Month: November 2016

“Life is not measured by the number of breathes we take but by the moments that take our breath away.”

Maya Angelou

For the last twelve  million years, Idaho has been “geologically active.”  The North American Tectonic Plate has been galloping westward with Idaho, and in particular the Snake River Plain, riding bareback over a  “Hot Spot,” a  stationary plume (pic below).  This candle flame has been escaping through a Great Rift, a fracture  deep below Idaho’s crust.

 

As Idaho sprinted westward, the “Hot Spot” melted the  earth’s mantle.  This flame produced Batholiths from volumes of very hot magma, under intense pressure directly below Idaho.  Ice fields melted, glaciers  moved. During the last ice age, the catastrophic  Bonneville Flood  drained Lake Bonneville (pic above),  and changed the water flow  direction of the Snake River  by  blasting through Hell’s Canyon.  Volcanoes erupted in Southern Idaho.   As recently as 2,000 years ago near the Wyoming border, miles of lava flowed from the great rift fissures in the Craters of the Moon National Park .  On October 28, 1983  a magnitude seven earthquake struck Mt. Borah and the Lost River Range.

Now that Idaho has trotted ever westward, the “Hot Spot,” the  flame, is currently under Wyoming and  heating up Yellowstone National Park.  Old Faithful is only a minuscule “relief valve” for all the steam generated below this great rift.  Today, Idaho with a smile on his face can exclaim,  “What a ride!”

This Great rift   did contort, stretch, and fold  Idaho’s terrain like a  clump of Play-doh in my grandson’s hands.  The ruts from each geologic event are so visible and fresh that each disturbance appears to have scared the land yesterday.   Wind, water and gravity have yet to dull the horns and aretes,  or round off the sharp edges of Idaho’s granite walls.  This Labor Day weekend,   I thwarted  gravity’s pull  and rambled across this happy hunting ground and trekked  to the river of no return (Salmon River).  What a ride!

 

 

Mark Twain wrote, ” The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”  Saturday morning I awoke before daybreak and hit the trail by sunrise. A pale, waning moon lingered to the west.   Blue skies and crisp morning air without the  trade winds welcomed the rising sun. Out here they call the wind Mariah.  The Sawtooth and Seven Devil Mountain ranges surrounded the floodplain..

I retraced the Oregon Trail while riding  Oregon Rt. 201  for twenty  lazy miles down the  Snake River to Weiser, Idaho.  In the picture above, an expansive corn crop crowded the road, while the Snake River and the Sawtooth Mountains  hid in the  glare of the eastern sunrise.  In the bike picture below, the Seven Devil Mountains lay petrified in the  western background.  I know my September days are heaven sent, and Winter will catch up with me somewhere down the road.

While standing on the bridge I could imagine a  flood wall of water, several biblical miles wide and hundreds of feet high, traveling  from the Sawtooth to the Seven Devil Mountains at seventy miles per hour.  The Bonneville Flood was a catastrophic day in Idaho’s past but a mere walk in the park  for Mother Nature.   Today, the Snake River water level is low, thanks in part to the massive irrigation projects.

 

I stopped at the Oregon state border for photo ops  while recrossing the Snake River into Weiser, Idaho.  Before continuing North I  enjoyed a McDonald’s hot pancake breakfast.   I tried riding the Weiser River Trail ( 84 miles)  which paralleled the river, but the large gravel produced a very uncomfortable and bumpy trail ride.  I returned to Rt. 95 and trekked on its shoulder to Cambridge.  The Seven Devils Mountains lingered to the West as scattered clouds moved overhead.  The humidity remained very low and the heat hovered in the low nineties.   The climb out of the Weiser Valley (3354′  pic below) required  ninety minutes of concerted effort.  The grade remained a constant six degrees (pic below).   Once at the peak, this desert tortoise loitered  to enjoy the panoramic view across Idaho’s wilderness. I don’t know where this day will end but what a ride.

 

My thoughts rifted with the passing landscape. The semi-arid desert  and the high altitude accentuated the tawny  beige,  burnt golds, and  cerulean blue on this Indian Summer Day.  Over miles of rolling terrain the sun and clouds shuffled these changing hues on a moment’s notice (pic below).  On the high plains, the sky was so clear, the air so dry, and the humidity so low that the sweat immediately evaporated.  Luckily, I had lot of fluids.  Route 95 was quite empty and the solitary biking so quiet and enjoyable.  The only predator around was a roadkill dinosaur (pics below).

 

 

 

I’m biking from the Snake River watershed (Weiser River) and eventually joining the Salmon River Basin. I stopped for lunch in Cambridge, Idaho a little after one o’clock. On this Saturday (Labor Day weekend) I failed to find hotel vacancies in Council, Idaho or Oxbow, Oregon (Hell’s Canyon), both about twenty miles away. After lunch at Bucky’s Cafe I booked a room at the Frontier Hotel in Cambridge.   I said to myself, “Self, wherever you go, there you are,” and called it a day.

 

 

Mark Twain wrote, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day that you find out why.”  I can visualize  that second day in Samuel Clemen’s life.  While pluming the depth of the Mississippi River  from a paddleboat he waved to Huck and Jim rafting by.  Eureka, the steamboat captain understood his calling and redirected the American experience by his humor and wit.   I envy Mark Twain or anyone who proves “the pen is mightier than the sword.”   Next to the river, Siddhartha nods in agreement.

I’m not trying to  pan or deemphasize “Eureka moments.”  Epiphanies are important milestones.    Because “many are called but few are chosen,”  most of us remain muddled, living from day to day, hoping to enjoy “the day that you find out why.”   Like the Snake River we drift without answers, flowing away from the fountainhead.

For sixty-five years now, I have been repeating, “I don’t know.  I don’t know how, or I don’t know where.”  I personally feel trapped inside a Jimmy Buffett song.  “ I don’t know. I don’t know where I’m gonna go when the volcano blows.”

So here I am on the second day (Saturday) of my journey, biking across Idaho, exploring his geological history and wondering if it is also my own timeline. The Hot Spot, Idaho’s own artist in residence, sculptes the mountains, blackens the earth, and repaints the river’s course. Idaho’s terra firma is a continual “work in progress,” a “living art,” directed by the wind, rain and gravity, uncovering the granite batholith buried under her volcanic soil.

I don’t know for sure, but I think Mark Twain’s quote has a lot in common with Idaho’s natural history.  Every new day we age, we stretch, and we conform to processes beyond our control.  We sit on that hot seat, over that Great Rift, reaching for “the day that you find out why,” and  riding  for that “moment that takes our breath away.”

As I pedal from Ontario to Cambridge, my day whirls like, the yellow sun, the  golden sky, and the champagne landscape in  Van Gohn’s expressive landscape.  Motion, creation, destruction, and then more motion. Idaho’s  panorama takes my breath away.   As my fate unfolds, bends and contorts like Play-doh in Griffin’s  hands, all I got to say, “What a ride!”

I have a long way to go before I get home.

If that is not nice, I don’t know what is.

 

A guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office and says, “Hey doc, my brother’s crazy!  He thinks he’s a chicken. ”  Then the doc says,” Why don’t you turn him in?”

The guy replies, “I would, but I need the eggs.”

Woodie Allen

“European Beech, Northern Catalpa, Kentucky Coffeetree, Black Cottonwood,  Bur Oak, English Oak, Red Oak, Swamp White Oak, London Planetree, Tuliptree.” Gnomeboy was being obnoxious, I’m not  even sure that he saw the individual trees below.  He  wanted to remind me that he knew every type of tree growing in the continental United States.  We were ten minutes from landing at the Boise airport and traveling West along the Boise River with the Sawtooth Mountain Range (Rocky Mountains) and  the  Boise National Forest to the North.  The valley floor was desert, but the river wetlands were studded with large shade and smaller understory trees.

This is to be my last biking adventure for the 2016 season.  I’m trekking unsupported from Boise, Idaho  to Missoula, Montana and then riding the Road to the Sun in Glacier National Park.  Luckily,  Wanda, the pioneer  in the aisle seat,  was asleep and  didn’t hear or see Gnomeboy.  I stuffed him into my backpack when he wouldn’t stop  ranting about evergreens. She was transplanting from Boston to Boise for a high tech position with  Hewitt-Packard.  In her early thirties, and single, she didn’t need to see Gnomeboy her first day west of the Mississippi.  Being a “city girl” I believe she will experience enough culture shock today. I hope someone other than Gnomeboy offers her a little Miracle grow.  Who knows, a few sprinkles at the drip line and she might graft into a Cowgirl ( Bovem puella).

Over the next two weeks , I am hoping for a trip filled with Awe and Wonder.  This sixth trek will compete my  bike quest, to  pedal from sea to shining sea. Near the Great Oak Tree on Foxhill Farm I have planted a  seed or seedling from each trek.  Gnomeboy has such a green thumb.  Trekking along the Wilderness Trail, Virginia to Bardstown,  Gnomeboy recommended a Red Oak Tree .  Bardstown to Wichita my sommelier selected  a Sweet gum.  A Crab Apple Tree  (I was always complaining about the weather, too cold or too wet) and a  tart  American pie recipe complemented  my journey to Portland, Maine. A Rocky Mountain Maple was his colorful but sticky selection for the trip from Missoula, Montana to Breckinridge Colorado. Well,  I think that You get the idea, and know why Gnomeboy was  listing  trees on the flight.  ” So many choices, so little time.”  He prefers  shade tolerant seedlings because they have the best ability to survive the transport back home.

Idaho, our 43 state, the “gem state,” a son of Vulcan,  is so raw, vibrant and geologically alive.  Idaho has hidden veins of gold, silver and precious gems along  subterranean  fault lines. Star garnets are the state gem. There’s jasper from Bruneau, and opal from Spencer.  But I haven’t flown here to quarry a star garnett nor pan for gold.  I’m here to ride… where we can shine. Idaho

Idaho was derived from the Shoshone language, a term meaning, “the sun comes from the mountains” or “gem of the mountains.”    My northwest passage is a journey through the Selway Bitteroot Wilderness and over Lolo Pass (5233′).  I will climb  above the clouds and watch the sun  “shine like rain”  on Idaho below.

My greatest worry is Winter  will crash this party, arrive in the North country before the fall equinox, and close the road to the sun before I  have pedaled Logan’s pass (6647′).  He can appear suddenly and without invitation. Winter can freeze all the roads, blanket the trees with snow, and block my destiny, my fate , my road to the sun.  Riding unsupported  and North of the 45 parallel, I am under his domain. The fall equinox is less than three week away.  Winter unexpectedly appeared at the Lewis and Clark camp on Sept. 13, 1804.

 

 

With a noon airport arrival, World Cycle & XC Ski (pic above)  remained  a simple ten minute taxi ride away. Their bike mechanics  had reassembled  the trek following an on time delivery by UPS.   I could keep on truck’n. “Thank you very much.”  I carried the four touring bags  inside my  large, old tennis bag.  After changing clothes and loading the bike I said goodbye to my trusty tennis bag and my new found bike friends.

I hoped to reach Ontario, Oregon ( 60miles) by night fall.  When  French trappers first saw this stretch of the Boise River Valley, surrounded by desert, they exclaimed, “Les Bois! Les Bois!” The literal translation in French is  “the wooded”.   Today, Boise’s nickname, “City of Trees.” is so appropriate with its lush green valley surround by a high desert plain. In 1843 after 1,554 miles of the Oregon Trail, the immigrants arriving at Fort Boise  usually recouped for a few days. Merchants and trade grew.

There were dedicated bike paths on the northern rim of the Boise River all the way to Eagle, Idaho.  I followed Rt. 44 (Hill Rd.) west to Rt. 16 north.  Here, the shoulder narrowed but the traffic had thinned out (pic below)

Route 16  followed a longer and less traveled  route of the Oregon trail. By 1860, 50,000 pioneers  would cross this region every summer. So food, wood, and clean water were at a premium.  Chorea, a deadly waterborne disease, erupted multiple times, game was not  present along the trail, and wood was absent from the more traveled routes.  Where and when to cross the Snake and Boise Rivers had life and death implications. So some migrants, myself included, hiked this alternative overland route to Ontario, Oregon (pics below).

 

Unless the land was irrigated, I was surrounded by hight dessert plain. Over the mountain pass lay Emmett, Idaho and the Payette River  (pics below). The Payette River joined the Snake River near Fruitland, Idaho.  The Boise River entered the Snake River  at Apple Valley, Idaho about 15 miles to the South.   Rt. 16 changed to Rt. 52 just west of Emmett.

 

The temp remained in the low seventies with 5 to 7 miles an hour Northwest trade winds. The skies were partly sunny (pic below).  The sugar beets and potatoes were the crops of choice in this valley..

I stopped for Gatorade in New Plymouth, Idaho where I rode through the world’s largest horseshoe (pic below).    William E. Smythe,  chairman of  “The Plymouth Society of Chicago”  conceived New Plymouth  on capitalist not religious principles.   With  water rights and the power of irrigation, each colonist purchased 20 shares of stock at $30 per share, which entitled him to 20 acres of land and a town lot. The pioneers cleared the land and planted fruit trees. The town was platted with a horseshoe design.  Its open end faced the North, toward the railroad and the Payette River.  One hundred and twenty years later this very successful farming community owes it success to volcanic soil, irrigation from the Payette River, and organized planning. I drank to their continued success.

 

From New Plymouth to Ontario  was just a zig and a zag thru Fruitland, Idaho and an easy bridge crossing of the Snake River into Ontario, Oregon (pic below).  I booked a hotel room at the Sleep Inn and walked to dinner (Wingers)  next door.  My solo journey is unsupported, so I don’t bike in the dark.

Back in bed,  just moments before drifting off to sleep, I could detect the faint outline of a lush green grove, but I couldn’t identify the trees or the place. The sound of a babbling brook echoed in the background.   Where is Gnomeboy when you need him?

 

It that’s not nice I don’t know what is.

I have a long way to go to before I get back home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin’ until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we’re together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you, ’till we meet again.

Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It’s the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here’s a happy one for you.

Dale Evans Rogers (songwriter, actress and trail blazer)

 

In 1806  Captain Zebulon M. Pike explored the Kansas sand-sage prairie as he wandered up the Arkansas River to its headwaters in Southern Colorado. He and his men were captured  and imprisoned by the Spanish after crossing the Arkansas River and roaming south of the border. The expedition would have benefited from trail signs (pic above).  Staying to the right of the river did not compute with these soldiers. As we all know, men today don’t ask for directions because explorers don’t  use maps.  Zebulon never did summit Pike’s Peak.   During the war of 1812 the Captain was killed in action. Some trails are blue, a teardrop memory for their family.

Head ‘em up, move ‘em out.  During the early wild west days of Kansas, colorful cattle towns bustling with stagecoaches and chuckwagons peppered the Santa Fe trail.   High noon shootouts in Dodge City landed many  buckaroos six feet underground and inside the dang Boot Hill Cemetery.  By 1859,  Saddle Bums and “Fifty-Niners” yelled “Pike’s Peak or Bust,”  on their quest for gold in the Rockies.

 

Homesteaders skedaddled as the Bandidos sprayed the Lamar Saloon with lead. Afterwards, the sheriff  (Bat Masterson)  rounded up a posse of Cowpunchers to “cut ’em off at the pass,” (Raton Pass 7834 ft), and prevent the Desperados from ridin’ “South of the Border.”  He wanted ’em yokels in the calaboose to post the pony . “Sometimes you get and sometimes you get got.”

By 1880 the railroad pony upped to Dodge City, Kansas  Pueblo, Colorado and  Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Texas Longhorns  (Bos taurus) were transported back to markets by train.  Out on the open range, non-native but invasive Barb-wire  (Hamatis filum sepium) sprouted and irrigated water wars along the Arkansas River.  Sadly, cowboys sang “Don’t fence me in” as  the Santa Fe trail faded like the open range in a Western sunset.  All trails must end, but the Santa Fe trail lore continues to this day.  So, “Happy trails to you.”

 

 

A semi-arid desert surrounds the Arkansas River west of Garden City and the irrigated crops sap the river of its strength (pic below) . Endless circles of green corn are surrounded by scrub and tumbleweed. Over rambling expanses in the Southwest, industrial farming demoted the Arkansa River to a six inch deep creek, just like Cox’s Creek in August. Its obvious that something has got to give, these irrigation practices are not sustainable.   But Kansas cowboys never kick a cow chip on a hot day.

 

 

South of Holcomb, Kansas about 50 miles east of the Colorado border  I encountered a swarm of locust. As I crossed the Arkansas River for the fifth time, the bike crunched locusts and make thousands fly. I stopped to take a photo op of the scene and  Boom, an armada of Cliff Sparrows  (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) living under the bridge came to the rescue and swept or ate any locust that dared to move (pic below). They would dart by within feet of the bike, catching locust at 30 miles an hour. Gnome boy took a joy ride but their speed prevented a focused pic of him. They would follow the locust plague in mass for a couple of miles. This scene repeated itself on every bridge, railroad or road overpass. It was mesmerizing. The locust had no chance.

 

Near the Colorado border (picture below) we stopped next to a field of Great Russian Sunflowers . The sunflowers were the same genetic strain that Gnomeboy gave to his cousins last year but we were more than one hundred miles from Walnut Creek. We harvested some heads and fed the Cliff Swallows, curious birds, and prairie dogs on the remaining days of the trip.  He was so proud that the sunflower seeds had spread so far in just one year…He wanted me to call him Gnomey sunflower seed.

I stopped for two picture ops as I left Kansas (pic below).  For the past five days I had been waiting to tell Gnomeboy, “We’re not in Kanas anymore, Toto.”

 

I spent two nights (Lamed and LaJunta) and three days in Colorado. The heat index was over 100 each day, but the threat of severe storms evaporated west of Garden City, Kansas. This region on the leeward side of the Rockies, was within its rain shadow. However, shade was a difficult commodity to find (pic below). Keeping hydrated and replenishing  fluids became my top priority. I left at dawn and stopped from 11 to 1 each day. Any small town that had a stoplight also had a Subway. With free drink refills and air conditioning Subway was almost heaven, a Rocky Mountain high .

As the Wednesday sun approached its zenith, quicksilver mirages shimmered across Route 50.  “Go west young man,” the brazen sun instructed.  As my  pace quickened,  the shadow, now more mulberry than plum, cajoled, “Catch up. Catch up.”  The lime green bike helmet bobbed up and down, but of course, my violet silhouette pantomimed the same on top of the blacktop . We were both  scorched by the sun and dripping with sweat.

Three jet black ravens glided overhead, riding the morning thermals as their  lavender shadows drifted with the wind below.  They cawed to the  wind, “Mariah, Mariah, Mariah.”  Their shadows shape shifted over the treeless landscape and stalked sagebrush and boulders (pic above). The shapes and the speeds of their shadows flew seemingly detached from the birds.  Moments later the trio circled the nearby hillside and then disappeared . To me, our days are heaven sent. They float, drift and shadow the countryside like stringless kites. Where each day will wander is still  a mystery to me,  just like the roads the ravens will shadow.

 

But today, the ravens’ wavering course struck a different cord with Black tailed Prairie Dogs.  Cynomys ludovicianus colonies edged Route 50 for extended distances. Each colony would occupy  acres of road frontage. Hundreds of borrows  lined the  road.  As they say,  “Location, location, location.”  When the ravens returned and shadows criscrossed the asphalt, the prairie dog coterie barked out the alarm.

 

The colony alerted their neighbors and raced under cover. “The ravens  are coming.  The ravens are coming”.  Hundreds of these  “little  doggies” would bob up and down as  mercurial shadows  played  “Wack a Mole”  with each colony.  After the danger had passed, the furry little varmints would emerge from the burrow and  boast, “You want a piece of me!”  They made my day!

West of Fowler, Colorado ( Elevation: 4,337′) and back on Rt. 96, I got my first glimpse of the Rockies (pic above). I was traveling on the northern rim of the Arkansas River Valley  and so the Rocky Mountains filled  my entire Western view. What a beautiful,  magestic wall.  My pace increased and I arrived in Pueblo by noon. A successful journey’s end which linked last fall’s trekking with this summer’s adventure. I didn’t get lost in the desert or captured by bandidos. With this cattle drive over   I sang,  “Happy trails to me.”

 

 

Driving home from Pueblo, I had two days to reflect on my trail blazing.  The trekking started on the Katy trail  with the 1804 Journey  of Discovery by  frontier men Lewis and Clark.  Up the Missouri River we traveled. I climbed out of the Missouri Valley south of Booneville and struck out on the Santa Fe trail.  I rode through  the nation’s bread basket and the wild west of Kansas and Colorado.  I couldn’t stop smiling, even though Roger Federer had just lost at Wimbledon. Gnomeboy and I had been traveling  through the 1800’s, from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.

Go and ride to the mountain

Go and ride to the moon

Go and ride to just about anywhere

Cause everywhere is you.

Traveling unsupported added randomness and volatility to each day. There were  bike and road  issues to contend with, weather and  thunderstorms to avoid.  I didn’t know where I would sleep each night.  I couldn’t and didn’t predict the future. But that unpredictability made me stronger and in effect safer. I am free to roam the country.

What I call Trekker awe,  my post doctorate sense of self, can be summed up as follows:  know the past, live the present, and hope for the future. You can not predict tomorrow.  So ride it, keep calm and pedal on. Remember, you can change lanes. Awesome.

Finally, I recall the first day I met Gnomeboy.  In the early 90’s I had made horse trails throughout Foxhill Farm, but Judy kept getting lost in the woods while riding Lady.

“I can get lost in my own backyard.” is her original quote.

 

For her birthday present  I had metal trail signs  printed.   Boundary trail bordered the property  and paralleled the fence that encircled our farm. Creek Bed Trail  led to the waterfall and Sam’s Island.  Cemetery Trail led to the Overall Cemetery plot in Bullitt county.   And of course, Happy Trails which circled around the hundred acre woods and  encompassed the most luxuriant Oak tree.  The tree was large enough for a brown bear.

 

 

Well, just as I was about to nail the trail sign onto the  oak tree, Gnomeboy raced outside without his hat, and left his front door open (pic below). Without introductions or even a good morning , he firmly and not so politely instructed, “Do not nail that ugly sign on my home.”  “Are you a nincompoop?” At the time he didn’t know how much I hated being called a nincompoop.

 

Well, the rest as they say, was history. We have been buddies ever since. We have traveled from sea to shining sea. I did nail the sign on a burr oak  not too far away.  Unfortunately, the signs have not prevented Judy from getting turned around.  Thank goodness for cell phones. I  retrieved her from  Bullitt County about a year ago.  The arrows on the signs point the way home (pic below).

So to all who have been lost…..or turned around….or are just on an afternoon trail ride hoping to get home safely, I wish to say to Y’all….

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.

Happy trails to you, keep smilin’ until then.

If that not nice I don’t know what is.