This photograph was taken by Carl at one of the only points with a
sign and map, about 20 miles into our journey. This map makes no sense to me. It does to Carl though, he was rather excited by the whole thing, enough so to take a picture of it. So, we were somewhere in this region; that was us winding about on that green line.
It was honestly kind of a strange experience to be away from all people, except one leathery looking old man wearing a green canvas jacket and driving a golf-cart on the dirt road. We stopped him and asked how far we were from any towns or highways. He made it sound like we were minutes from a main road, like he'd just zipped into town on his cart. About 40 miles later we emerged into Spanish Fork Canyon, we never saw any sign of a town, or even other people for that matter. What was that guy doing out there, and how did he get there?!
It was a strange thing to be away from everyone and everything, if even for just three hours. It was beautiful out there, and we scouted out a load of places to camp. I found by the end of our exploring and hiking, I was excited to get back home, it was getting a little lonely. I thought about the guy on the golf-cart, scooting back to his trailer camp, I thought about the cow that got scared by our car and galloped down into a gully, I thought about how at the beginning of our journey, we had no idea what we were going to see, how behind the mountain that I live on, there are vast miles and miles of silence, how I was so glad that Carl and Remy were with me, because there was too much world for me to take in alone on that drive and hike.
In some ways the emptiness we had encountered scared me, though I am a believer in quietness, in wilderness and in meditation. I felt safe driving back onto our street. I found comfort in the daily problems I had so recently bemoaned, not because they are problems, but because they belong to people, and the fact that I worry about those people means that life is pretty good.
1 comment:
It's best to not remember freshmen boyfriend? Boy-what? Who?
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