Van updates complete; push bar, spare tire, new bike rack and a new cabin heater. Ready for Alaska! I'll do a dry run changing a tire; I can do hard things…
It felt strange to travel the same road I did last August through the Tetons and Yellowstone. I feel different now. Back then this journey was still new, having left my house, friends and everything familiar to embark on this Road to Joy. The first time through I was headed to Seattle; this time it's Montana and points north. Both times I wasn't able to linger in the majesty of the mountains, because campsites were lucky to snag. You can't do a long hike and then drive 100 miles to sleep! But the road itself is one long scenic drive. Incredible vistas are a short walk from the parking lot. There aren't many parts of the country one can drive over 100 miles and see no development anywhere, just beautiful wilderness. Several times I hit a “Bear Jam” where cars were pulled precariously off the road and people were staring into the forest with binoculars and long range cameras. Something kept me from joining them. When I did see the bear, minding its own business, I was like, “Yep, that's a bear.” and kept going. I saw plenty of Bison, too, and stopped for several thermal springs (boiling). I did not know most of Yellowstone is within a huge caldera, and the tectonic plate is moving over stationary geothermal hot spots, much like how the Hawaiian islands were formed. With all this exposure to geologic info, it starts to color how one sees the landscape as mountains give way to plains, and desert becomes fertile valleys as the miles roll by. Add to that the constant reminders of Indian displacement and short-lived mining booms and busts, it becomes a jarring contrast between the timelines of geologic and human history. And then of course I think of my own timeline and how much has changed in the last two years…
Once through the north entrance of Yellowstone, I had several days before needing to be in Fort Benton, MT for a three day canoe trip through the White Cliffs on the Missouri River. I booked this excursion after reading about it in the book Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose. The author pointed out that the passage looks exactly as it did when the Discovery Corps passed through it in 1802 and gave a shout-out to Missouri River Outfitters.
I decided to stay in one place for four days, since there wasn't that much distance to cover. I haven't done that very often, and sure enough, absent the time spent driving or hiking, I started thinking about music. My grand idea to build a floating platform so I could just fold the mattress up and start working with the studio hadn't fixed my procrastination. I thought, “If I'm not using the studio anyway, why give up six inches of headroom?” and I pulled it out. I set up the equipment and realized I could do it in 15 minutes, which was only ten minutes longer than lifting the platform. Eva calls it “activation energy”; you make a big project to reduce the resistance to doing something, but ultimately you just have to buck up and do the thing. Unfortunately, I spent hours troubleshooting rather than doing anything creative. I see why I'd rather go for a hike.
I've resisted doing media in the van, trying to focus on reading instead, but… that's over. Sharon and I were really into Orphan Black a few years ago, and even though we had Amazon Prime, they took it away and offered to sell it to us for $37. I couldn't do it on principle. But now here it was on Netflix. I lost myself in it for several hours. Something strange happened when I closed the laptop; I was instantly lonely and homesick, aware of being by myself in a forest in a van in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, thinking, “What the hell am I doing, and why?” Thankfully it didn't last and it hasn't happened again.
I'm staying tonight at the Grand Union Hotel here in Fort Benton. The lumberyard in town took the platform for scrap. Next post will be about the canoe trip!