Tuesday, January 25, 2005

I had a deep place way down that was thirsty for some sun and red rock, so we lit out for the open road in the '86 'Runner.

Jesse and Bryn were the first of the kids up at dawn for the trip, and as we were about to head out, Jerusha moaned a sad goodbye, "With Jesse and Bryn gone, there won't be anyone to play with." Drie responded that she was going to call the Armstrong twins to come over and play, but she really only wanted to come, so I looked out the window for a second and replied, "You'd better hurry up, we're fixing to leave now."

After a few minutes and number of yogurt cups down the hatches, we were on the trail for a grand circle around the southeastern part of Utah.





Just before Scofield, we came upon this frosty scene. The kids in their sweaters and I in my shorts, it was a (hopefully, at the time) contrasting prelude to the rest of our trip.





A bit further on, more of the same. The beauty was to continue in like increments all during the drive.





An oft-photographed scene, as we saw it on that beautiful morning in January.







In Arches National Park, we took a few quick jaunts to feel the sun and sand, and to get a fill of my own favorite kind of blue sky and red earth.





Yeah, the gritty old duck wore his straw hat in the middle of January.





The kids enjoyed seeing the Delicate Arch from a mile away, and because we were playing the part of the silly tourists, we thought to strike witty poses and profane the sacred with our quick snapshots and exhaust-filled getaways. Sigh. But we had fun indeed.





Along the muddy Coloradee, we tossed a few hooks in view of a row of old bunkers hewn into the living rock of the canyon. A Lady with a chicken on her head sat and watched us without waving from one of the bunkers (obviously her home, and what a home it is), odd only because she didn't want to wave to my kids or me after we tried so heartily, not for her headgear at all.





The view from outside of Monticello, a view I never get enough of.





The Blue or Abajo Mountains, a site of a few great camping trips with my sweet wife near the beginning of our marriage. Man, I love these mountains, the source of so much of the water in the San Juan river and the rest in her course.





As the sun set, I found myself racing faster along the road, soaking up the vanishing and changing rays of light as they disappeared in the west. I have felt this feeling many times in my life, though it is much more fun (and quite a bit safer) afoot and not in a hurtling auto.





The last rays of day reflect off of the reef east of the Grand Wash.





The Blues above the same reef, with the color quickly fading.





As Sol disappeared, the full moon rose to show other sides and secrets in the rock.





Finally, the light faded and if I hadn't three of my dear children in the truck shaking their heads at the silly father they depended upon to get them home safely, I might have fled with that light into corners of the desert.





The remainder of the trip was thus until the last few miles of Salina Canyon, where the fog sucked us in to it's sarcophagus' web, as we sped on toward home, hearth and the moon and stars above Spring City's refuge.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

It seems as we all race toward our individual and assorted personal demises, that our species is fast forgetting the collective "why".

As the saying goes, each "earns his bread by the sweat his brow", and through that sweat the bulk of the carbohydrates from previous meals are spent on the perpetual processes of life, to make more bread while associating with those who enjoy the same work and bread. The bread could be literal or figurative, monetary or literary, but the sweat still produces the bread and the people crave each other. The bread is the connective tissue of the spirit, a sacrament of each day's flow.

There are many who still do so, whether by choice or by necessity, but the preponderance of those who would eat bread prefer bonny sweet pastries, prepared by others and paid for by other's sweat, as long as that sweat has no physical contact with the food itself.

The eaters would sit, on velvet cushions, babbling about fluff and fashion, carried there and back by the latest conveyances with all available conveniences.

No wonder we're so fat and bored. We're avoiding the real reasons to eat.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

I took my leave Sundee Morn to strap on the old snowshoes and head up toward Grizzly Gulch via the Hell Hole. Great snow, superlative scenery and dandy temperatures, topped off by that fleeting spice named solitude and a dash of physical exertion.

Wouldn't have changed much if I could have.







Saturday, January 15, 2005



As water about to boil is cloudy with intent and heat

I sometimes quake at the appearance of the world about me,

a numenous dread of power unshown.

perhaps a brief moment of spiritual vanity,

to pretend to a sense of things far larger than me

something beneath and beyond and

written of as fact in a thousand books and holy writ.



Ours is a body of time,

some live within the veins and organs of the body

ranging over the vast skin of a penumberal kingdom within

and without;

still, the thin line is woven through my thoughts

by ghosts and proper souls alike.

And time through arteries and organs in my body

spins and wobbles

weaves and feasts

on a hundred intentions unfollowed each day.



Having arrived at every decision through care

and a certain amount of divine indifference,

God's shoulder remains a place to lean upon-

process completed,

from sufficient to unnumbered to overrun;

we recognize ourself again

as if from the outside.

Friday, January 7, 2005

Posit: One of the greatest problems in our society is a reliance upon rigidity in enforcement of standards, rather than rigor.

Sunday, January 2, 2005

Wishes to you for a happy and hopeful new year. I hope there is much to rejoice in and look forward to in the latest arbitrarily renewed Gregorian calender year!