FREE JOHN SINCLAIR'S MIND!

After 21 days and nearly 6,000 miles on the road, I suffered tonight through the most painful two hours of my trip: a lecture by infamous, Sixties icon, John Sinclair, in East Lansing at Michigan State University.

Yesterday, while having tea at appropriately-named Strange Matter Coffee in Lansing, with an old girlfriend from that era, Diane asked me: "What happened to our generation?" She was referring to how we somehow ended up with that lunatic, Trump, but it's a good, broader question. Tonight, I found at least part of the answer, in the pathetic, ineffective, self-indulgent rantings of 76-year-old Sinclair.

If you've never heard of him, that's no surprise. I barely remembered him, and I was of his era. Sinclair was something of a counterculture hero of the day, a free-verse poet from Flint, manager of the rock band MC5, and most famous for getting sentenced in 1969 to ten years in jail for giving two joints to an undercover narcotics officer. "Free John Sinclair!" was a Michigan mantra. After John Lennon came riding to his defense, he got out of jail after 2½ years.

This is a guy with an amazing story to tell, with lessons relevant today. He was introduced tonight as a man who "pushed the front ranks of the hippy revolution."

Some revolution. Some revolutionary he is. Sinclair spent his "conversation" tonight slouched in a chair, reciting stale tales of past battles, telling lame cannabis jokes, and grumbling about today's lousy music like an old man on his porch cursing at the kids who threw a ball into his yard.

Accompanying Sinclair's torpor-inducing anecdotes was a slide show, projected on a screen behind him and another old guy, who was charged with directing their "conversation." I flashed back to the basement of my childhood, with my father stumbling through family slides on the Kodak carousel projector. Like then, I fought to keep my head upright and eyes open. A terrible sound system made their exchanges sometimes hard to follow, though I never felt I was missing out on any nuggets of wisdom.

Mind you, this amateurish, clumsy performance was sponsored by MSU's brand-new Broad Museum, a premier art edifice and program at a prestigious Big Ten university.

Not that it's relevant to the embarrassing caliber of the show, but I will admit to being distracted by unrelated emotions induced by the locale. Sinclair's show-and-tell took place in MSU's Erickson Hall Kiva, a small theater-in-the-round. Precisely fifty years ago tonight, I would have been running a vacuum and floor polisher in that exact place, since I worked in that very Kiva as a janitor, on the night shift.

Not surprisingly, that history brought weird memories flooding back -- like when I would sneak off in the middle of the night and climb into the Kiva's A/V cabinet to hide and sleep until my shift was over. All this went through my mind, while Sinclair droned on and on about the good old days of the Sixties when, as he put it, "people's minds were free." I think John Sinclair's own mind could use a little freeing. Plus, some multi-media training wouldn't hurt. And public speaking lessons.

* * *

These first two days back in Michigan have given me a case of sensory overload. I lived here for decades, during some of the most consequential years of my life. As a result, every spot I turn, every person I reconnect with, brings back memories of stories I'd forgotten. Tonight, for instance, Ben reminded me that he and I and Abbie Hoffman once watched an NFL football game together at Pasquali's Bar in Lansing after Abbie's lecture at MSU. I still can't remember that one.

What hasn't changed is the depressing place Michigan can be in March. It's cold and gray and spring is still a long way off. The roads are pocked with winter potholes, giving the state a tired, run-down feeling.

And then, there are the fat people. I spend a lot of time in Walmart at home in Oregon, and I thought we had fat people. There's no competition. Two days ago, I spent an hour in the local Honda dealer, waiting for an oil change, sitting in front of the waiting room's popcorn machine and coffee hutch, which offered free donut holes drenched in frosting. The people who could not resist the tasty treats looked like balloon characters you see on lawns, but which have been over-inflated so that their body segments droop over other body segments. Their rolls of blubber made normal walking impossible, so they shuffled, pigeon-toed, like geese that had been grossly over-fed to produce foie gras. Nevertheless, I learned that Michigan needs to try harder; it's still tenth from the top in the national obesity contest.

Despite everything, most Michiganians I've met during my visit seem optimistic. Diane, for example, now a grand dame of Michigan's dance scene, teaches a popular course at MSU, "Dance as Human Experience," and another for "Ageless Dancers." Somehow, she found a way to build here a life around her art. And change people's lives for the better.

Ben has his unique graphic design art on display in the heart of downtown Lansing's revitalized riverfront, property that was a wasteland of warehouses and decrepit industries that I still remember. Ben, too, found a way to live his passion. And bring beauty to people's lives.

My friend, Bill, now semi-retired from being advisor to the state's top political and business leaders for nearly half a century, insisted that I drive along the Detroit riverfront to see the remarkable changes, which he helped make happen -- new parks, walkways, housing, and restaurants. In his own way, Bill turned political progress into an art form -- the art of the possible. And in the process, saved natural areas all over the state, and restored other such places where they are needed most -- in the middle of urban Detroit.

Today, Ben and I spent the morning at Detroit's world-class art museum. A room of Impressionist paintings, familiar to me as long-ago friends, moved me to tears. I stared long at a small Van Gogh self-portrait, and remembered it had been fifty-five years ago when a high school friend had first dragged me to see this masterpiece, one of his favorite paintings. It was my introduction to a lifetime of loving art.

That first encounter could well have happened fifty-five years to this very day. The high school buddy who first showed me that Van Gogh was the same guy I'll be seeing, two days from now, for the first time since shortly after high school.

After gorging on as much culture as we could digest, including an especially long time marveling at the indescribable Diego Rivera murals that feature Detroit's early auto industry, we cruised down Woodward Avenue, and soon were caught in a sea of Red Wings fans flooding to the new hockey arena. Driving up Jefferson Avenue, we checked out Bill's pride-and-joy, the recently created William G. Milliken State Park, on the riverfront right in downtown Detroit. The area's transformation was as impressive as Bill described. His pride was well-placed.

Yet, this is still Detroit, and as Ben reminded me, "When they say Detroit's coming back, remember, ten blocks from here there are ghettos and slums that are so bad they've been abandoned. The magnitude of what has to happen, it's a mammoth job."

Last story: GOODBYE WARM

GOODBYE WARM

I thought Texas defined ugly, but that was before I got to Georgia. Flat, red dirt, scrubby trees. And billboards. Lots and lots of billboards.

I can imagine all the Georgians getting together and someone says, "Ok, so let's admit it. We've got the butt-ugliest landscape in the USA. So what can we do about it?" And someone pipes up, "I know. What if put up the tackiest billboards in the whole country. Make them twice as big as everyone else's. Line them up so close together that nobody on I-75 will notice how gross our state is. Take their eyes off all that red dirt."

"Maybe we could have a contest," someone volunteers. "Pick out the most-tackiest billboards and concentrate them right where people cross in from Florida. Bam, bam, bam! Divert their attention. Let the tourists know what Georgia is all about."

Another Georgian raises a problem, "You know, some places we have these scrubby pines that could block the signs. So how about this? Let's put those billboards up on giant poles so high that the trees will never reach them. And let's make sure to light all of 'em up at night. Festive, like."

So they all agree, and are just thrilled as peaches when they see how well their plan worked.

It could have happened that way.

Whatever their obscene provenance, these signs hawk the usual food, gas, lodging, but oh-so-much more: guns & ammo, miniature Dalmatians, fireworks, log homes, pecans, golf carts, sod, the Gone With the Wind Museum, boots, ambulance-chasing lawyers, adult superstores, horse-toothed-smiling realtors, orthodontics, Z&Z Liquor ("military discounts").

There are so many billboards in Georgia that a good share of them advertise billboards. More billboards than customers.

There are religious billboards: "'Let go. I'll catch you.' Jesus." And not-so-religious ones -- "$TRIPPER$/ 'Need We Say More'/ As Seen on Jerry Springer/ Open Noon Daily"

My favorite towered far above the trees, jet black with bold white letters: "Help us Jesus/ DRAIN THE SWAMP/ Save America"

* * *

A similar sign greeted me when I arrived in my sister, Sandra's, town of Hernando, Florida, two days ago: "Eternity in Hell is a long time."

She didn't seem to mind the sign: "It makes you think."

It did make me think about how you could possibly measure "a long time" if you were immortal. Especially if you were stuck in a burning lake of fire and brimstone.

I didn't talk much religion with Sandra or her husband, Sam. Or, with my other sister, Karen, and her husband, Van. And only a little bit of politics. (I sensed that my hosts had to bite their tongues a fair number of times during my short visit.)

Instead, we all went boating on the "Singing River Tours -- Alive with nature and music!" John was the singing river guide on our tour boat. We heard his life story, starting in rural Alabama and ending right there on the Withlacoochee and Rainbow Rivers, where he had so obviously fallen in love with his home environment. John effused passion for everything around us -- birds, alligators, otters, crystalline springs -- and railed against the evils of lawn fertilizer, invasive aquatic plants, and disrespect for nature. We stopped in the shade of moss-draped trees, and he played his guitar and sang songs he'd written about things he knew.

Back at the dock, we ate grouper lunches at a riverside, outdoor café. Shannon and Tink, who had recently moved down from northwest Indiana, joined us. They sang Florida's praises, with Tink thrilled with the fishing. Never mind that any comparison with Indiana is a pretty low bar, they seemed genuinely happy.

I left my family visit with bags full of Florida bulbs, such as elephant ears, and cuttings, from Sam's landscape. I can't wait to see if I can get them to grow in Oregon.

* * *

After leaving Florida, I escaped Georgia's ugliness late today, spending the night in Signal Mountain, Tennessee, near Chattanooga. Red trillium were abloom along Shoal Creek, flowing through a valley atop the mountain.

I'm visiting Jimmy and Dan, two friends I met on our Grand Canyon raft trip last year. Over dinner of Italian food and Malbec, we exchanged stories of our travels and lives since. I leave in the morning, having added cutting of Easter cactus from Jimmy. Heading for Michigan. Goodbye warm.

Last story: A MAGICAL NIGHT

A MAGICAL NIGHT

On Sanibel Island last evening, Larry worried that my head might explode. It was a night of magical serendipity.

We had arrived for dinner at the home of his friends, Peter and Mallory, and were immediately introduced to a group of four women, who had been visiting for the afternoon. It was hard to concentrate on their names; the view from our hosts' deck was a strip of mostly-deserted white beach, and then the Gulf of Mexico, as far as you could see. The surf swished onto the sand.

Making small talk, I asked one of the women where they were from.

"Watertown, New York."

I paused just a moment before confessing, "I was once engaged to a woman from Watertown."

Suddenly, I seemed to have everyone's attention.

"What was her name?" someone asked.

This time, I paused so long that I could sense people's discomfort. Did I really want to go there? What if one of them was related to her? Plus, that episode was not exactly my finest hour. But it was too late. I said her name, Mary C...

No one seemed to recognize it. I added, "Maybe you know her boyfriend from when I met her. T M…"

Quiet murmurs and knowing smiles. They all knew about T. After all, he was, at least in his day, quite the handsome stud. Plus, he owned an island.

They had a few more questions to fill in my story.

How'd you meet? In a little town on the St. Lawrence River, in 1979, she pulled me into the street dance with a Dixieland band playing Just a Closer Walk with Thee.

What happened? She dumped me, thankfully.

At this point, we all were shaking our heads, or having some similar reactions.

I asked, what about Rick, the guy I'd just spent three days with on the other side of Florida? Did they know Rick? Check! How about Rick's friends? Check!

What about Save the River, the group I worked with from its founding, to protect the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River from a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers boondoggle. Check!

What about the Corps' first public hearing, when I came out from Michigan to speak, along with 500 locals raising hell about their proposal? Check! They were there.

What about that Pete Seeger fund-raising concert in Alex Bay, that I'd attended back in the day. Check! In fact, two of the women had been singers in the warm-up performance.

How about Save the River organizer, the late-Abbie Hoffman, and his partner Johanna, who is still my friend? Check! "Johanna is my god-mother," explained one.

I shared a story of my boat ride with Abbie in Johanna's boat when he hit a reef and sheared off the lower unit of the outboard engine. Check! They knew her red-and-white boat well.

I recalled how after the accident, we finally made it back to Johanna's house well past dark, and she had dinner waiting, assisted by two young girls. I struggled for their names. "Violet?"

"Velvet?"

"That's it!" I said. "They were two hotties!"

At this, the women exchanged looks, then couldn't hold in their laughter. I didn't ask.

Addendum: After I posted this story last night, my friend Rick read it and texted me: "You should have asked. The other one was Monica, who you took the picture with that you sent me." No wonder she's grinning.

* * *

I never did find out how these women were connected to our hosts, who hailed from Maine, not upstate New York and the Thousand Islands. It certainly wasn't apparent, and it really didn't matter. It was a "small world" moment at it's most mysterious.

After the group departed, we sat down for dinner in front of the TV to watch Anderson Cooper grill Stormy Daniels on 60 Minutes. When she calmly described ordering the now-POTUS to drop trou so she could spank his flabby ass with a magazine with his face on its cover, well, the four of us whooped it up. But when S.D. related how the now-POTUS told her -- this porn star with giant fake tits, who he was about to screw -- how much she reminded him of his daughter, we all groaned in unison.

After the show, Mallory gave me a tour of their magnificent house. She seemed to me like a force of nature, an artist to her core, with unbridled energy and insatiable curiosity. Every wall, every space was filled with exceptional art and thousands of things -- shells, fossils, bones, all manner of miscellany -- filling drawers, shelves, and framed shadow boxes. I ogled everything.

When we left she gave me a marvelous, mounted starfish from Oregon. It will have a good home.

Day-before-yesterday: FRIENDS & BIRDS

FRIENDS & BIRDS

You know how it is with certain friends. You may not have seen them for years, but when you get back together, it feels so natural that you pick up right where you left off.

I just spent three days in Florida birding with such a friend. Rick and I are a bit like that old TV show, The Odd Couple. Let's just say that, like Felix and Oscar, our domestic habits differ.

On the other hand, we're about as in synch as possible in ways intellectual and political. We share a peculiar sense of humor. Our ages are nearly identical. We  know all about the Vietnam War, the Chicago Seven, greenie history. Abbie Hoffman was our friend.

We endlessly reminisced about shared history. Some of his stories of experiences long-forgotten by me, fired dormant neurons in my aging brain. From out of nowhere emerged images of people and places I'd forgotten.

Yet, all those experiences that seemed so profound at the time, now are lost to the mists. We agreed, however, that a tangible reality has outlived such ephemera -- what we did in our work lives actually made some things better, and of even greater significance, stopped some bad things from happening. Like the government doing an environmentally catastrophic, wholesale re-tooling of the Great Lakes in a delusional vision of boosting shipping on the lakes.

At one point, Rick started to tell me about another environmental controversy that he'd been instrumental in winning. Here's an example of why we get along so well.

Me: "I don't know much about that project."

Rick: "You don't know anything about that project." He gave only the slightest emphasis to the word, "anything."

Rick then proceeded with a loquacious history of his fight to (successfully, as it turned out) block deepening of the shipping channel in the Delaware river, along with attendant damages to the environment.

After he seemed mostly finished, I said: "You know, Rick, that was an insightful, nuanced, intelligent description of the project. But I kept thinking of your one sentence at the beginning." I repeated our earlier exchange.

Me: "A lesser person might have found that sentence a tad insulting."

Rick: "I would have phrased it differently for a lesser person." 

The last new bird Rick and I added to our birding list this morning was a common loon. It was way out on the water and we needed my scope to see it. We agreed it was the perfect bird to end our adventure. The last time we had seen a loon together had been close-up, decades ago, from his boat in a marsh along Grindstone Island in the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York. That's where he's lived for a long time in summers -- in a little house he built that you have to take a boat to get to. But that's another story.

The loon we watched scurrying through the reeds back then was a mother with her baby loons riding on her back. We'd seen that in nature films, but never in real life, before or, as it's turned out, after.

As we walked along the Atlantic beach, I realized I'd actually come coast-to-coast. It's close to the half-way point of my road trip: day 13, more than 4,000 miles so far.

Tonight, on Sanibel Island on the Gulf Coast, I listened to a different special bird with a different special friend. The bird was a Chuck-will's-widow. It's related to the whip-poor-will, and I've only heard it once before, back in 2006 in Virginia under circumstances I can't recall. Here's how the bird guide describes its haunting sound out of the darkness: "a loud, repeated, emphatic whistle CHIP wido WIDO."

The special friend is Larry. Before we heard the Chuck-will's-widow, Larry and his cousin, Connie, took me to dine on the best oysters and red snapper I could imagine. And now, the squawk of a great blue heron in the canal behind Larry's house…

Day-before-yesterday: BIRDS & PIGS

BIRDS & PIGS

A Florida scrub jay, glowing lapis-blue in the late-afternoon sunshine, was the perfect end to a perfect day of birding. For a short time, all was well in the world.  

That was, of course, shortly before I learned that Trump had appointed another pig to his circus of freaks, John Bolton. So much for my fantasy.

Speaking of feral swine, this morning we saw a really big boar wading in the marsh near Cape Canaveral. My birding partner, Rick, thought it weighed a thousand pounds, but I don't really know. The big pig acted like he was king of the swamp. He and his kind, in reality, are out-of-place vermin that are wrecking the environment and everything they touch. Like, you know…

My Florida birding with Rick was the main reason I came on this four-week, cross-country jaunt. He and I have had a few birding adventures together since he retired some years back. Now we're doing it again in the marshes and lakes near Cape Canaveral. Our first day was a bonanza of beautiful birds: great flocks of white pelicans, white and glossy ibis, all varieties of herons, and hard-to-identify shorebirds.

I told him ahead of time that on this trip, the birding wasn't about getting a big list. Instead, it was about sharing quality time with quality birds in quality places. So far, so good.

Today, before we knew it, the sun was low and it was time to go home and eat Chinese food and watch basketball. But first, we took one last little drive in the wildlife refuge to search for the elusive Florida scrub jay.

Leaning on a wooden gate leading to the closed-off nesting area of the jays, I said to Rick, "At home, when I make this pishing sound, they fly right in. Pissh, pissh!"

Perfectly on cue, a jay swooped in out of nowhere, landed on a branch not fifteen feet away, and stared at us. We watched each other for quite a while.

Even though they look a lot like the scrub jays we have out West, Florida scrub jays are a separate species. Only about 10,000 of them still exist, which is why they have membership in the Endangered Species Club of America.

Barring a dramatic change in the weather, literal and otherwise, it's a club that's certain to grow by leaps and bounds in coming years.

Day-before-yesterday: SCHIZOPHRENIC TEXAS

SCHIZOPHRENIC TEXAS

I celebrated my exit from Texas this morning with a one finger salute to my rearview mirror, accompanied by a matching expletive. Each time I'm in Texas, I try to like the place. Once again, I failed.

Some of the people, such as the guys I came here to visit in Houston, are great. The first Texan I encountered was a rancher who stopped his pickup next to my parked car on a back road, to see if I needed directions. I stepped out to talk with him, then looked up to see a thousand sandhill cranes circling us, croaking their ancient rattling calls. The state has its charms.

One of the next Texans I encountered, however, was an officer with the Texas Highway Patrol. "You were doing 70 in a 65," he explained, after his flashing lights pulled me over in front of an Exxon station.

I'd come over a hill into a reduced limit and had missed the change. A perfect speed trap. Even so, I knew that he didn't stop me for doing five over. He stopped me because my Oregon plates made me a likely smuggler of marijuana. It happens.

He wanted to know who, what, where, why, when? I treated him as if he were merely a person curious about my life's story, not a guy with a badge and gun looking for the slightest excuse to tear apart my car (and life). After carefully peering through my SUV windows at all my stuff, he wrote me a warning ticket.

"Drive safely for the rest of your trip," he said, handing me my paperwork.

"Thanks for not ruining it," I said, that being as close as I got to passive-aggressive.

I pulled in for gas, and as I started the pump, the trooper pulled back next to me with lights again flashing. I thought, Now what? He stepped out and handed me my driver's license. I can't recall if he apologized.

It's that kind of stuff that has soured me on Texas. I understand the trooper was just doing his job, but I don't have to like it. Then there's the state's wind, dust, heat, humidity, pollution, religious fanatics, hurricanes, ugly landscapes, Ted Cruz, traffic, and sprawl. There's that time I hit a pig and got stuck in Pecos and El Paso for weeks. And when I buried my Harley in a Texas mud hole, long ago.

I discovered that my Houston friends live right across the street from Joel Osteen's mega-church. Too bad for me I was there on a Monday, missing my chance to be a better me by one day.

While being graciously hosted for the night by Chad and lifelong Houstonian, John, I rudely confessed that Houston was my least favorite city in the entire country -- especially its lack of any urban zoning.

They then shared with me some of their city's graces, such as world-class medical centers and fine museums. But mostly, they shared with me their sense of community. We joined a dozen of their closest friends for Monday Margarita Night. If that sounds like a crazy night of drinking and dancing -- well, hardly. Instead, it's a 30-year tradition of friends having a quiet dinner together at a Mexican restaurant.  

It's hard for me to imagine being part of a community, like John and some of his group have been, for 30 years. In some ways, I envy people who have lived their entire lives in the same place, with some of the same people, with their family nearby. I'll be seeing on my road trip a few old friends who have done just that, including Charlie, a high school chum in Flint who I've not seen since then. We're talking 1964 -- nearly 54 years ago.

Just before leaving Texas, I pulled into a wooded rest area to fix breakfast. White-eyed vireos and Carolina wrens -- avian virtuosos -- serenaded nearby. That's one of the crazy things about the state. For all its concrete and refineries and oil wells, it also has some of the most fabulous wildlife refuges, and incredible birding, in the world.

Two billboards on I-10 this morning captured the state's schizophrenia. The first bragged, "Childhood obesity is going down." The second, just 500 feet down the highway, an ad for the upcoming State Fair, featured a humungous, yellow corn dog on a stick.

Day-before-yesterday: HOMESICK BLUES

HOMESICK BLUES

One week into my four-week road trip, last night I got blindsided by a crushing case of homesickness. It's not that the trip hasn't been good; each day has been fabulous.

Yesterday, for example, I hiked through Walnut Canyon National Monument, near Flagstaff, with two of my dearest friends, Adam & Ann-Marie, and their family. We strolled by former cliff-side homes of long-ago Indians. At least 400 once took up residence here under overhanging ledges for a century or so, then abandoned their entire community about 850 years ago, leaving behind lots of pottery and other personal items that were looted as soon as white people discovered the place.

I learned that there's a deeper mystery to their leaving Walnut Canyon than exhaustion of food and firewood, drought, and other challenges -- which they certainly did face at that time. They also moved on to "fulfill a spiritual covenant." Their religious leaders proclaimed that this was not their permanent home, and they migrated, just as they had from time immemorial. Not until their arrived at the mesas of the Hopi, did they find at their permanent home -- where they are to this day. Reminded me a bit of Joseph Smith. 

I shared my musings, while reading the Park Service explanation, with a guy hiking with a big red backpack and walking staff. He was on his way from Mexico to Utah along the cross-Arizona trail. He said he had 220 miles to go. Last year, he had hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, Mexico to Canada, along the spine of the Sierras and Cascades. He explained that after that jaunt, he'd gone back to New England, worked 80-hour weeks during the winter, to get enough money to take off again.

He had this distant look in his eyes. I wondered if that came from his hiking or was part of what drove his obsession. I asked him if his own wanderings had a "spiritual covenant."

"You certainly find out who you are," was all he could offer.

At the start of our hike, when I met Ann-Marie's mother, Roberta, and described my road trip, she immediately said, "Oh, Travels with Charlie." It dated her as not all that much younger than me, since her reference was to a book by John Steinbeck from the 1950s. He tells the story of his road trip in a pickup and camper, "in search of America," with his little dog, Charlie. I'd read it as a teenager and forever after dreamed of such a road trip. Last month, I'd bought the book from Amazon and read it again. And now, here I was. Travels with Wayne.

On our way back up the several hundred steps to the parking lot, I tried to keep pace with Roberta. Every few dozen steps, I'd be panting and have to rest to catch my breath. She seemed unfazed. "It's the altitude," I whined. 

I mentioned I had hiked to Dripping Spring in the Grand Canyon the day before, so my legs were feeling it. 

"Yes, I backpacked and camped there with a girlfriend, one time," she said.

This was, I concluded, one badass woman, but I kept my opinion to myself. Not that I could talk. Each time I paused to gasp for oxygen, she would say, quite diplomatically, I thought, "We'll just wait for these people above us to come by." 

 Leaving Flagstaff, I drove east as far as Albuquerque and then, too tired for a night of camping, checked into one of the last vacancies -- a very marginal Days Inn: $75.10, inc. tx. You get what you pay for. It was the kind of place where you don't want to touch anything before giving it a dose of Purell. Not all the lights worked. 

That's where my wife surprised me with a call on FaceTime. Can something be too real? When our two kitties came running at the phone's camera to my "kiddy-kiddy-kiddy," then, realizing how much I missed them, I almost lost it. When the phone's image shifted back my wife's beautiful, smiling face, framed with her chic new doo, that's when homesickness crushed me. I was so not expecting it.

But that's the price you pay for getting to do all the cool stuff I've been doing, like  walking through Walnut Canyon with my friends. 

Nevertheless, no more FaceTime. Before I went to bed in that crappy motel room, I had myself a comfort-food supper -- carrot cake homemade by Ann-Marie, and some Arizona red wine that she had given me. Indeed, tomorrow was another day.

* * *

Crossing northern New Mexico, which brags about being one of the flattest places in the U.S., was about the time I managed to leave my 12-hour funk behind. Meanwhile, tailwinds pushed my car to its personal best mpg. 

I left the interstate and took side roads across the Texas panhandle to visit the poorly named Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Any buffalo or lake are long gone. Then, on through a string of sad, broken towns -- interchangeable in their poverty, shabby motels, and Family Dollar stores. Nazareth, Dawn, Floydada (home of the Boston Terrier Museum), and Paducah (pop. 1186). Fields were flecked with post-harvest cotton, looking for all the world as a fresh snowfall. And everywhere on the landscape, new-looking windmills: white, behemoth dragons that would have amazed Don Quixote. 

As I rushed along the deserted Texas highway, headed for camping in a remote state park, it felt terribly familiar -- exactly how a similar highway had looked nearly ten years back, when a peccary pig had come out of nowhere to commit suicide.

Death by Pilot. I paid a heavy price for that encounter (see ThePecos Pig). This time, thankfully, no pigs.

"Are you here for the dark sky," the park ranger asked when I checked in tonight to the nearly-empty campground. 

"Sure." Why not?

Now, Venus and a new moon are dropping away, into the sunset. The coyotes sound disappointed.

Sunday -- Copper Breaks State Park

Day-before-yesterday: SWAMP IS A VERB

SWAMP IS A VERB

The park's bus driver let out an audible gasp when I told her I was 72 (almost). I was the only passenger on her pre-sunrise shuttle and we were sharing Grand Canyon experiences, including my plan to "swamp" on a commercial raft trip in June.

"Swamper" is a fancy name for the gopher on Colorado River raft trips. Helping load and unload, set up camp kitchens, cook, haul the toilet, tie up rafts, and on and on. Apparently, swamping didn't seem like the kind of job for someone of my advanced age. Or perhaps, and this is the explanation I prefer, my bus driver was simply amazed that I don’t look my age.

She dropped me at the end of the park's road -- Hermit's Rest. I shouldered my day pack and dropped over the Canyon rim and headed down Hermit Trail. Three hours and some three miles later, I'd dropped 1,500 feet and arrived at Dripping Spring, a tiny oasis tucked at the head of a remote canyon. All around, canyon wrens serenaded me with their calls that sound like water trickling though the air.

What brought me to this trail, however, was fossils, not birds. I wanted to feel with my own fingers the pictures I'd seen of tracks frozen in sandstone. And there they were, critter tracks as clear as the day the lizard (or whatever creature made them) scurried across the desert sand dunes 275 million years ago.

My hike had everything: fossils, geology, clear skies, spectacular views, pinon jays, and drops off the edge of the trail so sheer that often I couldn't look down. It also had that rare Grand Canyon quality -- solitude. Not until I was halfway back did I see another hiker.

Tonight, pooped from my 6.5-mile hike, I'm in Flagstaff staying with the boatman that I'll be swamping for. I don't know if I'll be the "oldest swamper on the Colorado River," but it would make a good tee-shirt. 

Yesterday: GRAND CANYON DRAMA

GRAND CANYON DRAMA

The only other Grand Canyon tourist I saw catching ice pellets on their tongue today was a ten-year-old girl. Not that many people ventured far from their cars.

Snow squalls swept through the Grand Canyon, powered by wind gusts that topped 40 mph. Swirling storm clouds suspended over the emptiness were dark and ominous in shadow, then brilliant white in broken sunlight. Two distant ravens soared upwards and vanished. A peregrine falcon, wings locked and angled like a fighter jet, flashed below in the tailwind, its steel-gray silhouette rarely viewed from above.

It was a wind insistent on pushing you into the abyss. Yet, when one of the squalls blasts out of the Canyon into your face, it slams you backwards, making you tighten your grip on the juniper branch. Despite the harsh weather, or perhaps because of it, every minute the view changes. How do you tear yourself away from the surging drama?

On the Canyon rim's Trail of Time, you walk backwards in Earth history, each step equivalent to one million years, marked in the pavement with brass dots. At appropriate ages, samples of the Grand Canyon's rock layers are displayed.

Finally, after 270 steps, you come to the sample of the rocks all around you -- Kaibab Limestone. You can rub your fingers over shelly creatures that lived and died in a warm sea 270 million years ago. In not too many more steps, you've passed through all the ages of the Canyon's most visible layers. You're back more than a half-billion years, back to when life in the oceans had barely gotten started, and you try to picture the world when that sand was laid down along a coast of a land devoid of plants or animals.

The wind turned me back before I got to the end of the trail -- more than 1,800 steps in total. But I'd seen enough, running my gloves over ripple marks frozen in mud a billion years ago. Touching fossilized mats of algae that once was the Earth's primary life form.

The mysteries of Grand Canyon geology are endless. Nevertheless, scientists have unraveled in amazing detail this complex story. Understanding that story starts with knowing the names of the rock layers. Then, their ages. Then, what their world looked like. Then, what was going around the globe that caused such big changes -- mountains, oceans, deserts, coastal plains, all come and go over hundreds of millions of years. I'm trying.

A famous naturalist, Louis Agassiz, said (if I remember his quote correctly), "Go to Nature. Look. See for yourself."  

Yesterday: NERDY CANYON STORIES

NERDY CANYON STORIES

My kitties miss me. Or so says my wife. It's only been four days since I left on this road trip, and they haven't adjusted to their earlier bedtime, made necessary because Eva actually has to get up to go to work.

Unlike me, who had to get up not-so-early to meet friends for a morning stroll along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon -- Hermit's Rest to The Abyss, to be exact.

The Abyss is well-named. The trail along its edge is safe enough, yet in some places there is nothing but a few feet of bare dirt and gravel between you and a sheer drop of thousands of feet. It's like something from a Roadrunner cartoon. You could picture "SPLAT!" in a cartoon caption, when you peer down, over the edge.

It's a visceral experience getting too close like that, or even seeing someone else tempt fate. I watched one kid do a death-defying jumping jack in the air atop a pinnacle, so his friend could take his picture. It gets you in the pit of your stomach, and makes you want to look away.

On our hike, we caught glimpses of the Colorado River, a mile below. If you've been on the river, as the four of us have, you can picture the view from below -- the river churning through narrow, dark gorges of older-than-old, spooky-sounding Vishnu Schist. Images so different, yet equally sublime.

We caught the park's shuttle bus back to our car, producing my favorite moment of the day. The bus was SRO, and I stood right next to the driver, a younger Navaho woman who wore gorgeous dangling earrings, threaded with fine bead work, surrounding a small mirror. I had to compliment her. One thing led to another, and then I was asking her about her silver and turquoise rings. As she drove along, she showed me the different turquoise inlays in her rings, and in her bracelets -- some deep blue, some nearly apple-green. They were complemented by a matching bracelet with delicate inlays of opal.

In our short ride, and between stops with passengers pouring on and off, I learned from our bus driver about her rare Sleeping Beauty turquoise, how it compared to Kingman turquoise, and that her primary clan on her mother's side was Sweetwater. She described to me sunrises and sunsets from different vantages in the park, her words resonating with a deep love and connection with the Canyon. Yet, she confessed that until a few years ago, she'd never even been to the Canyon, though living just sixty miles away. I told her everything I knew about Navahos I had learned from Tony Hillerman, and she laughed a long time. I was sorry to get off her bus so soon.

I'm pretty sure my friends this morning wished a few times that I would just shut up. I've become obsessed with the geology and history of the Grand Canyon, which means I've got all these fresh, nerdy facts jammed in my head. They heard from me about ancient sponge spicules forming the chert nodules inside the 270-million-year-old Kaibab Limestone that caps the rim. They heard about the pompous fool who tried to build a railroad through the Grand Canyon in the 1890s, how his hubris got him drowned below Soap Creek Rapid, and why his character (and fate) so reminds me of Trump (see story here).

I was full of it -- such scintillating tales. I was trying them out because three months from now I'm going to be right down there on that very river, bouncing through those rapids close-up and personal, while working for my friend, Adam, as a swamper (crew) on his commercial eight-day raft trip. Boatmen know lots of stories; I want to hold my own. Despite the fact that no stories (nerdy or otherwise), no metaphors or art, and certainly no tourist snapshots can properly describe the Grand Canyon, everyone seems to keep trying.

Yesterday: A THOUSAND WORDS

A THOUSAND WORDS

Day 3 -- Travels with Wayne

Yesterday: OXYMORONIC DISCOVERIES

OXYMORONIC DISCOVERIES

This morning I got a startling revelation regarding God. It came from a cousin in California that I've not seen in sixty years.

It might seem odd that the first thing Patricia and I talked about after all that time is religion. Perhaps the reality that we've both gotten pretty old (see pics) might have something to do with it. Religious predictions about the afterlife seem more germane these days.

But in fact, we two are the elders of our Schmidt Clan -- the most religious bunch you could imagine. So we shared stories of escaping a shared history.

Our mutual grandfather, A.A Schmidt, a rural Kansas preacher and farmer, was as devout a man as walked God's earth. His Germanic Mennonite religion banned lipstick, dancing (including swaying to radio music), television, jewelry, sports on the Lord's Day, rock and roll… You get the idea; it was a long list.

He died years ago, after a lengthy bout with cancer. I had heard that he claimed his cancer was God's punishment for sins he had committed. That was strange enough; what "sins" could this straight-laced man have been hiding?

What I hadn't heard, however, was Patricia's story of his death bed declaration: "God doesn’t exist," proclaimed this man of God to one of his daughters. "If He did He wouldn’t have let this happen to me before my work was done."

I'm sure his family assumed it was the morphine talking. Still, that bitter confession had to come from somewhere deep inside him.

I'm not sure how I feel about learning that my grandfather didn't believe in God when he died. In a way, it's sad. But then, it's not like he wouldn't have real soon found that out anyways. Although, discovery after you're dead that's there no afterlife is kind of an oxymoron.

Today, I raced down I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley alongside satin hills still cloaked in green from the winter rains. Sunset found me surrounded by raw Mohave Desert mountains burnished with every imaginable shade of pink, purple, and taupe. God or no, beauty exists.

Yesterday: GNATS IN MY PINOT

GNATS IN MY PINOT

I finally quit tearing up somewhere south of Grant's Pass on I-5. Leaving home, and the people and place you love best, is hard. But that's all 500 miles behind me now, here in this little campground near Lodi, a scarlet sunset my evening view, picking gnats from my pinot.

It used to be, when I would leave on a solo road trip, the moment I backed out of the driveway, shifted into “D,” and headed somewhere fun, I'd be wracked with guilt. We would have said our goodbyes with hugs, kisses, and tears, but inside there was always this impatience to be gone, to start another adventure. How can you not feel at least a little guilty at your luck? Someone has to cover for your wandering – taking care of things, watering plants, caring for pets and animals. Sneaking off in the dead of night might be easier.

Not this time. I didn't feel guilty, just sad to leave. Apparently, I've become quite the homebody. Driving through Oregon's gloomy fog and mist didn't help my mood. But then for a few moments, the sun broke over the mountains and through swirling fog, turning lines of ridges an emerald glow against the shadowed valleys. Oh yeah, that's why I'm doing this, I realized.

Today was about driving, with a couple of birding stops. 52 kinds, the best a merlin shooting by like a dark arrow. Tomorrow will include some of my favorite southern California landscapes, and an unusual, way-back encounter. 

 Yesterday: KIPPEE KI-YAY

http://wayneaschmidt.blogspot.com/2018/03/yippee-ki-yay.html

YIPPEE KI-YAY!

Tomorrow, I head out on a 22-state road trip. Yippee ki-yay!

I'm driving solo, cross-country to see old friends. While I still can. That’s the way you start thinking when you get old: “How many more chances do I get to _______?” – you can fill in your own blank. I’m filling mine in with “take an 8,000-mile road trip.”

Over the next four weeks, I'll post here, tidbits from my travels.

Though I've had my share of road trips, none since my Sixties-hippy days have lasted so long. This time, thank god, no more hitchhiking, bicycles, undependable motorcycles, moving trucks, or Ford Pintos. This time I’ve got a nice, new Honda Pilot, credit cards, and a senior pass for national parks. Plus, what may be most important of all, a badass wife at home – working every day, watering plants, feeding the chickens, taking care of our kitties. My being able to just take off like this – who gets to do that?

I’ll be car camping when I can. Motels. Staying with friends, some whom I’ve not seen in years or decades. Stops planned in Hanford (CA), Bullhead City, Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, Houston, Florida (Pensacola, New Smyrna Beach, Sanibel Island, Hernando), Michigan (Lansing, Flint, Chelsea), Iowa City, and Fort Collins.

Is it overly ambitious? Maybe. We’ll see. Anything can happen on a road trip. Like the time in 2009 when I hit a peccary pig down in Texas and got stuck in that god-awful state for way too long (see The Pecos Pig).

So here we go. On the road again. Let's see what happens this time...