Friday, November 23, 2007

Utah? I'm Tah-ler...

July 8, 2007

I woke up feeling existential and tired. After reading Life After God I couldn't say if I felt things differently. But I took a picture of the sunset, believing the one for that particular morning meant something more than any of the others thus far. We left and it basically flattened out completely, but not completely. First, there was passing through by the reservoir and then what looked like an expanse of unnaturally green and perfectly in-place gold which you assume are those amber waves of grain they rave about. In reality, it's all rolling, and cut through by channels and irrigation canals, and somewhere in the distance is a rise, which you assume is the last mountain you'll see for a while, but really it's just an ellipsis before the next series of geological features. The road was a lengthy camel humpback over deep washes and atop these expansive fields. At the water stop we spotted a fan man, someone piloting an enourmous fan strapped to his back attached to a parachute. In the last town before leaving Colorado, we spoke to a man and his wife who raised horses. We missed the town's relay for life by a day, but he was a cyclist and was enthusiastic about what we were doing. I made it a point to stop at the state line, and we did. It was a sign advertising all that Utah had to offer: red rock arches, skijumper from the 2002 winter olympics, and fresh white powder. Nick and Alex climbed the sign and we documented it.

Utah was welcoming, the stretch of highway we were on was tree-lined, like a parkway for at least a part of it, with a view of a single mountain rising in the distance, and the town we were heading towards, looming invitingly ahead. And there was also the road construction. And the truck traffic. I willingly went off-roading to avoid colliding with them. I wish the best of luck to anyone riding that stretch of the Western Express before they finish up construction, it was not fun. The day's ride, like the week of rides before, was a relatively short 60 miles, so we go to the stayover church before services were out. The parishoners were welcoming and one lady offered to let us use her shower. She told us about how the Mormons basically ran the state and were exclusionary to those who weren't. And she railed against the environmental protections that were placed on the public lands around the community, the Clinton administration, and how negatively the media portrays the war on Iraq. And for however much I disagreed with what she said, I still listened with respect. This was really my first taste of exactly how conservative folks in the midsection of this country are. Everything she said was fascinating because it gave me some idea of how people different from me think. The church was starting vacation bible school the next day, so we helped out by blowing up oversized, inflatable sports paraphenalia. It was a good test of lung capacity and the benefits thereto that we had gained since May 25th. I missed my chance to have ice cream by blogging in the church's radio station. Being in that studio made me miss listening to NPR.


I woke up and rode out to this.


I could never climb something like this Utah sign


I gathered that their bible school was sports-themed. These took about ten minutes to inflate

July 7, 2007

July 7, 2007

We left Telluride in the cold, in the shadow of the alpine valley, in the damp mountain altitude. We left behind the cozy storefronts and tourist-speckled streets and started the ultimate climb out of the Rocky mountains, spread out before us to admire for the last time before parts unknown, down the long, sloping expanse of western Colorado. I miss it now and I loved it then, passing by the gates in the road they close shut in the winter because it gets that much snow, and the reflection of the chalet next to the bluest lake near the top of Lizard Head Pass. On the other side, we passed through tiny Rico with it's drive-through coffee shop in a shack with free internet. I shot the breeze with my teammates before heading down the road with Drew and Sehee in tow. We ended up at the library in Dolores for lunch and the routine of staying in touch with the world through the series of tubes. I was excited that the Tour de France had started and jumped to finding results, a habit that I wouldn't kick until it wrapped up near the end of the ride.

The Ponderosa Restaurant in town generously fed us dinner. There Jon met a gentleman who lived in town summers named B.J. Mormon who gladly offered his time to be interviewed for the portraits project. Mr. Mormon, who spends his summers in Dolores, is from Lubbock, Texas and was a Frito-Lay long-haul trucker. He was fortunate to find out early that he had prostate cancer and was able to take care of it without much trouble. His story attested to the quality of care he was able to recieve and the importance of checking on your health regularly. I was glad to have sat in on his interview and hear his story defeating cancer.

The First Baptist Church put us up, and like all the churches we stayed in, there's always interesting reading material. In this case, I read Life After God by Douglas Coupland in one discontinuous stretch. The premise drew me in - what it's like for a generation of people like myself to be raised without religion, something I can relate to. I sat. and read. and helped Mark finish off a gallon of chocolate ice cream. and continued reading, without regard to the fact that I would lose sleep in the matter. Needless to say, I had a spiritual moment, but not necessarily a religious moment, in that the author illustrated how we need God in our life, Substance, something to Fill a Void, I fell asleep feeling cathartic.


The most beautiful morning imaginable involved seeing this.

A return to the blogosphere after a hiatus

Keroauc wrote On the Road on a single roll of paper in what was probably a drug-crazed 33 hours. Reading wikipedia, it was more like 3 weeks.

The least I can hope for is completing something before Thanksgivings break ends. It's not impossible. I did ride 4000 miles from coast to coast.

So let's do this thing called finishing up a reflection of what I did this summer

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Hiatus

To the readers of whatlaudelikes:

Unlike Allison, I haven't been able to catch up on blogging, so bear with me while I try to fit updating my whereabouts here in the hectic daily cycle of eat, sleep, and bike. Thank you for your patience!

Laude

(Read Allisonacrossamerica.blogspot.com in the meantime)

Sunday, July 8, 2007

In Lieu Of Words, Images



Entering another state and another whole new world of wilderness and people. I realize this picture is out of order in the narrative, but nonetheless it's a nice illustration