Coop's Corner: Before Winter Gets Away From Us......

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Before Winter Gets Away From Us......

Back in the days when my schedule was a bit more, shall we say, flexible, I was able to build my work schedule around my travels rather than the other way around. There were numerous trips west, some flying, but mostly riding and driving. Redding, California was home for a brief time, though most of my trips west were for fun (no work).

Utah was a favorite and still is....I love the high desert. Some hitchhiking worked (there was a crazy girl in a VW Beetle once...), Charter flights from Minneapolis to Las Vegas were popular back then and I took a couple, though have never set foot in a Vegas casino. Taking the bus to Moab was very easy and efficient. Often my trips seemed to happen in the long 'off' season, so driving in my cars was the easiest.

Peg and I were there on our very first long trip together. While visiting our daughter at Aspen many years later, Moab made a very nice day trip for we three.

I need to get back out there and run Highway 128 again......
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Anyway, back to decades ago. One of the sections of the trip I truly miss is the old Glenwood Canyon leg on I-70, before it had been "4 laned". The new, stacked Interstate is beautiful on its own, an engineering marvel and the canyon remains lovely and mostly natural. I still miss the old way though.

This was one of my driving trips, Arches National Park, the campground amazingly quiet that day; the car still so warm I had to let it cool off.

There was a time when I was very fleet of foot.......

Almost there.....

Setup and cozy....

The slides didn't scan very well and the color seems to be fading, something I've seen even in many of my old slides that weren't taken in a snowstorm.

There was a very fun night at the Moab Pizza Hut with some new friends; the next day I headed for home. The snow had really started to get serious, at Grand Junction I pulled in behind an eastbound U.S. Mail 18 wheeler. Staying just far enough behind so that his taillights were visible, those lights about the only two things I saw for miles and we made really good time. Visibility was terrible and to this day, I remember us passing a CO State Patrol car that I hadn't really seen until he was almost beside me. As we eased past, the patrol car's headlights quickly faded into grey....we just kept on truckin'. For the record, I very seldom pass CO State Patrol cars.

I stopped in Eagle and spent some time visiting with friend Sue.

It was very late by the time I got to the Vail Pass. There were blinking lights ahead, all traffic was being stopped, I-70 closed "unless you had 4WD or chains". Thinking I'd have to pull over for the night, but really, really wanting to stop for the night in a Denver motel, I was very relieved when the official shone his flashlight (torch?) on my rear wheels and saw big, coarse snow tires there. With the window rolled down, he asked if I was really from Minnesota. Upon confirmation, he let me go ahead with a stern "be careful". I was able to get down into Denver and then wound up sleeping in the car anyway before my big push back to MN.

10 comments:

SonjaMMarch 20, 2013 at 7:18 PM
I am sitting here marveling at the scenery... and thinking why would somebody need to pitch a tent in this kind of weather...

I am freezing now and need a cuppa tea... ;-)
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Thomas KeeneMarch 20, 2013 at 10:03 PM
Coop,

Cool pics - made me very cold, though. Is that a '63 Impala?

Tom
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UnknownMarch 20, 2013 at 10:16 PM
Coop:

you are really a hard core camper. It must have been really, really, really cold

You had a 4 door chevelle ? 327 ci ? there's lots of room to sprawl out on the back seat

I recognized balance rock. I don't mind going back to Moab and Arches NP again, but this time on my motorcycle

bob
Riding the Wet Coast
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TrobairitzMarch 21, 2013 at 9:01 AM
Camping in the snow? Now I'm cold.

I'm with Sonja - where'd I put my coffee cup?
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RichardMMarch 21, 2013 at 11:20 AM
I think the blue tint on the slide scans make it feel much colder. Winter camping isn't much different than summer camping except your gear stays cleaner. I recognize some of the locations though it's been to long for me to remember the names given to the formations.
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayMarch 21, 2013 at 6:54 PM
Richard, I'd agree about clean camping....not much mud though I found some on brighter days. It was wet and cool that trip, never really dried out. Honestly, it felt good to get back in the dry heat on the way home.

The only reason I remember any of the formation names is because I've been back 2 times, the last time maybe 6 years ago with our daughter. That was a lovely August day, very dry and very warm.
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)