Back in 1972, I purchased the album "Rocky Mountain High" by John Denver. I still have that LP, it's a little scratched and fuzzy sounding, well actually, I have 2 copies, and one is still pretty good. I thought the title song was the coolest song ever, and still do. There's something in the words, to me, that talk about getting a clear vision of life, of your life, and following that dream.
We have vacationed and camped in Colorado over the years. We would often leave in the middle of the night with the boys asleep in the back, as we tried to get across half of Kansas before daylight. Usually our goal was to be at the edge of Colorado, in Garden City Kansas or maybe Burlington Colorado, in time to camp at the end of the first day.
Then, early the next morning, we would enter "Colorful Colorado" and begin the ascent to the mountains. We always commented on the city limit signs which changed from displaying population numbers to declaring the elevation of said town. After everyone was awake and the first round of snacks had been passed around, we began to anticipate the first hint on the horizon of the far blue horizon that would be the Rockies. Over the years it became a tradition and later an annoyance to teenagers, that with the first sighting of the mountains, I would play on the tape deck or just spontaneously begin to sing "Rocky Mountain High". It was always an inspirational moment. Seriously, it was. There is something in that far off horizon of snowy peaks that has beauty, mystery and the promise of adventure.
Camping and hiking and driving to see the sights. Garden of the Gods, peering over the edge of the Royal Gorge, or the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, or climbing the tallest dune at the Great Sand Dunes National Monument (getting the Great Sand Dune Sunburn), were all fine vacation things to do.
The Rockies are, for us, a place to run away to. A place that is both, in physical placement and spirit, far from the everyday life we live.
Three weeks ago Regina and I headed to Colorado for the end of summer vacation. 7 days in the mountains to get away from it all. We had a great time, staying in an unheated cabin in Grand Lake CO, on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park.We saw historic sites, ghost towns, rushing rivers and of course snow and road construction.
We came back relaxed and ready to get back to real life. Real life? As we drove home on Thursday, with the blue horizon of mountains in the rearview mirror, I wondered about real life. Some of the pictures we took could be post cards, and we wondered if this were where you lived, if this were YOUR real life, would it be just a boring or ho hum as living in the Ozarks can be to us?
Real life? The question is just that. What is it? When we got back, real life kicked in, Regina has 2 jobs and mine had just grown in responsibility by more than double. Real life was here, waiting. But you know, I have tried to keep that Rocky Mountain High in my hip pocket to pull out and remember and use to refresh. Mini trips with John Denver singing in the background while I eat a burger in my car, or starting the day looking at pictures we took while there, remind me that, even though it was only a few days, it was for those days, my real life. I believe dreams and memories are the same in our lives. One is the life we have lived, the other the life we will live, if we only catch the vision.
As I have thought about our mountain vacations I was reminded of how many times in the Bible references to the mountains occur. I guess a mountain high has always had it's spiritual aspects. Moses, Abraham, Elijah, and Jesus all had mountain top experiences. Think about yours!
Peace my friends.
Welcome to Windrock
Friday, September 24, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
A vacation day in Kansas.
A week in Colorado, the perfect escape from a hot dry summer here in the Ozarks. It had been several years since we had visited our other favorite state. We made plans and the last week of August we headed west,a full 7 days of being gone.
We always allow one day to get across Kansas, and it seems no matter which route we take it takes about the same amount of time:hours and hours.
I had been reading (again) William Least Heat Moon's book PrairyErth a 624 page ramble around Chase County and the Flint Hills of Kansas. The Flint Hills I know of, because they are often mentioned in conversations with my good friend, Kansas native, Steve. Anyway, Moon talks of the land, the people and the history of not just Chase county, but all of Kansas. This has helped me to look at Kansas, the not so flat land in a different way, and on this trip I was determined to enjoy the ride and look at it from a pioneer perspective and perhaps with an eye as to what could be loved about Kansas (other than purple Wildcats and mutant blue and red birds). Let me also mention that my family lived in southeast Kansas for 2 years and that we did come to know some of the ways of the the people there. People of the prairie, people of the open sky, people of the stinky wind. But, while there we were generally only looking forward to the day we could get back to the Ozarks (trees, blue water, clean breezes).
I am not a Kansas hater, but like many (most perhaps) appreciation for Kansas is stronger among the natives. But attitudes can change, and I think mine has.
The trip began with us driving, roads that first half of the day,very familiar to me.During the 2 years of life in Kansas, I had a sales route which extended from the Coffeyville Dalton Museum to the Yellow Brick Road of Iola to the twin cites of Fredonia and Neodesha and the Safari museum in Chanute. In our heading west on Hwy 400. Although the road was much improved, the condition of the towns it had bypassed,and many family farms and homes along this "new" road were showing signs of abandonment and deterioration.
The day we left was what is known as "bluebird day" in the Ozarks. Clear blue skies, sun shine, a breeze and, once we not far into Kansas, green fields of corn, hay and fat slick cattle gave the day a pastoral look that made me smile.
We drove all day, and were able to maintain a good pace, even quickly riding the tide of traffic through Wichita. It was amazing how quickly the metro of this conglomerate of towns on the the plains, turned back to farmland. As we continued north I noted how few billboards advertised upcoming places or places of interest, because there weren't any. And in my new perspective, I saw this as one of the beauties of Kansas, the shear nothingness, not of the land, but of the things people bring with them. The sprawl of Wichita is limited by the number of people who really want or need to live there. The billboards limited by what is ahead (only 2 ADULT places between Wichita and Colorado on I-70).
Most people, and I have been one, complain about this nothingness, but on this trip I took notice of several features. One was the sky, there was lots of it, and nearly everywhere you looked from I-70, the land touched the sky. This is not the same as touching the treeline, or the mountain tops, or the city skyline, the sky touches the earth, and it is impressive. And speaking of the earth, I tried to look at the land in a more narrow focus to see what was really there. It's kinda like the difference of using your camera in profile mode, or landscape mode. On this trip across the grass sea, I saw more detail. There were gullies where entire cars had been used to stop erosion, only their 1930's headlights now showing. Lines of cedar trees marching along a fence line where they had been planted by roosting birds. Broken windmills on abandoned wells tilted against the wind and abandoned feed lots, home now to one lone horse and tall weeds clinging to the falling down lot fence.
I found my self looking close and looking far and trying to imagine what it was like when it was truly tall grass prairie for as far as the eye could see. A perspective that also included the promise of mountains somewhere in the distance. Then there was the wind, not so stinky here north of the many feed lots, but as always, blowing. Over the years as we have traveled across Kansas, I have watched for the windmills. Windmills and sunflowers are icons of Kansas. As we came through the rolling hills west of Salina, there was something in the distance that I just couldn't place, something big, but not clicking in my brain. We continued our barreling down the interstate, suddenly my brain finally put together what the eyes were telling it, windmills of course, no, take that back, wind turbines, huge white three bladed towers standing on the north side of the interstate, for as far as we could see. On the way back home I measured and this army of the the green future, stood alongside the highway for more that 15 miles. It was amazing. Later we saw one of the blades on a truck on I-70, it was the length of the trailer.
This whole thing reminded me that Kansas is often thought of as empty, useless, boring, etc. But just as it does with wheat, corn, and cattle, Kansas supplies the nation and the world with the common everyday things, that so many people have no idea where they come from. So now, it seems, power will be added to that list. The wind always blows in Kansas an unending resource.
So on this vacation I found that Kansas is more that meets the eye, or the imagination. Even though I am still not a person who would chose to live there, I do understand that those who do a little more perhaps. They are there because,like their pioneer ancestors,they see a potential in Kansas that most would fly by or prefer to sleep past. To all my Kansas friends, thanks for the slice of bread this morning and the quarter pounder for lunch, without these would this wouldn't be America?
Peace my friends.
We always allow one day to get across Kansas, and it seems no matter which route we take it takes about the same amount of time:hours and hours.
I had been reading (again) William Least Heat Moon's book PrairyErth a 624 page ramble around Chase County and the Flint Hills of Kansas. The Flint Hills I know of, because they are often mentioned in conversations with my good friend, Kansas native, Steve. Anyway, Moon talks of the land, the people and the history of not just Chase county, but all of Kansas. This has helped me to look at Kansas, the not so flat land in a different way, and on this trip I was determined to enjoy the ride and look at it from a pioneer perspective and perhaps with an eye as to what could be loved about Kansas (other than purple Wildcats and mutant blue and red birds). Let me also mention that my family lived in southeast Kansas for 2 years and that we did come to know some of the ways of the the people there. People of the prairie, people of the open sky, people of the stinky wind. But, while there we were generally only looking forward to the day we could get back to the Ozarks (trees, blue water, clean breezes).
I am not a Kansas hater, but like many (most perhaps) appreciation for Kansas is stronger among the natives. But attitudes can change, and I think mine has.
The trip began with us driving, roads that first half of the day,very familiar to me.During the 2 years of life in Kansas, I had a sales route which extended from the Coffeyville Dalton Museum to the Yellow Brick Road of Iola to the twin cites of Fredonia and Neodesha and the Safari museum in Chanute. In our heading west on Hwy 400. Although the road was much improved, the condition of the towns it had bypassed,and many family farms and homes along this "new" road were showing signs of abandonment and deterioration.
The day we left was what is known as "bluebird day" in the Ozarks. Clear blue skies, sun shine, a breeze and, once we not far into Kansas, green fields of corn, hay and fat slick cattle gave the day a pastoral look that made me smile.
We drove all day, and were able to maintain a good pace, even quickly riding the tide of traffic through Wichita. It was amazing how quickly the metro of this conglomerate of towns on the the plains, turned back to farmland. As we continued north I noted how few billboards advertised upcoming places or places of interest, because there weren't any. And in my new perspective, I saw this as one of the beauties of Kansas, the shear nothingness, not of the land, but of the things people bring with them. The sprawl of Wichita is limited by the number of people who really want or need to live there. The billboards limited by what is ahead (only 2 ADULT places between Wichita and Colorado on I-70).
Most people, and I have been one, complain about this nothingness, but on this trip I took notice of several features. One was the sky, there was lots of it, and nearly everywhere you looked from I-70, the land touched the sky. This is not the same as touching the treeline, or the mountain tops, or the city skyline, the sky touches the earth, and it is impressive. And speaking of the earth, I tried to look at the land in a more narrow focus to see what was really there. It's kinda like the difference of using your camera in profile mode, or landscape mode. On this trip across the grass sea, I saw more detail. There were gullies where entire cars had been used to stop erosion, only their 1930's headlights now showing. Lines of cedar trees marching along a fence line where they had been planted by roosting birds. Broken windmills on abandoned wells tilted against the wind and abandoned feed lots, home now to one lone horse and tall weeds clinging to the falling down lot fence.
I found my self looking close and looking far and trying to imagine what it was like when it was truly tall grass prairie for as far as the eye could see. A perspective that also included the promise of mountains somewhere in the distance. Then there was the wind, not so stinky here north of the many feed lots, but as always, blowing. Over the years as we have traveled across Kansas, I have watched for the windmills. Windmills and sunflowers are icons of Kansas. As we came through the rolling hills west of Salina, there was something in the distance that I just couldn't place, something big, but not clicking in my brain. We continued our barreling down the interstate, suddenly my brain finally put together what the eyes were telling it, windmills of course, no, take that back, wind turbines, huge white three bladed towers standing on the north side of the interstate, for as far as we could see. On the way back home I measured and this army of the the green future, stood alongside the highway for more that 15 miles. It was amazing. Later we saw one of the blades on a truck on I-70, it was the length of the trailer.
This whole thing reminded me that Kansas is often thought of as empty, useless, boring, etc. But just as it does with wheat, corn, and cattle, Kansas supplies the nation and the world with the common everyday things, that so many people have no idea where they come from. So now, it seems, power will be added to that list. The wind always blows in Kansas an unending resource.
So on this vacation I found that Kansas is more that meets the eye, or the imagination. Even though I am still not a person who would chose to live there, I do understand that those who do a little more perhaps. They are there because,like their pioneer ancestors,they see a potential in Kansas that most would fly by or prefer to sleep past. To all my Kansas friends, thanks for the slice of bread this morning and the quarter pounder for lunch, without these would this wouldn't be America?
Peace my friends.
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