive mountains in almost every direction.

This trip has taught me something about the worth of an object or an experience - it is directly proportional to the cost, whether it is money or, in this case, physical exertion.  I am still amazed that I pedaled myself to the Rocky Mountains.  I woke in the thin air at 10k feet a few days ago, crawled out of my home away from home, and it struck me again.  It happens every day, I realize how fortunate I am to be here, right now, not wanting to be anywhere else but now.  Kansas, Colorado, Kentucky, you name it, just here and now.  I don't do that enough in my life, and I hope that I will take that feeling with me, back to the "real world."  I spend too much time focusing on forward progress, institutional momentum as I like to say.Always moving forward, always up.  Here and now are places to get beyond.  Buying time in the future, paying with the present.  Not out here though.  I can drink in every moment anywhere from 5 - 40 mph.

The Rockies are breathtaking.  Have you ever looked at a scene, and it was so beautiful that it borders on painful?  I know that sounds funny, but the mountains are so massive, like sleeping giants, felled long ago.  It brings tears to my eyes.  The landscape is rugged, unforgiving, but it holds so much for you if you put in the effort, slow down to see it, make the journey the destination.  Anything from the smallest flower to the behemoth mountains erupting out of the valley floors.  It was amazing to see the change in the landscape, as the mountains heaved themselves from the high plains of eastern Colorado.

I mentioned that many places form the patchwork of my "home," the quilt that I have been stitching for 30 years now.  It is no wonder that a place like the Rockies has burrowed in under my skin, or anyone else's for that matter.  Some places, like the plains for example, need explanation, the Rockies are not that type of place.  What explanation is needed for wanting to live so close to heaven, taking flight without leaving the ground, surrounding yourself with vast wilderness, the stuff of life, of the world?  Like the plains, life here is a struggle, to be eked out of the landscape, but the rewards are more tangible, less hidden.  The other day Seth commented that he didn't think anyone could stay angry if they lived here.  They would wake up on the wrong side of the bed, but as soon as you walk outside and are bombarded by the majesty around you - poof - anger gone.  I think Seth is onto something there.  Who needs therapy, slap a snow covered peak in my backyard, you keep the pills.

I am going to leave you with a little Shakespeare this time, something that was flying through my head as I was pedaling closer and closer to heaven.


To all those brave enough to do something amazing, to push the boundaries -




"And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

Humility

I have a fair bit of familiarity with the Great Plains of the United States.  This is something that I didn’t think would ever be the case for me.  I have spent the last 5 years in southeastern South Dakota on the plover project, and I have seen many young men and women scratch their heads at the idea of someone living in this environment.  Before I go on, I want to make one thing clear – I do not subscribe to the idea that the Plains are impossible to live in – to the contrary, I can clearly see how someone might choose to live here…maybe not me though. 

What I have learned is that the plains teach one humility.  Jokingly, I told someone yesterday that many have fought with the plains, none have won.  The landscape here is so massive, fields of wheat, corn, pasture, and sometimes, if you are lucky, native prairie.  As far as the eye can see, nearly unbroken expanses dotted intermittently with barns and homes.  Life here is hard-scrabble, a tooth and nail fight against overwhelming odds.  Drought, wind, ice, heat, all conspire against you.  Ask any of my technicians from years past how I feel about the wind.  Few would be short of an answer I suspect. 

Here I have gone and started out so negatively when I said that I wouldn’t do it.  The point is, if you stand long enough somewhere, you will begin to sprout roots, whether you like it or not.  And when you have rooted yourself in the soil of some region, it’s hard to remove to somewhere else.  For example, the first full day in Kansas we met a very nice man on the side of the road that proceeded to tell us about how his great-great-etc. grandfather had homesteaded the land behind us.  For those of you that do not know what that means – look up the Homestead Act (or ask your child that just finished American History).  Here is the secret, when you and your fore-fathers have poured your heart and soul into the land, it is hard to divest yourself of it.  Those of us from other parts of the country have a similar story, but the human cost per acre is just greater here, thus how someone could stay in the face of what we may perceive as insurmountable odds. 

So many of us speed our way through here, as if this were a place to be avoided, not a destination.  Indiana’s welcome signs say “The Crossroads of America.”  Someone should tell them that announcing that all roads go through here, none of them stop is not the best advertisement.  These are the states that the rest of us roll up our windows, turn on the cruise control at 80 mph, and crank through them to our destinations.  A friend of mine has this as her email signature "Anyone can love a mountain, but it takes a soul to love the prairie."  In some ways I think this is true, but perhaps it is just a matter of settling down and seeing the beauty.  You have to search for it out here.  There is no massive mountain, forever sea, these are not the accoutrements of the prairie.  Stand in the middle of a vast field (preferably of native prairie grasses but, as I said before, that is a tall order) where the vegetation is not above eye level, and look around.  Be swallowed whole by the intensity of space.  The prairie is awesome for other reasons than we are used to.  Usually we love things that consume space.  For my money, I find a naked prairie much more impressive than Times Square, but it takes all kinds. 

Now I am sitting in a town park, hiding from gusts of wind that are reaching 45 mph, watching trees bend under the intolerable weight of that wind, snapping back into place as it relents if only for a second.  We have fought with Kansas, the wind of the prairie, and we have lost, like so many others have done before us, and so many will do after us.  This is the way of the prairie and it is not for the weak of heart and constitution. 

I am listening to some on the team asking that same question that I myself once asked, that my technicians have asked, that many of us ask when we pass through this part of the country – why would anyone live here.  The answer is easy if you take the slow route through here, take the time to explore, to notice the clouds (best I have ever seen), the silence before a massive summer storm rolls through, the nicest people I have ever encountered, the history of struggle, the oceans of wheat blowing in the wind, the silence of the night, like no other silence – not just quiet, but the absence of sound, the side of ranch dressing with EVERYTHING, the family roots in this soil, so thick that they are emerging from underneath, pushing through here and there.  And these are just some of the reasons that people stay here, some of them I will keep to myself, my own private prairie poetry.

As we pass through this landscape that miraculously has become a part of my patchwork home, I will be content to know that at least part of me is home – the humble part.