So Much To Do

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Writing setup in Old Faithful Inn Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

With overcast skies early this morning, I sat down in a very quiet Old Faithful Inn to catch up on some writing but quickly realized my opportunity to see the lodge just this way was a rarity. Sadly, I didn’t wander the place as with the sun potentially making an arrival; I needed to jump-start the fingers to do some bidding of the mind to capture my thoughts for yesterday’s blog entry. Jessica is off outside for a short walk, seeing the awesome things I’ll fail to capture as my priorities have changed so dramatically since any of my previous visits to Yellowstone.

Old Faithful Inn Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

With so much to do but limited time to do it all, we try to make priorities. Most guests appear to be sleeping in right now while behind the scenes; others are likely already prepping for the needs of those still behind closed doors. I need to put this to rest right now: I finished what I could write about yesterday, and it is time to get myself outside to see what the day and my imagination have in store.

Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

It’s cold and gray when I get outside, and I’m reluctant to explore. Something is missing in my joie de vivre, and that something is Caroline. It’s bittersweet finding myself at Yellowstone and not being able to connect to her passionate embrace of life. This leads to the question, how can I so easily find my enthusiasm to be in a place such as Europe when she’s not there? The answer is I’m trying to write to my wife during those times, but I’m distracted by such busy days out here with my daughter, and our personalities are not quite as in tune as Caroline’s and mine.

My inclination was to drag my bag of melancholy back into Old Faithful Inn and continue writing. I’ll start with a love letter to my wife before detouring with a good venting of whatever spleen was clogging up my happiness, but after Jessica and I walked awhile, things lightened up within me, and with the sun emerging, so did better spirits, but, oh how I wish Caroline was here with us.

There are as many memories here as there are trees and hot springs, and every step is a walk into experiences shared with my wife. I can’t begin to figure out how to make memories here for my daughter and me, as it seems that everything is seeping with the essence of Caroline.

After our long walk over the Upper Geyser Basin, we dipped into the cafe next door to the lodge for a quick bite and some water and then a return to the inn as I’d forgotten something in our room. With a full stomach and some sense, I needed to write something. I sat down at the same table as earlier and ended up feeling more tired than inspired. Maybe we should get up and go out for some more exploring of things?

Then, somewhere along the trail, I start to gather glimmers about what the issue might be, but first, some background. Of course, there’d be some other details as rarely, if ever, do I just drop into a concise explanation of anything. In national parks, where I should be leaving the rest of the world and my troubles behind me, I find myself locked in turmoil as, depending on the size of crowds I encounter, I have to immerse myself not just in nature but the morass that is a microcosm of our planet. During this time of pandemic, my immersion takes on interesting qualities. While I was in Germany I was dealing primarily with Germans, but here in Yellowstone, I’m mostly here with Americans.

As is typical for this time of year, should people be traveling (which they are), there are lots of visitors in the park. So, like in a high-end shopping center, I’m here with those people who can afford to spend $500 to $1500 a day on vacation. By and large, the experience regarding the human element in this park is not pleasant. The rangers and staff are great, as are a good handful of the visitors, but a majority are the worst. Not in some criminal or sociopathic kind of way but in attitude.

Amongst all socioeconomic classes of Americans are those who lack any hint of authenticity. I’m certain that to their other superficial friends and family, they are the greatest people ever, no doubt at all, but from my throne of judgment, I cannot find a hint of their empathy for others. Without empathy, you are not allowed into the club of the authentic.

I walked by a man who, by appearance, might have played a different role, but here on the Upper Geyser Basin, he was pushing either his own mother or his mother-in-law in a wheelchair. It’s hard to portray your arrogant loftiness when hunched over a person with disabilities. Back in June in Germany, walking at a snail’s pace with my mother-in-law as she scooted along with her walker, there’s no looking cool to others except those who might empathize with your task at hand.

A mother with four young children cannot wear airs of aloofness when the tribe is running circles around her. She tries to maintain decorum, but you can easily see her limits. A large family vacation, where maybe a reunion is happening, will show you a lot of their dynamic as most everyone is reduced to being their most authentic selves, and those who do not fit in with letting their hair down walk away from the group and are easily identified.

Visitors to any natural area should be there in the moment to see what is there and not worry about being seen or how they appear to others, but the truth is that we humans, by and large, take our swimsuit bodies and nightclub faces everywhere we go. How many would be disappointed to know that there are those of us out here who find more beauty in the steam rising off a hot spring than their ridiculous attempt at looking “put together?”

We spent hours out here on the Upper Geyser Basin, and not once did I see anyone else, aside from my daughter, get down to eye level with the small stuff. Heck, they barely slowed down even for the 20-minute wait to see Old Faithful erupt – in the company of 100s of other visitors.

What’s not seen here are selfies of my daughter and/or me posing in front of any of this because we are too busy not seeing ourselves and instead are witnessing the tiny details that will hopefully seep into our memories, hopefully creating a dad-and-daughter experience in our 11 days into America.

All of these photos I’m posting from here at Yellowstone are conveying information, and while you may not be able to read precisely what is offered, you could do some research and discover what they are. I could share 45 photos of Jessica and you’d still not know a thing about her other than she’s in a national park on vacation with her father. That would be enough as far as you, the casual reader of my blog, are concerned, but for me, I need to know that my shared time with other people carries value that will enhance who I want to be.

Bacterial mats are authentic as they cannot portray anything more than what they are, which is not true with humans. We play roles and use appearance to create our initial line of defense. We avoid eye contact to stop others from establishing a line in, and, should we talk with the other, we can use curt answers to push them away. Most times, we do not have to engage these people; they are offering up who they are within their own families, to their spouses, or to the service person attempting to assuage their anger that life isn’t perfect for them right now.

You will not look deeper into those people who don’t want you to see their humanity as our society has conditioned them that this is weakness. Beauty, perfection, and aloofness are how we allow those below us to fully appreciate the grandeur of our existence. Sadly, this is how a large part of our society responds and finds its own values.

Should you have strangely enough made it to this point in what should have been a silent soliloquy not meant for visitors searching for Yellowstone and reaching my blog, please excuse me, but COVID has turned our world upside down, and while I don’t know about everyone else, I’m evaluating, analyzing, and scrutinizing everything about how the world within and around me is resetting.

But enough of all that, as the world of traveling is not all about the depth of thoughts, it is also allowed to be about the depth of vision and the unknown depths of a geyser. Just take a second to admire the orange bacteria right next to the white calcified ring of minerals on the left of the hot spring, where its opening shows you the aquamarine hue that is difficult to see in the most shallow region of the pool.

Then, on the other side of that pool is a dew-covered plant that is diffusing the individual branches with the light of the sun blurring the picture into shades of red, yellow, and white.

An island sprouts from the tepid, chalky waters and would be easily missed if all I was doing was glancing over the complex landscape, looking for the biggest features that could grab my attention. Qualifying all things great and beautiful into categories that in an instant can be sorted into important or irrelevant is not a place my brain works as I feel that everything has the potential to shine through if you are open to discovering the things that are just before your nose.

It seems that nature has created its own Japanese Zen Garden right here in a hot spring otherwise, how do you explain the nearly perfect layout of river stones around the travertine temple?

This is the appropriately named Ear Spring that I believe I’ve photographed on every other previous visit to Yellowstone. With my 9th occasion to be here, I wonder how the other images might differ from this. After 20 years of not using best practices to catalog my photos, I have to admit I have no easy method for finding those other images from the many 10’s of thousands I store on my computer. Labeling is important, but who knew I’d still be snapping photos of so many places I’ve visited again and again over the years?

From morning to midday we are still walking across the basin.

Taking time to watch a skittish chipmunk emerge from hiding before darting out to nibble on some sweet flowers. Seems to us that this cute little guy is as delightful as seeing bison.

I can’t help but think that this new travertine growth wasn’t damaged by an animal stepping onto the geyser surface but by a human mashing this fragile stuff. While we know it can repair itself, if you imagine just 1% of the 4 million visitors, or 40,000 of them, were walking on this, there would be very little for the 3.96 million of the rest of us to see.

Purple, gray, orange, brown, and white are organized into peculiar forms. In the top left of the image, I see a face to the right of a small skull, and if I were stoned, I would probably see ten other visual features I’d swear were there.

Formerly known as Oyster Pool, this serene-looking hot spring had its name changed back around 1929 after a Belgian man somehow found himself in the 182 degrees Fahrenheit (82c) waters that claimed his life. This hot spring is now known as the Belgian Pool.

We’ll pay a million dollars for a work of modern art using this motif while a parent walking by will not flinch as their teen son spits into a hot spring, such class!

If you knew where this was you’d know what comes next.

Morning Glory Pool it is.

Firehole Lake Drive was our next stop on this adventure. The park is packed, jam-packed. The parking lots are overflowing, but maybe because you can’t see much of this drive from the main road, there weren’t many people turning to investigate the area, so we chose to go here instead of fighting with the lines to other basins. This is Firehole Spring.

The Great Fountain Geyser was not living up to its name while we were here, and we weren’t prepared to wait for 6 to 10 hours for it to possibly erupt, so here’s a shot of it in its elegant dormant state rung by orange pools.

Why is this fallen tree in this pool? Maybe it was here first, and water started bubbling out of a nearby hole, washing away the thin soil the tree was holding onto, and now, instead of the tree standing tall over the landscape, it is slowly disintegrating as it’s absorbed while death removes its existence.

White-footed trees are a feature here in the park as the highly mineralized waters are absorbed by the plant life. I would have liked to share the image of these trees on an early cold morning when steam is rising from the grasses, bringing yet more mystery to the landscape of Yellowstone.

The waters are flowing out of Black Warrior Lake, which is fed by Firehole Lake, this drive’s namesake. The combined waters of the two lakes feed into Hot Lake, which is then carried via Tangled Creek over to the Firehole River, and if I’m not figuring this wrong, they finally flow into the Missouri River.

Wait a second while I contemplate the merits of being moss, growing on an old tree, never paying rent or taxes, bargaining for fresh water, and needing to visit a grocery store for food. While my lifespan might only be 2 to 10 years, I’d have the exquisite fortune of living naked in a place no one can otherwise afford to live in.

If I were moss I’d be looking at the mating grounds of my parents because water is where the male and female reproductive cells meet to create. How moss ends up on trees and rocks, though, is a mystery worth maintaining. I think I’ll go with the idea that they are in contact with aliens who teleport them to places that would be comfy for moss to grow and enjoy the view, reporting back to their alien overlords what they are seeing on this planet.

Up Firehole Canyon past the waterfalls and cascades.

Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

And then back to the Upper Geyser Basin for sunset…

Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

…bubbling water…

Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

…some small eruptions…

Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

…reflections of the late day sun…

Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

…topped off with glistening water spilling over bacteria mats.

Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Of course, this doesn’t all end with the setting sun, as I have plenty of photographs to work on and a need to try capturing some notes that can be turned into a full blog entry. I’d like to point out since I mentioned notes: compared to Germany, where I was writing each blog as I went along, my daughter and I on this adventure are just too busy exploring or driving to find enough time to stay current with each day. On to the next day.

Escaping Nothing

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

From Craig, Colorado, the Wyoming border is maybe 30 miles away, and while we were offered a beautiful sunrise, it was going to be short-lived as rain was on the horizon. Until that point, we’ll try to see as much of our environment as possible. Before we reached the border we had to contend with a stretch of road that I was happy we didn’t attempt to drive last night. Five miles of dirt with a few deep ruts from heavy trucks taking the trek were dry by this morning, letting me sigh in relief that I didn’t chicken out and turn around for a long-haul detour.

I’m in love with these bucolic scenes and ideas of pastoral life, but beyond the terrific landscape, people are living angry lives right now. Funny how decades ago the problem was damage being done by DDT; today, it is DJT (Donald J. Trump).

Always trying to avoid the highways that, while fast, offer little in the way of scenery and, of course, little opportunity to stop for a photo of curiosities and sights of interest.

Then again, on a highway, you’ll never run into a single-lane gravel road regulated by a red light, and you get to drive through a trough where a new bridge is being built out in the middle of nowhere.

After our nearly 6 miles of bumpy, slow driving, we encountered paved road again and maybe 10 miles after that, we reached the Wyoming state line. This is looking back into Colorado at that spot.

What have we escaped by leaving Colorado and entering Wyoming? The same things we left behind in Arizona and New Mexico, just about nothing. Everywhere, there are things to discover unless you’re one of those who feel trapped and cannot see the opportunity all around them. The state line we are crossing is where road number 13 turns into the 789.

We have a lot of miles to cover today on our way up to northern Wyoming, but easily distracted by nearly everything, we’ll stop again and again. These distractions are known as pronghorn antelope.

Looking west, we are near Interstate 80, which we’ll have to contend with as there’s no way to avoid it. But if I turn around…

…and look east there was a train approaching far in the distance. So, we waited about 10 minutes for this multi-engine, nearly 2-mile-long train with an additional engine about two-thirds of the way back to reach us here at the bridge. Jessica commented that she couldn’t remember ever seeing a train from above, come to think of it, I don’t know if I ever had either. I should add when those diesel engines pass right below your face, the power they are exerting feels quite intimidating.

We only had to cover a 20-mile stretch of the freeway before reaching Rawlins, Wyoming, where we could reconnect with Highway 789, also known as the 287. It’s raining off and on out this way, leaving few opportunities for photos. Even though we are far away now from Interstate 80, nothing slows down the impatient on their way somewhere other than where they are. So I just try to mind our safety, and when a car in the rearview mirror is closer than about a half-mile, I pull over and wait as where we are going will still be there whether we arrive sooner or later.

It was just one such stop that I noticed a sign of roadside interest, but you couldn’t see it from the main road, so I turned down a street, and we walked over to read this. Welcome to the modern ghost town of Jeffrey City that sprung to life in 1957 as a uranium mining town but less than 30 years later would lose thousands of residents. A biker rode up to collect his mail from a central mailbox still operating for the few who remain and told me that there are still about 20 people living there.

Another 50 miles up the road, we finally stopped for a proper coffee in Riverton at the Brown Sugar Coffee Roastery on Main Street. Taking a few minutes to sit down away from the car and write in this small town is a great luxury celebrated with grabbing a pound of coffee beans and a little snack. With our goal to get to our next destination earlier than the previous two days, it’s time to hit save and get moving again.

Another 22 miles north, and we have arrived at our destination, Shoshoni, Wyoming, but something looks amiss.

Shown our room, we weren’t the least bit pleased as not only things don’t look like the brochure they mailed us, but we’d asked for a room with two queen beds. Management at the Shoshoni Motel was unrelenting in insisting they had a 24-hour cancelation policy and wouldn’t refund our money. So, Jessica slept in the chair, which was probably a better deal as she didn’t have to rest her head on that filthy pillow.

Of course, that motel was NOT where we were staying. But nothing is at it seems out here. The river in this photo is the Bighorn River, while the area is called Wind River.

This is my daughter’s look of confusion as she was trying to solve the puzzle of exactly where she was, though it might have also been the latent effects of that wicked, powerful joint we bought yesterday in Colorado, where weed is legal for recreational use.

I have a soft spot for granites and schists.

Pulling into Cody, Wyoming, with a few hours of daylight remaining, the draw of Yellowstone National Park was too much to ignore. Fortune struck on two counts for us: first of all, we didn’t have a reservation for tonight; secondly, after calling Old Faithful Inn, I was able to tack on an extra night a day early. So, instead of waiting till morning for the drive into the park, using a park entry I’ve not driven before, we’ll be heading in under gray skies this early evening.

Here we are, cruising ever closer to Yellowstone, passing through Wapiti, when I spot a lone Bob’s Big Boy statue standing guard in front of the range. That’s some loving care out there as someone gave this nearly forgotten icon a beautiful home, mounted it on concrete to thwart its theft, and is keeping it painted so it looks as fresh as ever.

We passed through the entrance of the park but skipped the crowded entry sign as the selfie-a-gogo party was in full effect. So instead of our smiling faces noting that we’d dropped into Yellowstone, I present you flowers and water.

I smelled this bubbling hot spring before seeing it; it’s not a smell I find awkward at all; as a matter of fact, I quite love the reminder of where I’m at.

This unnamed hot spring was our welcoming thermal feature, and though it’s no Old Faithful geyser, it was perfect for me this late day.

Ran into our first traffic jam caused by gawking at wildlife with a small group of elk standing next to Yellowstone Lake. It was dark as we arrived at Old Faithful Inn and found the parking lot packed full. Over near the gas station, we were able to find a spot and hauled our stuff up the short incline. Not that short, though, as at 7,300 feet of elevation, this old man was huffing and puffing, trying to drag everything up in one go. At the iconic red doors of the inn, signs were added yesterday that required everyone entering to wear a mask; back to this routine as things seem to be spiraling out of control in America.

Out Finding The Road

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Here we are in the San Juan Mountains, heading towards Telluride. This should have been one of the more beautiful drives in America, with mist rising off the forest and streams, wildflowers, bursts of summer growth, and soaring mountains, but the path through it all is a utility not intended as a corridor of exploration and appreciation. There are just not enough pullouts to stop and enjoy the glorious views. Couple this road with the aggressive nature of those in a hurry to get to their destination as they’ve grown so accustomed to the sights that the scenery means nothing to them, and I’m left feeling that we are on a road to nowhere.

Signs used to be limited to pointing towards directions and upcoming conveniences such as hotels, food, and restrooms, but nowadays, we also must contend with a politicized thoroughfare where perpetual campaign slogans are seen every so many miles instead of being able to enjoy the birds and trees. This long drive that should have led into the wonderful becomes a maneuver through the psycho-consumptive mental illness that is modern America.

My love affair with the grand wide open spaces I was so fond of on previous visits is being crowded out by the anger of a populace that is growing disenfranchised and their mantras affirming their disillusionment. The vistas still rise majestically, but I can’t help but feel that the morass of stupidity is accumulating like molasses around the ankles of those who wish to move freely.

Pullouts are few and far between. Picnic benches are non-existent. The speed limit is 60, with most drivers pressing 70. I try to mosey along, barely maintaining 40; I am the hazard. It’s summer here at the end of July, and while the temperature is a pleasant 53 degrees before 9:00 this morning, my opportunity to listen to the silence between bursts from the songbirds with rushing water below is limited. Massive pickup trucks with a single occupant, windows rolled up tight, occasionally with bass thumping from a quarter-mile away scream past, letting me know that we are in different universes. Nature is no longer here for poets, writers, composers, hikers, and explorers; it is either a financial resource or an impediment to arriving at a destination where money is to be found.

Moving through Telluride but not stopping for more than a photo at the end of the road, I’m struck by the contrast of those walking and riding by and the Goethe’s walk along the Lahn River to the Rhein River. Goethe walked for three days to cover the 70 miles, and after his arrival back in Frankfurt, he wrote a book that led to a new era in literature. Today, people have to have the right LuluLemon tights, the best namebrand shoes, $10,000 carbon fiber bikes, kitted-out Jeeps with all the popular accouterments, and water bottles that speak to their brand loyalty. They do not move; they present.

Walking, hiking, or biking without style and the display of conspicuous consumption is for the commoner. Being mentally present for the sake of doing something of any particular meaning is passe when Instagram pages are waiting to be filled, and likes are accumulated for simply going to the place everyone believes holds a kind of cache not found in places not branded as “hip.” And what is going to lend that air of importance to a location besides the beautiful setting? It is the expensive nature that can be brought to the destination to maintain exclusiveness. Why should the poor experience “our” beautiful places when they can go to their local lake?

There’s a conundrum here as I fully understand what places like Daytona Beach, Myrtle Beach, and Atlantic City attract concerning tourism and how the exclusive natures of Jackson Hole, Telluride, and Sun Valley maintain their dignified airs. The real problem is a lament I’ve shared here far too often: America cultivates a vast underclass so that at any given time, it has massive reserves of expendable bodies to fight whatever conflict it wants to enter. As long as America’s lower and middle classes have lakes, sectioned-off segments of the coast, and places like Branson, Missouri, that are referred to as “Family Vacation Destinations,” this divide will continue to exist. I’m comparing this to Europe, where in places such as Vienna, all the economic classes of Europe mingle with the cultural attractions on offer.

Damn, this is a line of writing that I’ve grown tired of, but here I am in western Colorado, being confronted with the American reality that the haves and have-nots should remain as far apart as possible, and this makes me seriously uncomfortable.

I am on vacation with my daughter, and I can’t let go of the built-in, inherently unfair structural elements that define this country. I resent that we no longer want to do better and build a solid society but instead are cozy with our ugly mediocrity, bias, racism, and classism.

Just as I gaze out on the profound nature all around me and want to be lost in the moment within the environment, I cannot shut off the hostility pulsing through this country.

And then I realize that part of my problem for experiencing anxiety today is that I’m catching glimpses of the conditions that are leading to the re-masking of America due to the pandemic going out of control again. As the Delta variant of COVID has been ravaging corners of America, especially the unvaccinated, I’m watching people go about as though nothing is wrong. I feel like it’s the end of February 2020 all over again, where Caroline and I had already stocked up on masks, sanitizer, and food while the majority of the population seemed to think nothing much at all was going to happen.

Had you given me an all-expenses-paid vacation to Anywhere, Earth, last February or March, I would have turned it down, but here in Colorado, on our way to points north and then southeast, it’s business as usual. While my daughter and I are among the vaccinated, it’s obvious that at least half of everyone out here is not, while social distancing is nonexistent. Hopefully, when we finally start in on some hikes, we’ll find some solitude where the pandemic can, for a few days, be put out of my head.

The rainbow should be the perfect metaphor for what lies ahead, as the darkness of stupidity can’t loom over my head forever. True, I’m not out of the woods yet, and I can’t say that I’ll be able to escape the malignancy overcoming the landscape of the United States.

Here we are, America. We’ve lost our way, and our dreams no longer exist. The corpse just continues to wither away, and remnants of what was once an elegant creature are left by the side of the road, unseen by those on their way to suffering the same fate. We are now redefining our flag with various colors or trying to live with archaic symbols of an age long gone. We are pledging allegiance not to an idea but to a man some would like to be seen as all-powerful. This is the empire and body politic in decay. Sadly, I can no longer glide over the landscape without smelling the putrid stench of the rot.

Will the clouds dump their cleansing waters of enlightenment and clear our minds of the rampant hatred, or are we doomed to live in perpetual night?

Well, the sun sets over this day, too, and maybe tomorrow, the glimmers of something new will rise with our nearby star, but I will not hold my breath as while I may wake to witness beauty another day, as long as I’m within these borders I’m afraid the storm of our mediocrity will continue to rain down.

Traveling Again

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

East of Superior, Arizona

After that last blog entry, my longest ever at 11,833 words, I needed a break from writing critical things. So, I turned to work on old blog entries. I did some backfill of photos for various, long-neglected trips from 2004, 2007, and 2011. Along the way, Caroline and I fixed a date for the two of us to visit Germany together, and those tickets are now reserved. Meanwhile, with all the travels of May and June, including the Big Sur Coast and Germany, I’d forgotten about a trip coming up early next year that will take us to Chiapas and Oaxaca in Mexico. the first part of that adventure is all about the fiber arts of Chiapas. A conversation with our travel companions opened up online that brought my attention back to this Mexican adventure. I suppose we should somehow give thought to it though I can’t really think how I’ll prepare any better.

While steeped in the old blog entries from 2011, I focused on writing about a particular visit to Oregon that had us visit the “Spruce Goose” airplane from Howard Hughes. The more I looked at the images from that 5-day vacation, the more I longed for a return to Oregon, and so I booked us two nights at Carl G. Washburne State Park and a night at Umpqua Lighthouse State Park for later this year. Speaking of vacations, last December, I’d mentioned that Caroline and I were going to raft the Selway River in Idaho around the 4th of July this year with friends; well my need to be in Germany derailed that for us.

Off the Salt River on Highway 60 north of Globe, Arizona

In between all of that, but still connected to the old blog entries, this time from a 2004 trip, I was filling in some details and old photos of my daughter Jessica and my first-ever road trip together and called her, inviting her to read the updates. Soon, we were talking about how it’s been a couple of years since we’ve seen each other, and as she recently got her COVID vaccinations, I suggested we should consider the idea of a new road trip and found she was ready for some traveling. Well, then I found a room available at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, and our trip started taking shape. We leave today, just she and I.

On this trip, while on the road, I’m going to invest myself in taking a more studied approach towards photography. Typically, I just point and shoot, grabbing enough to end up with a couple of dozen good photos that I can share here, but I don’t focus on taking great images. Well, that’s changing for this 11-day journey as I’m bringing five lenses, a tripod, and better attention to focus, aperture, and low ISO.

Near Salt River Canyon in Arizona

About my writing, some of the days on the road will be easier to write about than others due to the different natural areas we’ll be exploring. I’ve intentionally loaded up on some days that I hope will present challenges to my use of descriptive language.

Rounding out the time shared with Jessica will be my need to dip into a synthesizer I’ll be taking along. For that, I recently migrated some modules into a portable case that allows me to take the essentials to help with beta-testing a particular module a friend is creating. With our trip to Germany coming up fast, I need to get in as much time as possible, digging into the way things work in the firmware to help make it as idiot-proof as possible [John, the proper word is user-friendly – Caroline].

Heading towards St. Johns, Arizona

Stacked up, this looks like a lot of things to do and not enough time in a day to do them all, and if I fail, I’ll fall behind in such a way with the photography, writing, and testing that I won’t be able to catch up in a meaningful enough way. So, I am writing this to myself as a mantra to not falter in my resolve to do everything I need to do. In order to extract every ounce of value from the investment in time, energy, and money, this must offer an incredibly experiential contribution to my memories, but isn’t that always the case for how I approach life?

North of St. Johns, Arizona

In full disclosure, all the above was written a couple of days ago, but I never took a photo to match it to, and so it wasn’t published. So, I’m assembling this post tonight after arriving in Cortez, Colorado, after the first full day of traveling with Jessica. The photos above and below were all shot during our drive when we had good weather. We had a lot of gray and our fair share of rain, but here we are out on the road.

Somewhere in New Mexico

This will be the longest trip my daughter and I take together as I believe the previous lengthiest was maybe five days maximum. I’m pensive as we dig into this 3,000-mile-long haul as there’s a lot of driving, and she’s a sporty, stay-active kind of person, which causes me a bit of concern.

Somewhere in New Mexico

But out we’ll go and see what the road has to deliver as we bring ourselves into the unknown territory of sharing so much time together.

Day 35 – The Exit

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

My wake-up call from Arizona arrived an hour early, which is keeping with my 5-week tradition of not getting enough sleep. Showered and packed before Klaus offered me breakfast of Brötchen and Marmelade, and I was ready to tackle some photo prep duties to ensure I’d have plenty of material to write about during my 16 hours of traveling. By 10:00 a.m. I’m on my short walk to Zeilweg to jump on the train to Hauptwache with a connection to Hauptbahnhof before a third train takes me to the Flughafen.

I presented my negative results of the COVID test I took on Saturday, my boarding pass and passport, and found myself in the second group to board after parents traveling with children and those in need of assistance. This is my last photograph of Frankfurt before we return for a briefer 21-day stay near the middle of September. With only 7 hours 41 minutes of daylight during the deepest winter, I’d like to get us back into Europe before we have to endure 16 hour nights.

I suppose I should describe my place in business class that is likely ruining my future international flying experiences. Of course, the seat is amazing, and without a flight neighbor, I believe I have space typically occupied by three people. The seat allows me to lay flat though I was more comfortable with the seat about 75% of the way down for my nap. Our first meal came on pretty quickly after takeoff and was our main meal of the flight. I opted for the burrata, tomato, arugula, and pesto for my appetizer and a braised steak with tagliatelle and creamed spinach for the main course. The dessert was a cherry and chocolate gelato. By the time I get to my third cup of coffee, another steward is asking those of us who are awake if we’d like a Mini Magnum bar. Diabetes be damned, I’m flying business!

Seeing I have the menu here at my seat, I’ll also share that prior to landing, we’ll have a final meal. While I’ll be opting for the vegetable ravioli on rape blossom stew with melted tomatoes and hazelnut stock, the smoked tuna with avocado, mango, papaya, and edamame, on sushi rice with sriracha mayo is tempting. Dessert for that meal is fixed with no alternatives, so we’ll all have a chia pudding with fresh fruit. Oh, I forgot to mention that the first round of drinks on offer came with a porcelain ramekin of roasted almonds.

Some of the above is out of sequence because it fits up there, and well, it just works better for me. This photo is of us still not at altitude as we were still heading north somewhere over Germany in a place I can’t quite figure out.

Farms and villages were separated by stands of forests as far as the eye could see.

We are as high as we’ll get on this flight, and I don’t mean as much as the two priests in the center two seats must be after three glasses of wine. Yes, I was keeping track, and both of them have had to be reminded multiple times to pull their masks up. I suppose God will absolve them of their sins.

It’s been three hours since we left Frankfurt, so it’s 4:40 in the afternoon. In Denver, where we’re headed, it is 7:40 in the morning. Here on the plane, the majority of people are asleep. Did Lufthansa put Ambien in everyone else’s meal? As for me? I’m busy writing about yesterday and my trip to Worms and Karlsruhe. In another tab, I have the makings of an entry with 34 photos so far, one for each day I was in Germany, which was set up in case I ran out of things to write in this entry and yesterday. This doesn’t seem very likely.

My mask has to be on at all times that I’m not eating or drinking, and the warm, humid breath is making me tired, or the collective nap is emanating sleep vibes, making me drowsy. My hope is that I can beat jetlag if I stay awake because when I get home after 9:00 p.m., I’ll be so tired I’ll sleep until morning.

An hour later my eyes have closed a few times with fingers that have grown heavy. I snap back awake from my micro-nap to see a “j” duplicated 50 times across the screen or a “k” streaming along. Mine is the only window open, and the blinding white tops of diffuse clouds are doing nothing to snap my pineal into shape or choke off the melatonin that’s whispering sweet nothings to my eyelids. I want to give in, but also don’t want to nap for more than 30 minutes. Those around me have been in their state of slumber for at least two hours already. I cannot suffer their fate.

But suffer, I did. My 30-minute nap worked perfectly, so I was going to add 30 minutes, but 15 of those into that segment, one of the air-stewards reached over me and closed my shade with the change in light and sound, taking me out of my sweet fever dream on the sunny hot side of the plane. I do feel refreshed and ready to take on this weird place between time zones.

I just realized that this flying arrangement is allowing me to drink more than on any previous flight as it’s not a painful hassle to squeeze myself out of a seat where the person in front of me knows I’m getting out as I have to pull on the seat and bump into it as I attempt to extract myself through the seven-inch slice of space we are afforded in economy that’s been filled with 44 inches of fat. I’m liberated to pee to my heart’s content, my bladder’s too.

I just checked on my connecting flight in Denver and wonder who booked this. A four-hour layover? Really? Why didn’t I look to another carrier that had an earlier flight? That sounds like such a great idea I’m looking right now if I can get a ticket for a reasonable price this late in the day. Jeez, everywhere else on the internet works fine. Try going to a competitor airline, and it’s taking forever to render pages. Well, $450 nixes that idea.

I hear activity in the kitchen. We better get this last meal out of the way because I’m kind of enjoying this feeling that we are eating non-stop, and who knows what snack might follow before landing. Speaking of landing, we are about 3.5 hours away from doing just that in Denver where I can start my 4-hour hanging out in a terminal and will probably pass out.

Damn it. It was probably the two ice creams and three coffees, but I’m feeling that telltale sense of pressure that could indicate I might have to consider the unthinkable: a bowel movement at 35,000 feet. This can’t happen; this has never happened. I won’t let it happen. What deep PTSD-inflicted trauma happened in my early Catholic upbringing that brought shame to this very natural near-daily act of evacuating the shit sock? Ah, remember that reference from my book about the Grand Canyon? Yeah, you probably don’t, as why would you?

So what club did I just join exactly? Really, John, you didn’t take a selfie in there? I’ve got to say that a business class toilet isn’t in demand as much as those in economy and it’s maintained a lot better, even after 7 hours in flight.

I’m done. We’ve not eaten yet, I pooped, no crying kids in business class, but I’m done. I’m ready to land, ready to get to Phoenix, ready to hug Caroline. Hmm, I’ll probably have to shower soon after hugging her as after a month away eating a different diet and using different soaps, I’m going to smell strange.

Something to snack on or eat needs to happen; I’m bored. The computer is open, but my brain is in a funk. I have all these creative tools at my disposal, but I get stuck staring at the blank space ahead of the last word I wrote, and compulsively, I feel I have to keep pounding the keys. Too bad I’m not a poet, I could use the empty bottle of water and vast legroom to write something about the contrast if there even was something to be found using those things as subject matter.

The young skinny priest just started his fourth glass of vino. There must be something better to do on this plane than keeping score of a couple of drunken men from the clergy.

I guess I was wrong about kitchen sounds, as it’s an hour later, and the stewards are nowhere to be seen. Skinny priest is going to hell, he’s without a mask, and I’m not going to forgive him his sins for this shit. I’m putting in a smote order after I’m done typing this.

Maybe I should have gotten a bit more sleep as I’m not due home for another 9 hours; that’s 6:30 in the morning back in Germany, which would mean I’ve gotten 45 minutes of sleep in the intervening 25 hours of being in motion. Sleeping at the Denver airport doesn’t sound all that smart, but then again, I could have Caroline call and wake me so I don’t miss my connecting flight. This seems like a small price to pay for the opportunity to lay down so many words from so high up in the sky. It’s not like I spend every day some five miles over the earth writing, though admittedly, I can’t say that anything I’ve noted here has any exceptional insight that would allow me to claim influence from being aloft.

We’ve been flying over the Canadian Shield, also known as the Laurentian Plateau, for quite some time. I never fail to be amazed by this vast, flat gargantuan stretch of land with a million small bodies of water spotting the landscape. There are nearly a dozen fires burning away down on what I’d imagine is tundra, probably from lightning strikes, as there are no roads anywhere out here.

Looking up information about the shield, I see that I’m looking down on the North American Craton known as Laurentia. This body of land once had the tallest mountains on earth, but glaciers and erosion have worn this land nearly flat, and it’s old, coming in at about 3.96 billion years of age.

I have no complaints about the meal served to me; it was one of the best, if not the best, meal I’ve had on a plane. It was better than my previous meal of the day. So, is business class worth the extra expense? The toilet, meals, and service are certainly pluses. The table and all the space I could possibly want in front of me and for elbows within the seat have allowed me to write comfortably all day. Maybe if I’d slept more, I could better appreciate the seats that allow passengers to lay down, heck I even have my CPAP with me, I could have had seriously proper sleep. My butt still hurts, and I want to walk around, but that’s a small price considering the convenience of getting on first and not competing for overhead bin space along with the aforementioned benefits, so I’d be inclined to say, yes, it’s worth it. Will I do it again? Depends on the price differential when Caroline and I return to Europe in about ten weeks.

I never tire of looking down on our earth from up here. I can’t understand how everyone else in this section watched videos for the previous 8.5 hours or slept when those with window seats had these amazing live views of their planet. I may never get to space, but the view from up here isn’t bad, either. I’m astonished that this is my life: one day, I’m riding a bike 80km along the world’s largest mudflat, taking in an art exhibit on another, and the next, I’m in the sky, connected to the world of knowledge, dining on hot food at 35,000 feet.

We are somewhere over South Dakota, and the clouds over North America always look so much more defined and billowy than what I see over the skies of Europe. The land out my window is still flat, but I anticipate seeing mountains at any time. I remain on the lookout.

We’ve reached Colorado and are approaching Denver.

Well, here I am in Denver with 90 minutes to go before I board the next plane to Arizona. Customs was a breeze, and my $14 brisket sandwich wasn’t horrible. I hope it lasts me the rest of the night. I’m sleepy beyond belief and I’m certain I’ll pass out on my way home. Somehow, I’m pretty chilled out; it’s often happened that I feel assaulted by America when I hit the airport; maybe the extra room in business class alleviated a good amount of stress? Seems like I’m done writing for the day, time to exit this non-stop blogging.

Day 34 – Not Paris

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

I’m up early for the train to Paris. Sadly, I get off in Mannheim, where I’ll transfer to Worms. Not so sad really, as Worms is my first chosen destination. I’m visiting history. Tomorrow’s final train in Germany will be the one that will begin my return to the United States.

I can’t emphasize enough how much I love 1st class rail travel. If I never had to fly again, I could be perfectly content on long hauls via train. After not driving a car for five weeks, it will be strange to get behind the wheel again, but that’s not for another day yet.

My redundancy is in full effect by now. How much can I say about the many fields of wheat we are passing? A couple of years ago, when I was here in early April, there were fields of rape outside my window.

I love a dramatic sky, even if it means bloating a blog entry with too many photos. While the anonymous reader will wonder why the author has shared so many, you should be aware that I’m not trying to entice others to visit these places or resonate with the same things I find beautiful or relevant; I post all of this for two people, my wife and myself.

Worms, but not what you think. This relatively small city 50 miles south of Frankfurt plays a large role in German history as the location of much of the “action” in the Nibelungenlied, a medieval epic poem, and the beginning of the Reformation five hundred years ago in 1521. I feel fortunate to be here during the 500th anniversary of such an important event.

I’ve mentioned these cleaners in another post during my stay in Germany. I can only imagine how different American cities might be if people were given jobs such as these and all of our places of commerce were kept neat and clean (and mostly without the use of leaf blowers).

It was the Edict of Worms that opened the schism by banning people from sharing Martin Luther’s ideas. While the 95 Theses he had posted to a church door in 1517 started the world on the pathway to the Reformation, it was the Diet of Worms and their Edict that Martin Luther was “a notorious heretic” that really started the dramatic historical changes that would follow the Reformation.

This is an incredibly important inflection point in Western history that disrupted European power and laid the groundwork for dissolving empires, shifting religious adherences and led to a number of wars, the worst lasting 30 years.

First, the city walls were mostly destroyed by the 30 Years War, and then in 1689, during the Nine Years War, the city was sacked, producing more destruction. and finally, during World War II, about 40 percent of the city was damaged by Allied bombing. My point is that the building that served as the assembly hall for the Diet appears destroyed to the best of my quick research.

This is the Holy Trinity Church, which I’ll visit on my way back into town. During World War II, most of this church was destroyed, but more on that later. First, I have a date with an event that goes back to the beginning of the 13th century.

Now we arrive at the Nibelungen. This is Germany’s epic poem of heroism and is considered their Iliad. It was supposedly here on the bank of the Rhein River that Hagen of Tronje, after slaying the hero Siegfried, threw the Nibelungenhort, Siegfried’s treasure, into the drink. This, combined with my familiarity with Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungen, has finally created enough interest for me to ask Caroline to find The Song of the Nibelungs, its English title, to join our list of books read in the car.

The poem has been dated to approximately 1205 while the opera was first performed in Bayreuth on August 13, 1876. Of course, this is all just information found on Wikipedia, but as I stood here at the Rhein, I did try to imagine that day 800 years ago or more when the raiding party led by Hagen saw the evil in wealth tossed everything in the river. If this even happened in the past 1100 years, then the cathedral was already part of town, and other than all the new buildings, metal railing, and the bridge over the river, I’d imagine that things look much the same. Even so, who knows where Hagen stood precisely during all this? Plus, maybe the river has moved its banks a few times since then; there were probably docks here and there and people fishing from shore and from boats out in the river.

The bells that I’m listening to from the cathedral calling people to church (it is Sunday, after all) would have been the loudest things ever heard by the people of that time. As for recovering the silver and gold that got tossed, who would have had the swimming skills back then to dive into the river to scour the bottom, hoping to find something valuable? Even Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelungen is unknown to me, not the music, of course, but the lyrical content is in German, and I’ve never taken the time to read it. This really is my loss, as here I am at ground zero of this epic tale and opera and I have more blanks than relevant info. Sometimes, I’m a sad sack.

Is this a stretch of surviving town wall, a reconstruction, or a tourist attraction, as there’s a sign nearby directing people to visit the Nibelungen museum? I can’t afford that luxury as I have 2.5 hours in town, and that’s barely enough for much at all.

I do appreciate this effort in Germany: a historical facade still exists, but the rest of the building needs to be cleared away, so they preserve what they can and conform the new house to the features of the old building, at least on the side deemed salvageable.

Protestantism from the word protestation came into being following the edict issued by the Diet of Speyer in 1529 due to the protestations of a number of German Lutheran princes. Today, Protestantism encompasses many churches beyond Lutheranism but both ideas emerged out of the words and actions of Martin Luther. Catholicism would never be the same after this.

Martin Luther, before emperor and realm on 18 April 1521: Since your most serene majesty and your high princes require of me a simple answer, I will give a straightforward one without quibbles thus: If I am not convinced by scripture or by clear reasoning, I am still bested by the passages that I have quoted and my conscience remains imprisoned in God’s word. I cannot trust the pope or the council because it has been shown that they have erred before and contradicted themselves. I cannot recant, nor will I retract anything, because it is not safe nor wise to act against one’s conscience. Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise. God help me, Amen.

Fire destroyed the Holy Trinity Church after the city of Worms was bombed during World War II. The original church was built between 1709 and 1725 on the site of the Haus zur Münze (House of Coinage) that had been destroyed in the aforementioned Nine-Years-War. It is said that the site was chosen for the church because the citizens of Worms believed that it was here that Martin Luther spoke with the King in 1521 as Luther was becoming a public enemy.

The church was modernized when it was rebuilt, as it was a near-total loss and if I understood the man I was talking with, it’s used frequently for concerts.

The mosaic in the background features the King top center, Martin Luther on the right, and his aide on the left. The first big reason for Caroline and me to return is to attend a concert here.

The second big reason to come back is for Caroline to hear the bells clang on a Sunday morning.

Leave it to the Catholics to know how to put on a show of glitz and ornamentation. Services were about to get underway when I shot this photo; the guy at the door informed me that parishioners were already signing up for today’s sermon (a measure brought on by COVID). Pleading that I only had two hours in Worms, I asked for 3 minutes, and he let me have them.

A sprint past all of this was sad, but at least I have some idea of the grandeur of St. Peter’s Cathedral.

Will we ever again build such public houses where light and shadows, ornate figures, and gilded objects are on display for all to witness? I wouldn’t count on it. Just as Caroline and I have strived to see as many national parks and monuments as we could, and we’ve kept track of them, I wish I’d done the same with cathedrals.

There’s a synagogue nearby, and I’ll not be able to stop in today as I’m now running short on time, but I did come across these stumbling stones that recognize the lives of Berta and Max Joseph, who were deported and murdered in Bełżec concentration camp that was the third most fatal concentration camp after Treblinka and Auschwitz.

How in the world did the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe survive World War II? Are the parents of Bertha and Max buried here? Many of the graves have markings in Hebrew, so it was obvious who was interred here but I’m at a loss how this survived and wasn’t wiped off the face of the earth. Walking in, I needed a kipa or hat. I was about to be turned away by a security guy, but then he asked if I had a mask with me, instant kipa in the pocket is now adorning the crown of my head.

On the train to Karlsruhe with little concentration available. I’m tired, and I’m hungry. Father Hanns was at the platform waiting for my arrival. Out of the main train station, we boarded a bus for a short ride to Europastrasse, where we’d get lunch at the same spot he, Caroline, and I always eat. Over a slow meal, we talked about religion, philosophy, writing, reading, Umberto Eco, Caroline, Stephanie, his granddaughter Katharina, Martin Luther, various evangelical bishops, the community of English-speaking evangelicals in the Baden-Württemberg region, but not a word about Paris.

After lunch, we visited Father Hanns’s home so he could identify a particular book, it was The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco. Hanns is surrounded by books, his home is arranged for the life of books and his place in their universe where he can read and write. In minutes, an hour had passed after the first two-and-a-half had flown by, too. We now had to make haste to a taxi stand so we could race back to the train station. Four hours with my father-in-law wasn’t enough.

Back on the train not only are we moving fast, I’m moving fast into time with only 17 minutes before we dock in Frankfurt. The problem with this is that I’m too early. Circumstances are such that I have avoided where I’m staying for some hours until later this evening because my insensitive mouth doesn’t always read people well, especially when the other person cannot be read. So, what do I do? Train ride somewhere else on a Sunday, try meeting up with Olaf the last time, or visit Jutta just before her dinner time.

Thirteen minutes to go, and I don’t want to close my computer, nor do I want to read some depressing news. Bandwidth is not so great I would watch videos, but 12 minutes is hardly enough to get into something. Eleven minutes and I have nothing to share, so before I finish this countdown, I’ll save and put things away to prepare for disembarking.

I met with Olaf after arriving in Frankfurt and spent about an hour with him chatting before walking around the corner to Kebab Han for a mixed grill of Turkish meats.

Walked into the city after the rain stopped and wandered around before taking the U6 or U7 to Heerstrasse just because it was too early to head back to Heddernheim. The tension surrounding this departure from Frankfurt is giving me poor feelings. I probably shouldn’t mention this here as I knew this was the potential price of sticking my nose in other people’s business, but those people couldn’t handle the confrontation, and so with me short of time, I had to accelerate things. Now I’m paying for it with this ill will I’m feeling. This is compounded by the fact that I’m tired, I have to pack, and I have delayed things to avoid any further confrontation. What a dumb way to end this visit to Frankfurt, where my objective was to do well by others.

I cannot believe this area near the Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station) was ever a nice area, but a placard I’d never seen before was on a wall noting that Oskar Schindler lived here for nearly ten years. If I had the time or a better idea of where I’d have found it, I would have gone looking for Horkheimer’s old house on Westendstrasse. Hanns told me about it but didn’t know the house number, so I’ll have to make that pilgrimage another day.

It’s 9:30, and I’m heading from Heerstrasse back to Hauptwache to jump aboard the U1, U3, or U8 to Zeilweg. I’m guessing I’ll be heading to Hauptbahnhof and then the Flughafen between 9:00 and 10:00 tomorrow morning to arrive at least two hours early. I’m flying business class, so I should be able to show up a bit later, but these are COVID times, and I’m still hoping that my rapid antigen test meets the requirements I need to fly to the United States. The worst part of tomorrow I can already taste is the landing in Denver and trying to shove 40,000 pounds of stupid into my eyeballs. I’m expecting there will be a kind of sickness when I start picking up on casual conversations that swerve into the violently aggressive. I know full well that I’ll be hearing grumbling dissatisfaction and the bickering of people tense that they are not in their comfort zone. This is NOT what I’ll be experiencing at the Frankfurt Airport.

I just transformed my angst into something positive for me and, apparently, the man I helped. This guy was the recipient of 65 Euros tonight. He’s broken and falling apart. Three years in jail in Austria and super hard times have left this man of about 30 years old nearly toothless with swollen hands, horrible scars, and seriously ugly wounds on his legs that suggest he’s rotting away. His verbal enthusiasm was emotionally liberating as he told me that nobody had ever helped him like that. Originally, I’d given him 5 Euros on the train, and after some more minutes of him begging others, I threw him the other 10 Euros. When I left the platform we pulled in on, he was busy digging through the trash, but five minutes later, he was on a lower platform where I was waiting for my next train. I asked him for a photo and could see he was reluctant and I told him it was okay that I don’t take it, we’re cool. He then said, “No, go ahead, you really helped me a lot tonight,” so I handed him the 50 and thought he’d cry. He looked down at it and couldn’t believe what I’d given him; he stood up straight and invited me to take his photo. I nearly cried at this wretched man who hardly remains with the living.