A Few Notes

• Turns out when bereft of rock, I can indeed thoroughly enjoy other kinds of music. UK's Apple has great speakers with a unique jack, so I'm limited to his iTunes selection (a mere 4026 songs :-P). Without my usual fare, I have turned to Bach, Brahms, The Doobie Brothers (who I officially love now), and big band.
• Food is a war. It does not want to be in an eatable form. I must threaten it with fire and sharp objects to get it into a meal. I enjoy cooking; but alone, when no cooking = no real meal, it feels strangely antagonistic.
• The dryness out here is nice in some odd ways. If any dish or implement is wet, just set it out, and it'll be bone dry shortly. Socks not quite finished from the dryer? Just set it out and you're good. Wash your hands? Don't need a towel! Just wave 'em around a bit and the water's gone. Your hands actually get cold it evaporates so fast.
• I don't mind being alone like this. I just have to be careful what music I listen to. Don't want to wake up emotions that would have no solace in my solitude.
• I missed the last TWO Penguins games!! One of them I didn't even know was being played - thought they weren't playing till Saturday. Then Saturday I looked forward to the game all day, so excited for it.. and got a text around 5pm with the results. What?? It had been an afternoon game! I had missed it all. Great sadness.
• After mistakenly turning into the parking lot of a Mormon church this morning I was all the happier to arrive at Gateway Community Church and there to worship the true God. I haven't gotten much into worship lately, but today I was glad to raise my arms, if only to emphasize the point that this God is the one I'm going after, or waiting on, or whatever. I don't want to be worshiping anything else.
• Oh for sunshine! I have spent the last two days inside but for some shopping, and I'm ready to GO. I want to see sun-baked desert again! Yellow light, warmness on my skin, unobstructed view. Go away clouds! Meh.

I'm glad I'm here.

To Utah!

To complete my picture updating, here are some cell phone pics from my drive to Utah the next day. I took almost a hundred, overcome again and again by the beauty and grandeur of each new sight.

Started out heading into the Rocky Mountains from Denver. The poor Mazda, loaded down with hundreds of pounds of recording equipment, struggled to make it in the thin air.




Finally - mountains! Snow, peaks, forests of pine trees, clear blue sky... it's been a long time.





After making it over the pass it was down down down, into Glenwood Canyon. An awesome spectacle and a marvel of engineering.






Grand stuff. Hard to capture in pictures.








With the last vestiges of the mountains behind, it was INTO THE DESERT!
A barren stretch man would have shuddered to transverse a century ago.






Welcome to Utah!







Home at last!

The Drive to Denver

Mike was a dork and took unflattering pictures of me. Which are pretty funny.










These are some big tires!













Yep.
Yessir.
Yes indeed.



This was at 75mph.
Pretty, uh.. interesting.
Not easy.














Sure there are easier ways to get a tan, but why bother?

















SKY!!!











This is one of about 50 sunset pictures I took, trying to capture the amazingness of the sight. This does it faint justice, but you get an idea, at least.

Desert Mountain

Today I set my sights on the desert southwest of Salt Lake City. Going out sufficiently far on paved and semi-paved roads would get me away from people and in the middle of BLM land. I plotted my course on the trusty atlas and headed out at noon--warm clothes, lots of water, extra food, and a tank-up of gas and Dr.Pepper on the way out.

Thanks to Mikey Q I discovered that my cell phone can email pictures to my yahoo account, so I am delighted to offer photos--albeit tiny-sized--to do a much better job than my words.

Off down Utah 86, which took me all the way down Utah Lake, through annoying construction, and then down like a ruler line, south to meet route 6.




Naturally I took this opportunity to go fast. Broke 95, but didn't feel like trying to get 120 like I did once on the way to Akron. Nothing like an overheated tire blowing to ruin your day.



Once off the highway proper, it was about 10 miles of paved road, and 17.5 of unpaved, like this. Not too bad. Managed 20 - 35mph without any problems.




Here looms my destination. A small range of mountains stuck in the middle of a vast plain. It looked rocky but do-able, and decent roads let right up to it.




This was the start of the climb, and pretty well represents most of it. All the rock was sandstone, which afforded lots of variation, meaning handholds and footholds.



Lots and lots of climbing stuff like this. Got my hands pretty well scraped up, and got pretty tired out too. And when I finally scrambled up the peak... each one merely revealed a higher one behind it! This happened about 3 times.






Yes I climbed up here, and yes I went under that rock. Saw some amazing grottos as well, and some fantastic rocks, the soft sandstone worn in unearthly ways.







At last I did reach the top, and was greeted with an incredible view. I could turn in a complete circle and see nothing higher than myself for at least 15 miles, if not much much further.




There were more clouds than clear in the sky, and the wind absolutely RIPPED. Ceaseless, relentlessly, roaring in my ears and making it not a simple task to stand up straight. I can appreciate people who dislike the wind now. The few moments it ceased were sweet sweet peace.

One last view from the top. Which happens to include the road I came on. And shows just one sliver of the panorama that encircled me.






On the way down I saw some more remarkable formations, had a few hairy descents, got strung out on adrenaline from them, and from hunger, and by the end trotted down the rocks, quite comfortable negotiating them.



I couldn't believe it. Perfectly hand-sized. Why weren't there more of these?!?






Now you see it...







Now you don't!







Coincidences are ridiculous. How is it that after all that highway, and clattering down dirt roads, and pulling over at whim when I felt close enough to the mountain, the odometer would end up exactly here? I glanced at the odometer as I was getting ready to leave, and couldn't believe it.

So that was my trip! The last picture I leave you is of tumbleweeds. It's hard to describe what they were like down all those unpaved roads. They seem for all the world like animals. They scurry along almost randomly, but in a definite direction. The oblong ones skip across the ground like little kids. You see them piled relentlessly in any hollow and against any obstruction. They line the cattle fences like caged animals wanting to get out, and in the corners where enough pile up, I watched lucky ones skip over their fellows and come flying over. Fascinating to watch, and I never could bring myself to run over one on the road.

Farewell tumbleweeds! May you live to roll another day.







This day has been fantastic. Ham & eggs fill my belly, celery and broccoli I'm sure have added years to my life, and I think I'll be ready for bed directly. Burned a lot of calories today.

The first 2 days

It is now... I don't know which day of the week. The computer tells me it's 4/23, and thinks I'm posting this at 12:09, when it's actually 10:09 mountain time. I do believe it's Thursday. Which makes sense because Friday it's supposed to rain, which is why I toured about yesterday and am planning to today. But first, back to Tuesday...

I got to UK's house full of wonderment and delight and disbelief, as described previously. Trying to figure out how to turn the Pen's game on proved too difficult through the sea of remotes, so I called Uncle Keith and he got me going. A can of soup for dinner from the near-bare pantry, and glorious victory on the ice. Pens lead the series 3-1! Next the car had to be unloaded (considerably easier than loading it), and empty I took it to the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, to return home full of groceries.

I'll spare you the details, and say only that I was quite pleased with my shopping trip. It was a triumph of thrift and health. I unloaded my $89.60 load and set up the kitchen with glee, armed for every food need for a week. I finished the night writing my blog, and retired to the couch in the living room, leveling out the shades so the twinkling sea of lights could join me in my repose.

I spent the first half of Wednesday out shopping. I had located several thrift stores on google maps, and headed north up State St, scanning every storefront I passed to learn what was available to me here. I pulled into a pawn shop on the way, and came back out with a guitar! A perfect, cheap-but-good Harmony sunburst acoustic with that open, un-slick sound that I need for this album. Then to other pawn shops where I salivated over the plethora of subs, and to a giant thrift store where I got a white button-up shirt for hiking. My last stops were Wal-Mart for a hat and sunscreen, B&D's Burgers for a delicious avocado burger, and Best Buy to look over their Digital SLR's and decide I didn't want to buy one new.

Thus was spent the first half of a perfect, warm, sunny day in paradise. With the forecast of rain looming, I didn't want to spend the rest of the day inside. So into my old Guardian bag went Dr.Pepper, a sandwich, two bottles of water, the Utah atlas, rough cuts and an apple. 2 gallons of water in the car, more than 3/4ths a tank of gas, hiking boots, cowboy hat, and off I went. I set out to explore the Oquirrh Mountains, which I have gazed at across the SLC valley, but never been to. I transversed the flat, wide valley, and met with little success in the canyons on the other side, which are all closed till the summer melts enough snow up in the mountains. Then was the first of many visits to the Atlas, by which I chose a route that went north along the mountains and wrapped around them to the West, along the shore of the Great Salt Lake, across salt flats, and then down south through the valley on the other side of the mountains, till I could wrap around them and come back home.

I munched buffalo jerky from a roadside peddler and cruised, till the full wonder of the great lake became apparent. Turns out the Great Salt Lake is really, really, colossaly huge. If the desert seems to stretch out in the valleys flat and vast, how much more does the mirror-flat plane of the lake soar to the horizon, broken only by islands (mountains, actually) jutting from its surface. I the highway passer got passed incessantly as I tried to keep my speed up on I-80 while still marvelling at the lake, and the salt flats extending from its shores. At one point the two directions of the highway were nothing but two piles of dirt, carrying the roads atop them and venturing out with nothing but water on either side.

After miles of such driving, deserted except for a couple evaporator plants, I got to the interchange with 138, which would take me south down the new valley. But on the right side, jutting up massive and mysterious and as enticing as any pirate cove, lay Stansbury Island - a mountain rising up from the lake, with enough solid land between the salt flats to carry a road out to it. The map showed most of the island was BLM land, which is Bureau of Land Management, which means you can freely camp and hike there. I turned right and headed out, but soon a few realities set in: (A) It was 5:30pm, and the only cars I saw were ones leaving the island. (B) Turns out even though you can see a mountain right in front of you, it can still be six miles away, and (C) the road was unpaved, and I could only do 20 at best, laboring over the washboard surface and bemoaning my already-dying front struts and skinny sport tires. So I stopped, beaten by the reality of nature, hiked along the shore for awhile, and headed back, champing on a rough cut like Clint Eastwood and opening all 4 windows of the car so the roaring onslaught of wind could blow through.

I'll write just one more part of my day. As I worked my way along state routes down through the Tooele valley, on the other side of the Oquirrhs from SLC, I came to the twon of Tooele and took a road that headed up into the foothills. Most of the time you see little hills and dream about climbing them and how cool that would be, and keep driving. But these had ATV trails running up them, so I knew they were accessible, and a sign at a pull-in forbade only vehicular trespassing. So I put on my boots and started walking, reduced to gasping pants almost immediately by the steep grade and thin air. At last, picking my way among the rocks and stubbly brush, I neared the top of a large hill overlooking the whole valley. It was like a movie scene - the last few steps unfolded the valley below in breathtaking grandeur. Angled sunlight swept across the fertile green plains, growing misty in the distance before the mountains rose up to meet the setting sun. Tooele laid peacefully below me, neat streets and clean houses in orderly array, ready for the coming of night. The grassy foothills on which I stood looked like green felt, and to my right a reservoir lay tucked in the canyon like a jewel. My gaze stretched far across the valley, and when it got to the north, stretched out to infinity as the great salt lake swallowed up the horizon, lying like a majestic lion at the head of the valley, watching over the scene from its stately immensity. I fought mosquitos and talked to Uncle Keith for awhile, till the sun dropped below the last bar of clouds and headed for the mountain peaks. Every minute the view got better and I wished I could take new pictures. The light, sharper and sharper, lifted off the plains and cut the foothills out in dramatic contrast. At last the sun slipped below the peaks, and the chilling wind from the mountains behind me hastened me back to the car. I enjoyed the lights show in the sky from behind the mountains as I continued south. Civilization petered out rapidly, and left me alone on the strip of highway, marveling afresh at the desolate Rush Valley, great gaping vastness to my left and right, dark and peaceful beneath the still-light sky.

Such were my adventures yesterday, and maybe my poetic language sounds cheesy, but it's my best attempt at capturing what I saw and how it affected me. My only sadness was that there was no one to share it with. How I would like for Pittsburgh and Ohio friends to see these things with me! I believe these great, dramatic sights make God's glory easier to imagine and anticipate, and human self-absorption harder to sink into.

Now it is nearing noon, high time to head out on today's adventures. I'm going south west, to the BLM desert and the old pony express trail. Blanket, food, extra clothes, lots of water, tank up on gas, guitar... yep, I'm ready!

First a backtrack, then an installment

Backtrack:
I lost my job. Yep. Wednesday April 8th Guardian let me go. You can ask me about it privately - I've got no problem talking about it, because it seems to clearly be God's hand at work. Indeed, on the way home my primary thought was to stifle feelings of excessive joy and excitement. A world of opportunity was suddenly flung open to me! I have not looked back, and within a day I started talking with Mike Q about a road trip to Uncle Keith's house in Utah -- the crazy wild hair idea I had never quite done during my months of freedom between graduation and Guardian. Which brings us to the

Installment:
First installment, that is. Of my trip journal.
Yes indeed, to my continued amazement, the pieces of the trip kept falling into place. Mike was back from temporary work in Harrisburg--still unemployed. If we left quickly, we would have nearly a month, and still get back 6 weeks before youth camp, which was plenty of time for all the intense planning work. Nothing huge would be missed at home. The plans marched on. I laid out my schedule for the week after my release: taxes, room, room, laundry, care group, packing. The days passed in necessary activity, my room finally bloomed in resplendent cleanliness and orderliness, and the theoretical departure loomed ever nearer. Saying good-bye to friends after lunch Sunday left a slight smudge of reality on me, but even pulling away from the house and rolling down the hill, even 8 hours of driving Sunday and 16 Monday, even the sight of mountains at the edge of the sky Tuesday morning did not penetrate my mind and heart with the reality of this trip. Climbing over the Rockies as the Mazda gasped for air, descending through the awe-inspiring Glenwood Canyon, and feeling the twinge of fear as the gas needle sidled down and no settlement, green thing or prospect of life or fuel presented itself all filled me with knowing that I was in the WEST. Drawing in great pure breaths of warm, blowing air.. letting my ears reach out as far as they might without ever meeting a din of man-made noise.. standing on a high rock with a hand on my knee, casting my eyes in a great semicircle, surveying vast land stretched out in mighty distance, rocky creekbed dry with thirst and piercing in jagged rock beauty, mesas upthrust from the land like craggy tables of desert gods.. all rich tan framed against the soft, pure blue sky... all this was the West, and all this I relished with exquisite enjoyment. But only now, as I sit facing the window, keyboard on my lap, soaking in the flickering sea of lights in the Salt Lake City valley below, is the reality slowing creeping upon me that I am back here. Back in Uncle Keith's House - the awe of my childhood. Back in the luxurious house of many stairs and levels and windows that entranced me, and still does. Back where the view out of every window draws a gasp of amazement. Others might perhaps come here and think it nothing that special, or enjoy it at a lesser level. But for me, for some reason, this place stirs me so deeply that crying seems the only fitting outlet. That, or just standing, motionless as long as reason will let me be, before the view. Such I did last time I was here, 6 or 7 years ago, when it seemed most likely that I would never be here again. Yet here I am, and my heart is full right now. There is more I could say, and will later, but this has been an attempt, shaped by listening to Milton's Paradise Lost all day, at putting into words the tugging of my heartstrings that this place stirs. With all my might I relish this moment. The whole stay is before me, untainted by the passage of time and the looming of end, pregnant with possibility and anticipation, full of rich days to be lived. This is the purest moment of any trip, and I savor it, and share it. With my future self, and with any who care to read and enter into my world.

Tasting, entranced yet burningly unsatiated, tiny earthly droplets of Heavenly bliss, I bid thee good night.

A Pittsburgh Explorer

Writing is hard.

If you'd like, please add yourself as a follower! I'd love to see where this new blog goes, and I hope that it will prove to be insightful, interesting, and helpful (even if you're not living in Pittsburgh).

Mah Room

It's a work in progress. I have dared to disturb the dreaded top closet shelf, which in turn has spewed its contents into the room like fire from an enraged dragon. It'll be nice when I finish, though. I'm filing things in the garbage bag as much as possible :)

I finally have a record player! I got a stack of vinyl at Dave's Music Mine last Saturday, and have particularly enjoyed The Best of The Guess Who. This is music that was meant to be played from records on cranked up speaker towers. Rockin' out, baby!