Up in the West

Thinking about life in North America, and what an incredible thing we have here.

I’m out in the mountains, away from home mountains, down further south in southern mountains.

It’s pretty out here and up high I’m out of breath.

And I’m used to hiking. I’m used to running and biking in mountains.

And still I lose my breath down here, even doing less strenuous of a push.

Acre is doing well, though his paws are sore. As opposed to the predominantly dirt trails he’s accustomed to, these higher mountains are granite and sharp. Today’s he’s taking a RRR day. Rest. Relax. Recoup. He’s bored with it too, already, but we do some mellow frisbee and he’s placated for the moment.

I’ve been completely out of focus since leaving on this trip. I’m a sucker for routine at home, and able to build some productivity by rinse, wash, repeating, day in and day out. And due to the nature of my work, I rarely take days off in the traditional sense. I’m perpetually checking in, looking over things, working at a steady pace, intermixed with day to day life. I do well with routine.

But I also do well breaking it. And in two ways. I both enjoy the break, and I enjoy the return to slamming back into getting things done.

But right now I’m in the not getting things done phase. I’m on the road, and seeing new things. And this break from the routine allows for a mental freedom to simply not do the day to day things my day typically entails.

These periods of break are important from time to time. It’s a period of refocus, a shift in perspective, and a shift in overall viewshed. I tend to focus so keenly in on the same things over and over that when I pull away I see I’ve been missing quite a lot.

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It’s Thursday in America. In the last two weeks I’ve seen a lot of highway, and a good bit of back country.

I’m still catching up.

Driving south from Montana we passed through areas I’d never been before. Vast areas, areas bigger and broader and wider than I ever knew, and this from someone that has been exploring the west for over 3 decades. Utah, while I’ve not seen even close to all of it, I’ve been around most of the regions, and know to be far more enormous than it’s given credit for. Montana? I’ve embarrassingly only explored the western 1/3 of the state. Idaho, I’m familiar with the panhandle and south western corner, but it has a ton I know I don’t know. Nevada is of course… Nevada. I’ve driven up and down it a few times, and while I’ve barely explored off it’s main roads, I know it to be vast. Wildly enormous and vast. But I guess I thought I new Wyoming and Colorado better than I do. I’ve explored both states, but what I realized on this trip is how little of them I’ve actually explored. Entire sections of the state I haven’t even driven through, let alone gotten out of the car to explore.

And for no particular reason I guess, it struck me. Holy shit this is a big, big country. And while a lot of the corners I’ve been drawn too have begun to feel a little crowded, there are a lot of areas without much going on.

Tourism wise anyways.

There is plenty going on otherwise.

And that all tied in to a thing I’ve been thinking about a lot.

We were driving a stretch I posted a photo of last week when I decided to pull over to pee. It was a drawn out dirt road stretch south of Rock Springs, Wyoming, and we’d been driving the two lane county highway for some while and still hadn’t seen a single car or truck.

Not a single one.

A sign warned of an abrupt edge and we found the hum of the car shift from that of asphalt to gravel, but not rocky gravel, something more like a smooth dirt with rocks. It quieted. I slowed the truck, though not much, because while it was dirt, it was still nice driving, and wide. And as I looked out, I realized how very, very wide it all was. They call Montana “big sky country” but ever since I moved west in 1994 I’ve thought it was a name perhaps misplaced and meant even more for Wyoming. If pressed I’d put my money on Wyoming’s sky being bigger. Broader. Wider.

I checked the rear view mirror out of habit but still no one. Nothing. So in a beautiful swoop of road, red rocks sweeping out to the sides over a cresting wave of hills, I pulled off the truck to pee.

Parked atop this wave, windows down, I hesitated to turn the truck off. An instinctual caution of road travel… What if it doesn’t turn back on? If you are somewhere, this is never a thought. But when you are in the middle of absolute nowhere, you find yourself asking that each time before turning the key off.

But I turned it. I wanted to hear the silence.

And I found it immediately.

A slight breeze shifted through the windows. It was hot but felt nice. I looked up and then down the wide dirt swath that had lead us here and would lead us eventually out, a train track of a line, but smooth, broad, and eternal. I hoped the truck would start when I asked it to. There was no reason to think it wouldn’t, but I hoped it none the less.

But in the meantime it was off, so I grabbed my camera and walked around the car to pee.

Ella and Acre were already out of the car and walk up the hillside next to us. It looked a little snakey but they headed up regardless, and with open dirt, how snakey could it be? (Probably very!)

I joined them momentarily, and we all stood in marvel. Some marvel at city scapes. I marvel at Vastness.

After a few minutes Ella went to the truck and made some snacks and got Acre some water to drink. I took a few photos and we lingered. A few minutes a single truck could be seen, way out at first, then down the hill, and then coming up towards us. The white truck, clearly a corporate truck of some sort, slowed and the driver’s eyes went down and swept past our tires before he looked up and met mine, and waved that sort of nod of a question, and I waved back and he accelerated again.

That is how it works out here. Clearly. You see someone stop, you slow and make sure it’s all going alright, and if not, you stop and help, because if you don’t there is a chance there won’t be anyone else. But he kept going and a minute later the truck vanished over the winding hill to the south, where we’d be heading soon.

He’d seen me with my camera. He knew why we were stopped, but I wondered what he was working on. In this area it is likely either related to oil and gas or minerals. Mining. Or something related.

We eventually hopped back in the truck (it fired up no problem) and continued down the road. I found myself driving slower than I needed but I wanted to take it all in, I wanted to smell this land, let the curves take shape in my eyes, in my mind, let the sea of sage foam up around me. And it just kept going. And going. And going.

I love this sort of drive. Plenty of quiet. Plenty of time to think. And not a singular distraction of traffic.

People work out here, but not many. When they do, they are in high clearance trucks with good tires.

This led me down the rabbit hole of thought between the rural and urban divide we are witnessing in the US, and even around the world right now. It got me thinking about the importance of the electoral college. It got me thinking about our education system and what it’s missing.

The urban/rural divide is real and it’s an important thing to take a look at. People in cities increasingly take their infrastructure for granted without the realization of where their life style originates. This began in earnest when globalization took deep affect in the late 90’s - as we exported much of the production of things.

The US is uniquely positioned between two oceans and in the enormous swath of land in between sits a plethora of resources of every variety. But as globalization took hold we began to export our extraction in the name of saving land, and the production of materials under the goal of cheap labor. Of course we didn’t actually reduce pollution, but just exported it, and in some cases we actually likely increased it by sending it countries without any regulation or thought on how to keep it contained or minimized.

Fifty years ago people in a city might well have had family or friends in an urban area connecting them to the production of things, but now not nearly as much. The resulting mentality of this disconnect has advanced to the stage where many in the cities assume that the work that happens in rural areas is unnecessary and/or just a negative. Many not only have no idea where their food comes from, but have no idea what it takes to create metal, harvest wood, build machines, all the things that create our infrastructure.

I’m not pretending I know either. As I look out these roads and imagine a mine where ore might be extracted, I have no idea how metal is made, let alone how a machine built to mold the tools, parts, and pieces of all the modern infrastructures we take for granted come from. I have no idea how an engine is made. I don’t know how fuel is refined. I don’t know how circuitry works. But I know enough to know that it most certainly relies on the folks that live and work out in these remote, challenging environments far away from the cities where fellow citizens enjoy the benefits of these tasks. I know we rely on these people more now than ever for the infrastructure we assume will be working in the morning. Wires that carry our electric loads. Pipes that carry our water and shit. Beams that hold up our homes and businesses. Food that keeps us running. Fuels that keep our things running. Roads that allow all these pieces and parts and tools and toys to be carried on.

And while we enjoy these things it’s wild to me to see the naivety of those that say things like “pick up trucks should be illegal” or who generalize that rural people don’t deserve representation because they are all a bunch of backwards racists anyways. Yes, I’ve heard these conversations, both online and in person. And it’s the most ludicrous form of foolishness and self centered assumption. Campaigns against domestic mining playing out from urban iphone users is a form of irony I can’t help but chuckle at. They aren’t against mining. They are against seeing the mining.

But is it really better to just export all these things so that we can take pride in putting the headache in other people’s back yards, usually in countries without any form of representation or even ability to benefit from the work? I don’t know. I’m not so sure. In all this wide open space I can’t help but wonder. Coltan, a key component to so many of our devices, including the one I’m typing on right now, is often mined in the Congo by children. Is a mine better there than here? Is it better to ship all our food from S. America up to here so it can be cheaper? Is it really better to clear cut timber across the ocean so we don’t have to see the scars and stumps here? I’m not saying I have the answer, but I definitely think we have to ask ourselves the question and be honest about the full picture of the situation rather than pretend that by merely exporting things we feel uncomfortable looking at aren’t happening because we hire someone else to do the dirty work.

The dirty work is still happening, and often is dirtier elsewhere. And it seems like done here we might not only do it better, but we might build an economy less fragile and reliant on others. I can’t help but think this. Don’t think less of me please, I’m raised with the American “can do” attitude. I tend to default that we can do it better if we do it ourselves. But I’m also just out here thinking. I may change my thought in ten minutes. The highway of the mind curves like this road. New landscapes come into view. New terrain unfolds before me. I see more. I see further. And as I see more, new thoughts emerge and play out as I see the landscape further in both miles and years. I think about how there is this sudden conversation in America about people wanting to upend the way we allow the most basic form of governance and representation, the idea being floated that we get rid of the electoral college and I think about how this would destroy the rural communities, a destruction caused by the inability of people in a handful of cities to understand that life in rural America is completely different than their own, yet fully tied, integrated, and intertwined with it. These are luxury beliefs to think that everyone should live like a handful of cities. Foolish if you ask me while I’m feeling spicy. Ignorant if you ask me when I’m feeling more patient. The lives in America are vast and diverse beyond what many are taught by our modern education system. We desperately need to return to the basics with an emphasis to how things are grown, extracted, built, and dispersed. People have come to assume the food will always appear and the pipes will always flow without any notion of how or where these things come from. We need to teach these things again, and build our re-appreciation for the fact that these things don’t just appear. They take the contribution and work of countless people in distant and remote places living life styles we don’t necessarily need to understand, but need to accept and appreciate, to make this all happen.

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The week is passing fast. I’m still out here, but now sitting in a backyard, watching Acre as he lays belly sideways next to me. He’s had a great week and a rough two days. After a repeated sequence of big mountain hikes over the course of 8 days, we noticed him two days ago licking his paws. At first glance I didn’t think much of it… big granite mountains, lots of running and a lot of miles covered. Sore paws were maybe just part of it. But then yesterday we saw he was honed in on one particular paw. And he was licking it raw between two toes. By last night it was obvious there was something in it, and we couldn’t see it or find it, and his day of RRR did not fix anything but rather, it’s gotten worse. We went out at 10pm to hunt down a cone so we could try to get him to morning without the obsessive licking. Then this morning we were able to get him into the Alpine Vet Clinic here in Durango and by noon he was on the table, drugged, and they’d pulled out a wicked big grass seed that had burrowed deep into his paw. By 1:30 he was back here with us, drugged deep in blissful sleep. Only now at 8:30 or so is he showing signs of consciousness. So we cooked him a little chicken to go with his anti-biotics, and he clearly is feeling a little better about his paw, even if still grogged out on the drugs.

The sunsets down south here are wonderful, and somehow, perhaps due to the elevation, regardless of being far further south and close to the desert once the sun goes down, cool air moves in. Montana is hot right now, and settled in smoke, so I don’t mind being down here. We’d been planning another jaunt into the mountains but now the immediate plans are on hold for a few days of chill with Acre’s paw. But according to vet diagnosis he should be running full in less than a week.

A side note on Acre, whom many of you have gotten to know here. At the vet clinic he fast won friends and the concensus was that in his two short hours there he’d won the hearts and minds of all in the building as one of their favorites of all time. He’s a charming little bastard and I’m glad it was not too serious, though it would have been a brutal weekend had we not caught this and been the back country. I’m so incredibly appreciative of people with the medical skill to help animals (and people!)

I sit here now in the cool evening, pink clouds setting overhead, crickets taken the sound arena. The sound is strong and in waves and beautiful. I sit here wondering a little about my creek back home. It’s certainly been built up with piles of rocks from the Montana tourists that can not help but stacking stones. But in the few hours a day people are there, not much else has changed. The eagles have no doubt been active and likely moved on from the spot. The two young ones were flying before I left. I’m not sure how long they will remain in the area. Perhaps they are already gone.

I sit here thinking about the little eco systems I get to know. Some developed. Others not. The country is full of these places. Places where we live, places we pass through, and a vast enormous that go on without us at all. I love all of them. I appreciate all of them. And I really think it’s one of the most wonderful times to be alive on planet earth. I feel bad for all the people stuck in the doom cycle and the more I’m off the internet, wrapped up in movement around these new places, wrapped up in a new book (I’m reading the Count of Monte Cristo - so far 10/10) the more I realize how much time I waste and have wasted online, most of all the short form nonsense of supposed bite size media. Bite size media is poisoning the masses. Ill thought out ideas, represented in short snippets, rarely in depth, rarely in deep thought, and almost never with even an ounce of historic perspective.

I think about division it all causes. I think about the division based not on specific substance, but on hyperbolic rumor and gossip. And while we have an enormous amount to work on improving in this country, it can’t begin or won’t begin until we acknowledge that an enormous and beneficial shift has been made for humans around the world in the last 100+ years and the train of progress we are on need not be so scary, though moving into the unknown always has and always will contain an element of fear and distrust for what time is unfolding. And the things we need to fix, while enormous and daunting can be built into, remedied, piece by piece as we contribute our best to our day to days. Contribution is the key. And the knowledge that we can not ever force others to do what we’d like - that is not how this works, but rather it takes us working for ourselves and our loved ones, with a bit of grit and tenacity and the knowledge that we may never affect a single policy on a global or even national scale, but we can change the lives of our family and friends for the better with every single piece we build in our lives.

The internet wants us to believe otherwise. It wants us to believe that every single thing we do will affect the other side of the globe, as if butterflies in Montana will save lives in Asia. I don’t by the Butterfly Affect, not in that way. But I do believe in living locally. Living a life that builds and contributes simultaneously, one that wants less from others and expects more from myself. If we seek our validation from others, or seek our happiness from the deeds of others we will perpetually live in disappointment. Have you driven through cities lately? As much as I compliment some people, at other moments I drive through main strips with the endless chains of fastfood and plastic culture, and disappointment inevitably slips in.

And yet somehow I can still find the beauty in it all. That is the way this magnified and exaggerated modern world works, and I’m trying my best to accept it, even when I’m trying to escape it, because in the big picture, what an amazing world. What an amazing marvel. We have access to the wildest nature and the most infrastructured developments and the ability to pass seamless in between and back and forth across them at will, ad nauseam.

I’ll take it. I'll take it and the more I’m in the more I hope when my life passes I’ll have contributed at least a few good parts to it. It’s why I love making coffee. It’s why I love taking and sharing photos and writing words that share ideas and stories. As I accelerate into this wild west I love to share the things I get the chance to see that others are too busy or don’t have the opportunity to see. I hope to share the passing ideas others are too busy or to distracted to happen upon. We are living in a golden age and the world isn’t ending. The doom sellers are doing just that… selling. Don’t buy into their market which is full of fear, hate, animosity, jealousy, and half baked nonsense. Buy from those that have the goods. Build the goods. Find the mystery and lean into the unknown. The best way to overcome fear is to launch into what scares you the most head first and find out as much as you can about why you are afraid.

Laying in the tent the other night, lightening booming in every direction directly overhead, my sweet darling beside me asked “is there something we should do?”

And to her credit, it was powerfully frightening (though you’d never have known from Acre, who was sawing logs between us.)

But my answer was simply “all we can do is lay here and enjoy it” because sometimes that is all you can do when things are out of your control. It’s in those moments when I feel the least powerful that I lean into the mystery of the universe and life on earth. There are forces beyond our control, and those forces are in general far more powerful than even the most powerful of human kind. And those forces of nature are a worthy thing to behold, to sit back, open our mind to, with all our senses.

That night I laid in quiet awe of the sort of storm I haven’t sat out in for a few years. But I love a good storm. I love the crashing of lightening on peaks around me and echoing it makes off granite walls. I love the flapping of the tent wings in the wind, and the sound of torrential rain pounding on a tent tarp just feet above my head and on the lake just feet away. There is so much awe created in such a storm. And while I could lay in fear about what it might bring, what good does that fear do when there is no action that could possibly be taken to change it. We are here. We are on earth now. We are living on the most incredibly and well suited planet we could ever imagine. How incredibly awesome it is.