We spend the morning in our pajamas coloring a box fort with markers, playing hotel upstairs, but not in the toy room because it is closed for cleaning, and eating snacks and doing paper crafts while episodes of Bluey stream endlessly on the wall altar. A brief trip to Grandma’s turns into an extended break for me, where I wander around Guitar Center and then make my monthly visit to the pawnshop by the office. This time, I find a Remarkable2 e-ink tablet on which I write this piece. We round off the evening at the county pool, doing underwater somersaults and discovering the joys of learning to swim. In the eyes of a six-year-old girl, it is “the best day ever.” In the car, she can’t wait to call Grandma to tell her she can now swim. We arrive home to her aunt visiting, delivering donuts, and discussing the ups and downs of family life in an era of surprise visits from Lady Death. Now the blanket fort that has covered the living room for two days has been dismantled, and the weekend wind-down routine is in progress, later than usual, but comforting in the security of a fortunate suburban life.
Here at the Pinion Ridge Rest Area, it is as good a place as any to finish this “One Month of Summer” series of journals. On the nature trail, I stopped at two separate ant hills. One is the same one I saw last time with huge red ants the size of rice grains. While I could not hold the phone still enough to record usable videos, I noticed in the slow-motion that it seemed like the ants were moving at average speed. I had to double-take to see if they were moving as fast as they appeared once the slow motion stopped. The ants on the other hill were far smaller and moved at the same speed as the slowed-down ants. The red ants took an immediate interest in my presence and wanted to crawl on me, while the others didn’t notice me.
Yesterday, as I drove past the dam and the torn-up and blasted landscape of the phosphate mine, I thought about the content I want to put here in the future. My thought is to do topically focused essays to make this site a magazine for whatever topics interest me. This is conceptually more appealing than random journal entries. I have tarried here for long enough and should get back. So, until next time.
I was caught in rock springs for longer today than anticipated, so I rescheduled my meeting at the flaming gorge dam for next week. I will still be driving through and look forward to seeing it. I have always loved going on stretches of road I have never seen before. This bit between Rock Springs and Vernal is one I have never driven. Even though this landscape looks no different from anywhere else in this region, there are always little treasures. There can be endless miles of rolling hills, scrub oak, and sagebrush, and you may come upon something unexpected. For people driving through the back roads of western Utah, coming across something like the Sun Tunnels would be a complete head-scratcher. I don’t know what made me think of the Sun Tunnels just now, just that it is in the middle of nowhere and very unique. I wrote about it in a previous iteration of my blog, so if I can find the original piece and images, I will post them here.
I pass miles of wooden snow fences as I drive through these open plains. They stand as wooden guardians in this barren land, distant cousins to the stone sentinels worshiped by the ancients. They remind me of soldiers lined up for battle or the Maginot line in France. How helpless we are against the forces of nature. We do what we can, little as it is, but we have done more than enough to accelerate our demise. That day is not today, however. Today is a quiet drive through an unknown land, accompanied by the wind, clouds, and blue sky. Today is the day of the Blue Sky Church.
There is a spot just passed the Utah-Wyoming border when you come around the bend and are faced with a triangular cliff that looks like a monstrous tooth emerging from the hillside. As you pass further around the bend, it continues on and on. Amazing. What is it about cliffs that are so fascinating and terrifying? As I mentioned a few days ago, I don’t like being on top of them, but seeing jagged cliffs always makes me smile. Maybe that makes me a cliff hugger.
I just left the dam and am driving through the forest. The sun casts light rays through gaps in the clouds, washing the trees with beautiful light. Hues of green refract through raindrops pattering on the windshield. I’m glad I’m not on a timetable this afternoon because this is an excellent drive through nature. I’m driving 10 miles an hour, just one in a long line of cars stuck behind a tanker truck turtling its way down the mountain. A forest of pine trees like this is uncommon in Utah, at least in my usual stomping grounds. They are everywhere in the northwest, where I would likely move were it not for my family and job.
There was a baby cow furtively trying to cross the road. His mother was nearby on the shoulder, munching on grass. Earlier, because I was walking down the hillside to take pictures of the snow fences, I passed several manure deposits, evidence of the open range in this area where ranchers let their cattle roam free on the landscape. I’m sure a lot is written about how this has changed the West over the last 100+ years. It makes me wonder what this looked like when the only inhabitants were the Native Americans. If we live in a simulation, as many scientists believe, there might be a way to travel through time and see what it was like before.
I barely had room for my backpack when I went to Vernal this week, so no stargazing was done. However, it will be clear this coming week, and I will have room. There was an article in the news about Saturn’s opposition on August 27th. So for several weeks on either side of that date, it will be close to the earth and tilted at an ideal angle for viewing the rings. My replacement stargazing binoculars also came yesterday, so I can bring both sets and try to host a small star party. This was one of the original intentions of getting the telescope in the first place. Part of this new role is connecting with people personally, which was initially intimidating. Especially with hunting and fishing being such a big part of the culture, but outside my expertise. I needed to find my way to do it, and this seemed like the way. We will see if it works.
On Monday, I will go inside the Flaming Gorge Dam, which reminds me of my ill-fated Boy Scout cliff-jumping adventure. Everyone thought it was about fifty feet tall, and all the older boys jumped off, but all the other younger boys didn’t want to do it. We’d been jumping off smaller cliffs for a few days already, so I felt like I could handle the big one and win my place in the pantheon of bravery. At that age, I lived in the shadow of my star-athlete older brother and always sought peer approval. This was a very tall order for a half-blind teenager who stayed after school to play Dungeons & Dragons and carved swords out of wood in the backyard. He approached my parents at one point, concerned that I had a copy of the Satanic Bible and Viking runes under my bed. “It’s just a phase,” they told him, which was true. … sort of.
Since I’d never jumped from a cliff that high before, I didn’t know the proper way to do it. One boy from another troop at the top told me to grab hold of my life jacket and jump. I didn’t realize he meant to hold your life jacket in your hand and jump. A light breeze carried shouts from below, “jump, jump!”. The water was impossibly far, so I jumped before I had more time to think about it and chicken out. Writing this now, I realize that my current nervousness around cliffs is likely due to what happened next. I was only in the air for a few seconds, but it felt long enough to play a game of solitaire. When I hit the water, momentum and gravity wanted to pull my legs into the depths, but the lifejacket kept my torso at the top. I felt something pop in my back, and I couldn’t move. Dave was sitting in a canoe nearby, and I’d never seen anyone jump in the water so fast. Using the proper rescue techniques we’d all learned in our First Aid Merit Badge training, he extracted me from the water, and I was brought to a nearby Army medical tent. I’m not sure why it was there or what was happening, but I’m glad it was. The doctor cut off my favorite BYU shirt, and after some prodding and watching me wiggle my toes, he said I’d probably just severely pulled muscles in my back.
I don’t remember going to the doctor after we got home, but I’m sure I did since the note I received was used with great relish in subsequent years to get out of participating in Jr. High Wrestling. It is also a likely contributor to my back troubles in recent years.
A bearded gentleman just came by to pick up the damaged truck cover we’ve been storing in the garage, so now it’s time to ride bikes in the park.
After it got dark last week, I stuck around after all. Bug spray made it so much more pleasant than a few weeks ago. That was the first time I saw the Milky Way since getting the scope. I won’t drone on about it, but the entire night was infinitely superior to sitting in my hotel on a screen. There was a mountain blocking the view of Saturn that night, but I set up in the backyard on Saturday night and had a great view. I am going out this week and should have room again to take it. If I leave early enough, I will have time on the way out to stop at the rest stop to walk the path.
I discovered that a former coworker was found dead in his truck from a heart attack on Saturday. He always said he would work until the day he died. It’s too bad that it happened when he did. He was 62, stubborn, and refused to see a doctor about anything. He spent the last few years of his life seeing fresh sights on the open road, free from family obligations and office drudgery. I was told it must have happened quickly, which is a mercy.
This entry is being written in my journal. The first entry in this book is July 1, 2007, and there is about another year’s worth of pages left, depending on how often I write. I think I will do one of these series every season—entries as often as possible, chronicling my current state of life. I can already tell this serves the initial purpose of re-igniting my creative juices. My frame of mind isn’t now a question of if I will write or do something else. It is a matter of what I will write about in the time I have. Skye will return from her evening neighborhood jaunts at any moment, so I will end here.
The water of Steinaker Reservoir is eating the shoreline, giving rise to skeletal husks of Cottonwood trees and scrub oak. A blue and green dragonfly buzzes back and forth at the base of the cliff, hunting for its dinner or whatever dragonflies search for on a warm summer evening when a cool breeze blows. Artificial waves break on the shore, birthed by the roar of trailer-towed watercraft that cost more than my parents paid for their house. I have a field recorder running at my feet to record the sound of the waves. However, I forgot to bring a windscreen, so I’ll post it here if the audio is usable. (Note: it wasn’t usable)
The sun hovers above the horizon, casting that golden glow photographers love so much. I am undecided if I will stick around after dark to set up the scope. The sky is remarkably clear compared to a few hours ago, and my parking spot is sheltered from the road. The air here smells so clean. An illusion since a haze of pollution hangs over the countryside, and Vernal is only a mile away, with countless oil wells dotting the landscape just out of sight. Come winter, I will miss sitting out here in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. There will be more stargazing hours in the day, but they will be cold.
Something is enchanting about looking at the stars and planets with your own eyes. Anyone outside a third-world country has seen pictures of the outer planets, but witnessing the rings of Saturn and the clouds of Jupiter, accompanied by its sparkling moons, should be enough to spark wonder in even the most jaded of souls.
Faced with a drive for several hours through the rain and mist, past Strawberry Reservoir, and over the mountain pass, I will try something new today; dictation. (Note: this was an enormous pain to decipher, so I don’t know how often I’ll do this). I have been listening to the book The Passage by Justin Cronin, and in the bit I just listened to, the characters are getting settled into an abandoned summer camp. It made me think of when I was maybe eleven or twelve and went to a Lutheran summer camp in the Sawtooth Mountains for a week. Detailed memories are hazy, but I remember how green it was, the big lodge with rows of tables, and boys and girls both homesick and excited to be away from home. When the boys in my cabin found out I was a Mormon boy, I remember them poking fun that Joseph Smith believed there was life on the sun and how could I possibly be part of such a stupid religion. I don’t remember how I handled it, probably said nothing and walked away. Engaging with such people is always futile. Two counselors took a particular interest in me and looking back, they probably saw the situation and wanted to protect me from the others. I don’t remember their names, but they were boyfriend and girlfriend, probably not over 25 years old, which at the time was ancient, but now seems young. I remember how protective they were, trying to make me feel comforted.
This was the camp where one activity was the Jungle Thrash, where we ran through the forest smashing sticks against trees and fallen logs, pretending to be chased or chasing something. I wrote about it in the next year’s Writing Festival for the Granite School District. I came across the book a few months ago and reread the piece. How proud I was of the time, even then, trying to capture the essence of adventure and share it with others.
As the rain spatters on the windshield in this canyon I’ve driven so many times, first in the snow and ice of winter, now in the heat and welcome rain, I find myself in a space between two worlds. During the day, working to keep the industrial world going. The machinery that fuels our way of life is constant and drives our hunger for electricity, plastic, glass, electronics, toilets, flowing water, and all the rest. Feeding that machine daily is good in challenging and interesting ways, but doing that strains the world around us. Holes are drilled in the ground and the Earth’s blood is sucked into pipelines and turned into the fuel of civilization. Great bulldozers plow through the earth, throwing their contents onto great conveyor belts where precious metals are pulled out, melted down, and turned into circuit boards, jewelry, and junk. The detritus is dumped over an entire mountain range, the waste so toxic that great troughs funnel runoff into a giant chemical bath visible from space.
I have a good idea. Let’s move that lake somewhere else and sell the lakebed to land developers to build thousands of houses, apartment complexes, and stores. It will be great place to live, so beautiful, like a quaint lake community. Built on toxic waste. Where does it stop? Do we want it to stop? Is it even possible? I think we are blind, willfully so, by the hunger of our nature. By our need for comfort, shelter, food, happiness, and to fuel our addictions, whatever they are.
Now I’m driving through a stretch where I am told not to let my truck break down. Lots of squatters and meth heads in this area. Who knows what would happen to you if you broke down in the night? You might just disappear. There might be some truth to that, but primarily urban legend based on a kernel of truth and overblown into something just fun to tell. I remember driving through here years ago when we had several winters in a row and very little snow. The entire landscape was brown and dry—a far cry from how it looks now.
Going out here to the Uintah Basin where the entire economy is built on the up and down cycles of oil and gas. It’s the first area to crash when the price of oil goes down and the last to start back up when it rises. A hard life in this area. Years ago, the Rolling Stones did an article called What’s Killing the Babies of Vernal, Utah? Oil, fracking, chemicals, all of it. But without this, there is no shopping at TJ Maxx. No buying Doritos at the gas station. There is no family vacation. No beach towels under the sun with a cold drink watching the children play in the water. All of it is a giant house of cards. If you shake loose one at the bottom, it all could come crashing down. Of course, that’s the constant fearmongering we hear on the news. Don’t let this person be elected, or they will put your children into camps with microchips for brains. This person in office is the devil! They don’t have our values and must be purged no matter the cost. All of it is ridiculous. Just focus on living a good life. Take care of your family. Be a responsible steward, no matter how small of a piece of our planet you have.
Geez, calm down Bryan.
Now I passed a rest stop I’ve never stopped at. It reminds me of our summer trips to the northwest when we would escape the heat for two weeks, retreating to the cascade mountains. We called it The Watermill rest stop. Just passed the Utah-Idaho border. There was a working watermill and an open grass area where we loved to stop and play. It’s been years since I’ve been there. I don’t even know if it still exists. I loved those road trips. To have days upon days in the car where I could just read. One year, I read an entire bag full of John Sanford novels. It was great. I feel bad for people that can’t read in the car. Soon I will come to the bridge I took pictures of last week, where I had my telescope set up and got eaten alive by mosquitoes.
I am on my way home now and just stopped at that rest stop. I’m very glad that I did. It’s called the Pinyon Ridge Rest Stop, because of all the pinion trees surrounding the area. A pathway goes around the back, giving a scenic view of the countryside. It smells like Christmas trees and sage. Along the path, there was a little hole with hundreds of ants crawling around. I tried taking a time-lapse video but couldn’t hold it steady for long enough without the ants crawling all over me. Maybe on a future trip, I will bring a tripod and try it again. How many times have I driven past but never stopped, just wanting to get home or get to my appointment, never taking a moment just to breathe and step out into Nature? I will be stopping there again. Maybe not on every trip, but maybe so. It is a nice counterpoint to the reason I am out here.
While walking along the path, Skye called, wondering if I’d ever seen that old cartoon with the coyote and the roadrunner and if I had seen the penguin one yet. I told her I used to love watching that cartoon, but I don’t remember the penguin one. She said she would wait for me on the porch when I get home, maybe watching her iPad if I take too long. That is why I do this.
I’ve missed several days of what I intended to be a thirty-day series, but I suppose that’s ok since I’m only doing this for myself. There needs to be a balance between making these mundane journal entries and mini-essays about whatever is on my mind. I now realize that experiential writing is much faster on a computer. It’s not as rewarding as longhand, but when every spare minute of your day counts, you can get a lot more down using a computer.
Horse riding on Saturday morning was a blast for Skye. Gary and Cathy are great with horses, and their arena is perfect for kids. Skye babbled with Cathy the entire time she was going around the arena. When Skye gets to spend dedicated time with an adult she is comfortable with, she will talk nonstop about anything and everything until they cry uncle. Good thing there are no secrets in our household because if there were, they would not be secret for long.
I’m being called to finish bath time, so I’ll end here.
Time today is even shorter. I have a brief moment in our brother campout while Trevor and Dave are still getting their sleeping gear cleaned up, and I have a few quiet moments to reflect before the sun rises and turns everything to slag. A guy in the next site is loudly telling everyone about something incestuous, oblivious that all these campsites are packed in like sardines. Some things people should keep to themselves.
This is the first time the four of us have taken a trip together, and it has been as crazy as you might expect. Overnight car camping trips within close proximity to a Maverik aren’t really camping. They are adventures. Last night we returned to the campsite after midnight to find all of our camp chairs stolen. The tent looked strange, but we soon discovered someone put the chairs and water jug inside. Apparently, while we were out, the tent wanted to go to the ranch. It was cloudy last night, but it cleared up enough to give everyone a brief glimpse of Saturn, Jupiter, and the moon. The camp host just came by to tell us she’s the one who weighed our tent down with all our stuff. We are getting packed up now, so I’ll sign off.
Today would usually be a day I would skip, but since I want to be consistent and not fall off the wagon, I’m here after midnight, giving a brief account of the day. From the moment I woke up until now, it’s been nonstop. I’m sure my version of nonstop is much tamer than what many people have to go through just to survive.
Get up early, see a customer, drive two and a half hours back to Salt Lake for an office BBQ, weekly review meetings, fix the Python script that keeps breaking because Microsoft and Google keep changing things, and try to clean up the office a little bit. Get home, go to Thanksgiving Point to watch Tangled under the stars. It was a good time, but schlepping all our chairs and other stuff across the gardens wasn’t fun, but seeing how much fun all the children had, running around, climbing all over everything while the parents watched from blankets and lawn chairs made it worth it.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be taking Skye to Gary’s house so she can ride the horses. I want to spend some quality time with her before I take off on our overnight brother camping trip. Maybe I’ll go in later and add some more when I’m not so tired. Maybe not.
