Lonesome Trail

One day. . . I will be a cosmonaut

If you really want your mind to be blown, listen to the song.
Lonesome Trail, by Conspiracy (Chris Squire + Billy Sherwood) 


Riding the wind. We drift along. Moving across the desert land. Into the night
Shadows dissolve. Nomads wandering through the sands of space and time
The spirit of adventure raised within our hearts

The time is now. The time has come To journey farther from the sun. Let's not hold back
We've just begun To understand our destiny. We can carry on forever. Driven by the spirit in our hearts

Leaving the world behind. We travel on through silence. With only the stars to guide us
Along the lonesome trail. Never to return. One million miles of silence With only the stars to guide us Along the lonesome trail. . . The lonesome trail

For distant lands We set our course To sail across the ocean We've come so far. We can't turn back. It's a test of our devotion. As we race into the future. Expectations grow within our hearts. We rode the storm. We've braved the seas. This passes from our history Into the skies The great beyond To reach escape velocity

We can carry on forever. Driven by the hope within our hearts. Leaving the world behind
We travel on through silence. With only the stars to guide us. Along the lonesome trail. Never to return. One million miles of silence. With only the stars to guide us. Along the lonesome trail
. . . The lonesome trail

We can carry on forever. Share the universe together. Is this the life that we chose for ourselves?
. . .

Looking Back at The Adventurous Spirit and Carolina

I have just completed saving all of my posts from my flagship blog, The Adventurous Spirit: Travels and Prose (a previous blog with an added subtitle for its published name) to thumb-drive (all fifty-eight entries), and was astounded by how I was able to write. Posts such as Burst, Thoughts, and View From The Ravenel and the San Joaquin are some examples. I laid both hands on the table, crying in my mind, "Why can't I write like that anymore?!" although I suppose I can; but I have simply changed. Take for example my post from July 4th, 2010, a bit of a contemplation of my personal musings on freedom. No coincidence, I'm sure. By this point I had waxed so romantic about train-hopping that I was about ready to head up to North Carolina and train hop across the Eastern Continental Divide. One thing that continues to hit me is how pure my eyes were. There I was, years ago, pouring over rail-road maps, tracing with my finger and my heart meticulously the train tracks that often hugged rivers and highways. I was still under the influence of my grand journey up to Appalachia a mere eight months back and my more recent trip driving the parkway, only two months ago.

 I realize what was different: It was my eyes. My affinity for light. The brightest of rooms was too dark for my taste now

I certainly had a simpler way of looking at things. Just as I said, I was a plant. Sunlight was all I knew. I was newly fascinated by light, both the spiritual and the physical. Perhaps it was fate that kept me away from becoming a train-hopper. Either way, I can't help but wonder what I expected to find when I passed the Appalachians. Countless times I had wished to get to the other side. Tennessee indeed held a sense of wonder and "home" feeling to me when I first bicycled through it. I so wish I could have seen more of it. Eastern Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, and the Great Basin in general did little to inspire me. Maybe one day I will step out of my truck in the middle of America, take a fresh breath, and understand. I suppose I have the same vagaries, but now are structured with a sense of duty. I'm still working to understand what our American fore-bears saw when they declared on July 4th that we were free. I'm trying to see fully what they saw. Discover what the virgin American freedom was in the 18th and 19th centuries, and go forth to obtain.

Musically-Inspired Place of the Day
It has been years since I've done this, but I like the feel it gave to many of my opening posts. Lately, as I have mentioned in my newest blog, I have felt a strange notion to return home for a short while. I put together an Ipod playlist to power this new scheme. The first song came in with a mournful (yet hopeful, all at the same time) "Leavin' ol' Chicago with its rain and snow / Chilled to the bone / Lord, won't you help me ride this Greyhound home," off of Blue Highway's 1985 album. It was followed by my song of choice today: Carolina in My Mind. Like I, his heart feels a certain yearning to return. My favorite lyric personally is:

There ain't no doubt in no-one's mind that loves the finest thing around, Whisper something soft and kind

 The steel guitar wails discreetly to complement the feel of the lyric. It is like those love-nature metaphors that I've talked of years ago.  The land and romance all give you the same warm, good feeling. Nature has always whispered to me softly, silently even. Subtle holiness. You can never know which moments in nature will leave the deepest spiritual impression on you in the years to come. To me, this song encompasses not just my home town, but the entire gentle green southeast, with its wealth of flowing streams, waving grasses, and tall pines. James Taylor's masterpiece is the same way. It sticks with you powerfully, howbeit modest and common at first.

Reprieve and Altitude Sickness

My outdoor days came to a close. . . or so I thought. Right before the turn of the new year, I was at sea level. By the 7th of January, I was at 7000 feet above. Add to this the strenuous nature of cold camping and 80 miles of hard cycling over the course of 3 days between Moab, Monticello, and the Colorado border (just for kicks, I had little face protection and I pushed harder than normal), and you have 5+ days of 12-hour sleeps and even some nap time on top of that. But what great price we must pay for the pearl! I remember getting dropped of at La Sal Junction and making a good distance, tolerating my toes until I saw the green sign of unfiltered reality: "MONTICELLO 14"

I got off the bicycle, removed my footwear and warmed my feet on my thighs. I called my friend in M and he said, "oh I know that sign. For there, It's all uphill to here. Dude I'm so sorry," as if he were delivering a fatal diagnosis. I was part expecting some help into town (five to ten miles, perhaps), but have also come to mentally prepare for the worst, to take the hard road. A prime example of that: After a quick bite of granola, orange, and Probar, as well as warmed up feet and morale, I gave a brave whoop of "let's DO this!!" and took to the road, quickly getting through the easy part. It's one of those slopes that you can see right where it begins. The grade launched off the earth in front of me, and I began the task. I soon became too hot. Removed the coat, placed it on the handlebars, leaving only my polypropylene thermal and polyester workout shirt. I grew more deliberate (brute force will get you nowhere on these). I chose my breathing and pedaling pace, setting the gears to a speed that assisted a fluid and non-jerking pattern of movement, and entered the zone. Expecting the worst, as I said, I went on as if each curve and hill would reveal yet another one, never expecting a reprieve, and soon duty became joy. It was seemingly over just as it had begun, and 4 miles later (the mile markers passed surprisingly fast. Now that makes you feel good) I came upon a frozen plateau, flatland a mile and a third in the air, with yet a higher set of mountains, covered in black-green nearing the southwest horizon. All around was an unbroken screen of untouched white. I had to take this new wonderland in! I sat in the sun, lying on my thermal, again warming up my feet. I basked in the brightness of it, the glory of overcoming. I waved and gave tokens of wild joy to passersby. One of them stopped. He had seen me all the way back near Moab! He offered his hand and a ride into town. How could I turn it down? I already felt victorious! I got in with plenty of time to see my buddy before he went to work. Truly a tender mercy. That night was starry and immortal, drinking deeply from the spiritual elixir of life, my friend marveling at how I had become a Kerouac in my own right, i casually leaned on the kitchen counter with my arm and ate the cleaned off the last of the skillet with the other. 

I stayed in Monticello for a few days, and each night, I got to sleep in my bag inside the camper. Me and my buddy got a great "beatnik" shot, as he called it, standing at the entrance of the camper. I wish I could have stayed longer. It was such a perfect little town. The ride back to Moab was nice, but I have to say, it beat me up. I was doing this even after feeling the need to sleep for more than 12 hours a day and still feeling listless indoors. I got a bit depressed during the multiple days indoors, until Saturday night I was walking to where I'd be staying that night. It was nearing midnight, and I saw the moon over the large mountain overhead, and I sighed at my star. I waxed romantic and pondered on how I wanted to be wild again. I felt God tell me, "then do it." I imagined the midnight moonlight bathing the deeper ridges, glisten the snow even . . . maybe. Got to go find out! The world is one big playground! I have since gone back, and marveled at the moon sending the snow sparkling. You swear your eyes are playing tricks on you. And one more thought: There is no sweeter thing than sunlight pouring through the fabric of your tent in the early afternoon and it being warm enough inside for a good nap, lying on the sleeping bag.