Day 37: The Color of Home

Through the rain
and the blur of time
the color of the Merrimack returns.

Day 36: Seeing Cedar Grove

Honey Locust.
The Catskills.
Thomas Cole's Catskills.

Day 35: By the Time We Got to Woodstock

I was half-a-million strong (actually, there were three of us).
Woodstock: Mm-Mm-Good!
Beam me up, Scottie.

Day 34: Through the Veil

My emotions as I pass trhough 217 miles of I-86 in southern New York, definitely the worst stretch of road I experienced on the trip, and possibly the worst I've experienced ever. And mixed with a steady rain that could not drain properly and trucks creating conditions sometimes of no visibility and some of the worst drivers in creation and a frightening landscape of claustrophobic hills saturated in scary deciduous trees (after a steady diet of the open spaces of the west), the result was a blackness of mind, emotion, and heart. Although, perhaps, I was passing through the veil of dreamtime, returning to that state we call reality, after an extended period in an altered consciousness. Or rather consciousness itself. And now I was returning to the dream. Passing through a turbulent wall of pyshic dimensions. Anyways, like Rip Van Winkle, after waking from this blackness, I found myself in the Catskills. With Beverly, Jim, and David.

Day 33: Almost Around the World

OK, actually, the country. Back in the Good Old Northeast (after OH, PA), Jamestown NY, home of the 1800s Chatauqua Movement, and vita birthplace of Lucille Ball.

Day 32: Mississippi Burning Rubber

Crossing over the Big Muddy heading irrevocably east.
The New Barns of Illinois.
Crossing roads deja vu all over again.

Day 31: Caucusing Iowa

Best I could do on the sign.
Corn rows mon.
The sad state of the family farm.
If corn is king, the tree is queen again.

Day 30: Nebraska

Surprisingly, much of western Nebraska consistes of the Sand Hills.
Which are actually grass-covered sand dunes (85% of which have never been plowed).
But in the rest of Nebraska, this is king (and the great aquifier beneath the land).
From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska, trees begin to sit on the lap of the land.

Day 29: Due East

Eastern Colorado is definitely not the east though. Says the sagebrush.
And these cattle huddle and concur.
As does the wide open.
And then this good boy (no bad, no ugly) comes to Nebraska.

Day 28: To the Sun

Called 'America's Mountain' because Katherine Lee Bates was inspired to write the lyrics for 'America the Beautiful' from its summit.
A lake on the mountain; we're headed up there!
Into the alpine.
Where the Big Horn Sheep play, and then rest.
The Summit of Sun Mountain.
Don't Look Down!
Between a cloud and a hard place.

Day 27: Garden of the Sun

Pikes Peak, named for Zebulon Pike, who failed to climb its summit in 1806. But in the native Ute tongue, it translates in English as...
Mountain of the Sun (and I, from now on, will refer to it simply and respectfully as Sun Mountain).
Garden of the...
Gods (a public park in Colorado Springs).
The Garden and Sun Mountain.

Day 26: Rocky Mountain High

New Mexico landscape frames this sunrise mountain with a serendipitous delight.
Still a southwest landscape in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
The Rockies.
South Park: not the animated series, but high intermontane grassland basin, approx. 10,000 ft in elevation, encompassing 1,000 square miles.
Mining in Cripple Creek.

Day 25: Taos Pueblo and a New View

San Geronimo Chapel in Taos Pueblo
North Pueblo. Pueblo Mountain, the Sacred Mountain of Taos Pueblo, is furthest to the right.
Red Willow River and South Pueblo.
The cemetery and the original church destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
Ovens and Ladder.
Something different: San Francisco de Asis Church, Ranchos de Taos. Ansel and Georgia own the rear. I'm claiming the Sphinx-like front and side.

Day 24: Enchanted Circle and Crooked Lines

Any visitor to Taos must travel the 85 mile loop around Wheeler Peak, NMs highest mt. (Notice the bullet holes, like any sign in the West worth its mettle.)
Actually it wasn't the scenery that was the most moving moment in the circle.
It feels like this might be the only place I didn't go on this trip out west.
Wheeler Peak and a little snow.
Chevron's contribution to making mountain scenery on the Circle: a dis-enchanted molybdenum strip mine.
And a side trip to the Rio Grande Gorge, 800 feet deep, exhibiting the Taos Plateau volcanic field (there will be a test at the end of this blog).