Road Trips – Page 2

June 24, 2010 1 Comment

Picture of mountains. — Bugaboo Range in the Canadian Rockies.

This morning my thoughts are jumpy enough that I probably don’t need the second cup of coffee I am drinking. Its not yet 9 o’clock in the morning and already the heavy heat of DC summer is seeping in around the windows.

Yesterday I wrote a bit about the mindset of early pioneers and explorers, and wondered what their thoughts may have been on the eve of their adventures. Its a mindset that is probably completely lost to us today: the contours of the globe are too well known, our coordinates easily programmed in GPS devices, and SATphones keeping us connected from virtually anywhere on earth.

So if not danger and discovery, what am I seeking? I can think of many answers to that question, all of them true but none of them complete.

I am going for the search. Sure, this territory is well-canvassed and well-traveled. But it is new to me, and I am new to it. It is the newness that captivates me, and the sense of being lost in something much bigger than myself.

Sometimes the past surges forward and crashes over us like a wave. A few years ago I spent some time in England and studied in Canterbury, where I made many visits to Canterbury Cathedral. This ancient edifice of English Christianity still hangs timelessly over the city, its stones as cool and quiet as they were a millennium ago. I remember kneeling in one of the side chapels in the crypt, alone, the patter of tourists’ feet echoing in the main passage, and being swept away by the feeling that someone else might have been praying in that very spot 500, 600, 800, or 1,000 years ago. Separated in time, we became united in geography. It was a moment I wanted to sit still for.

The photo in this post is of the Bugaboo Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. They run roughly parallel to the Rockies and are breathtakingly beautiful, the weather fickle as it is at high altitudes, and their silent immensity giving the impression that the world is nothing but mountains. It is this sense of immersion that stops me in my tracks. In Washington, I am part of many things – work, friendships, professional networks, volunteerism – but there is no single experience that defines my day to day life.

Out in bigger spaces, with bigger vistas, maybe there is the possibility of being overwhelmed in the best possible sense.

72 Hours

Roadtrips are as American as apple pie. There comes a point-probably many points-where we have to go through the rite of passage to pack up the car, top off the gas tank, pile in the CDs, and drive off in search of adventure.

In less than 72 hours I’m diving deep into this fantasyland myself. For the past 10 years I have daydreamed about exploring the reaches of the Far West. Maybe it was the result of growing up with too much Little House on the Prairie. Maybe it’s because as an East Coaster, I was (and continue to be) fascinated by any place where the horizon goes on unbroken. Or perhaps I am finally getting around to taking Horace Greeley’s advice, issued to disaffected DC denizens almost a century and a half ago, to “Go West!”

I’m not sure what Lewis and Clark were thinking as they rode West and into the unknown, or what went through the mind of kids trying their luck as Pony Express riders, or immigrants who packed their bags and their hopes and traveled towards the setting sun. My trip is going to be an easy one in comparison, my route neatly laid out in Google maps, my car stocked with snacks and air conditioning, and my gear designed with all the technological advancements of the past two centuries. No canvas tents or itchy wool or nasty hardtack biscuits. I’m only a temporary pioneer.

The places I intend to see are iconic. Texas, larger than life and as John Steinbeck once said “a state of mind.” Dodge City, KS. Cody, WY, which has had a summertime rodeo going strong since the 1930s and performers who reenact frontier gunfights every evening. Bozeman, MT, which people say is beautiful as God’s own country. And finally, Deadwood, SD made famous by the TV miniseries and where the hotel owned by the town’s former sheriff still stands and is reportedly haunted by his ghost.

This is where I’m headed, into the dust and memories, where past and present and future overlap. Once upon a time…and off into the sunset.