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The coffee’s good this morning! I’m temporarily out of my favorite blend due to the intersection of the long weekend and poor logistical planning on my part. So I dipped into the Emergency Coffee Supply (my logistical planning may be poor, but I always have back-ups) and brewed a pot that is half French Roast and half “100% Columbian.” I should do this more often…
Happy Birthday, Mr. President! Dubya is 60 today. And the New York Times gives him a birthday gift: a remarkably snark-free article commemorating his birthday. Good on ‘em (NYT), for once. I liked this bit:
"Sixty is the grimmest, don't you think?" said Mr. Ellis, who is 53. "All these boomers lie to themselves and say at 50 you're really 40. But at 60, you can't do that anymore."
{sigh} That’s all-too-true…
Radical Left Redux: “Sheehan: 'I'd Rather Live Under Chavez than Bush', Norah Gives Cindy Rough Ride” Details at Newsbusters.org. I’ll not comment because you know where I stand…
So…what does the photo on top of this post mean? I was thinking in the wee small hours of this morning that a road trip may be in order in the near future. A simple road trip, free of Duty and Obligation, full of Go and Be. I’ve been sorta restless of late, more like "rest less." As an example, I slept in shifts last evening—1900 until midnite, then 0415 until 0830—and very fitfully, at that. Strange dreams, up and down, intrusive memories that arrive unbidden and will not go away. The classic American cure for this ailment is the Road Trip. Destination is profoundly unimportant; the act of escape to places unknown, the potential for discovery is what it’s all about. For me, the road trip absolutely has to be on Blue Highways. This is just the germ of an idea at the moment, but it’s a powerful germ…something that should be acted upon. We’ll see. By the way, the pic above was taken on US 191, just north of Bluff,
That is a great photo, and beautiful landscape. Ahhh, Road Trip...I haven't been on one since 2001. A single mom's finances can seldom afford such an expenditure. expecially one who wants to buy a house. If you go, be sure and take lots of pics and share them with us.
ReplyDeleteI'll be on a short road trip tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteVery nice article on Bush. Saw him on CNN this morning with the Canadian PM. He invited a young man up whose birthday it was also. Two other older guys spontaneously joined them up on the stage for birthday congratulations, too.
ReplyDeleteOne of the commenters on the blog you linked to mentioned that short story, “Man Without a Country” by Edward Everett Hale. Funny, cause I’d been thinking about that story a lot lately. It made a big impression on me in high school. Do you think it’s read in schools anymore? (Probably not.) No matter how disgruntled I felt about different issues in our country, it was always in the back of my mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Country
Oh, you would have to bring up road trips right now! We’ve had to go without, these last couple of years. It’s always been a yearly ritual with our family. My oldest still gets stars in his eyes when he thinks about it. In fact, he’s spending his free time scanning our last trip into the computer to share it with his band mates. (We took the whole band last time)
Our favorite trip is going up Highway 89. http://www.sunset.com/sunset/travel/highway89.html
Beautiful highway! It starts in Arizona, but we pick it up from the 15 in St George, Utah. That’s where the fun starts. We get off the 15 in St. George, Utah and drive to Zion National Park. That’s our first night camping. Then we drive through the Zion tunnel the next morning, where it links up with the 89. Our second night’s stop is at Bryce Canyon. They we go all the way up through Utah until it comes near the 15 again through the Great Salt Lake basin (done out of necessity). Then we pick up the 89 again all the way up to Jackson, Wyoming and Teton National Park.
(I’d include photos, but I really should get my own blog for that!)
We camp in a favorite secluded spot, about 17 miles north of Jackson, near a little town where I lived during my last two years of high school. Bison, antelope and moose are all over the road whenever we go into town for supplies. After staying for a few days of hiking, we’ll head home going wherever the mood takes us - across Wyoming or the Black Hills of South Dakota and then down through eastern Utah (Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef)
Oh, you had to do it, Buck. I won’t be the same for the rest of the day.
So where are you going to go???
BTW, beautiful photo, Buck! Did you take it? And that's a great web site, too.
ReplyDeleteHmm, that photo would make a nice painting. A road trip sounds good too. You can always come to OK, although, it is not exactally picturesque.
ReplyDeleteI, too, have thought about "Man without a Country. It was not on the "must read" list when I was teaching, but it should have been. It has some great lessons for all.
You drive safe tomorrow, Laurie. And I know why you're going and I also know you probably won't have much if any free time...but if you do have free time...remember the Zippo musuem!
ReplyDeleteThe photo is mine, and the larger version I posted (if you clicked) is 40% of the original (2.58 Mb) size. The original has lots of detail that doesn't come through in reduced format, as you might expect.
"The Man Without a Country" was required reading when I was in Middle School (although we didn't call it that at the time), but it doesn't/wouldn't surprise me at all to hear the story has been dropped from today's curricula. And more's the pity. IIRC, the story generated lots of well-led discussion. And lessons were learned...
Your favorite trip sounds like a real winner, Bec. I think Utah may just be the country's most under-rated state when it comes to pure visual experience. There's just SO much to see (and a lot of nothing, too)!
The $64.00 question: where will I go? Unknown at the moment. A part of me wants to go to "the city" for a big dose of smoky bars and down-home blues, followed by lazy mornings at Starbucks with the paper; I've been immersed in "small town" for quite a while now. Then again, part of me wants to head back over towards the Great Empty for natural beauty. Southern Utah would definitely work, again. I could kill two birds if I drove over to the Texas coast and scouted out potential places to live. And I've only just begun to consider it...