Random thoughts (and pictures) as I wander North and West - and eventually home again.
Mile 7,850 ish: From Exultant to Depressed in less than 50k
Posted 05-10-2009 at 08:31 PM by Surreal
Extra long drive yesterday put me in the mountains well after dark... and in a driving storm. I love storms, but not on windy roads I don't know, shared by truckers and mixed with sleet. So I pushed on a couple of hours longer than I would have and ended up in an overly well-lit rest stop with RVs running their generators all night. Crawled in back, insert ear plugs, brain hits standby.... until 5 am when I'm absolutely unable to sleep any more, despite being very tired. My motto is if you can't sleep, drive.. so I drove.
Made good time so around noon, I found a provincial park on the map and pulled in for a snooze. I had the place to myself and it was lovely. Down in a sheltered river valley with plenty of shade and wonderfully warm. I rolled all the windows down and slept in the warm sunlight for a couple of hours, then woke up and had a leisurely grooming and lunch, followed by a slow walk along the river. I was refreshed, relaxed and very peaceful. But I have to make the US by Monday, so I had another 8-9 driving ahead of me - Time to push on.
Maybe 20 minutes later, I'm driving in heavy traffic approaching a city... 3-lanes each side of a divided highway – when this magnificant buck leaps across the road in front of me. I manage to stop as do the 3 cars behind me.. and the buck almost makes it across the oncoming lanes of traffic, but he's clipped by the very end of a trailer and is spun about and flung into the air. The trailer is unharmed and the driver pulls over to see to the deer... which lets me drive on. I assume he will do the right thing and kill the deer (I doubt it was dead, looked like smashed leg and maybe internal injuries). If it had been a woman driver, I would have stopped... but I don't think about my double-standard until later. Maybe I should have pulled over... guys can be stupid and cruel too. I'm hoping it was a good ole boy with a sharp knife and freezer space for some venison. I abhor suffering and waste.
I was very down for the rest of the drive... crying at retro songs on the radio and wishing I was home in my own bed. I feel overwhelmed sometimes by the inescapable structure of nature... and how we multiply it with our obliviousness and designs.
Tonight I'm back in a provincial park. The frogs are having a grand operatic time. I miss the frogs singing... although there is always that Lovecraftian moment when they stop at moonset. I boiled up a generous baths worth of water and am clean and in my jammies. My down comforts around me and I've a good book. I just realized that I didn't take the evening dose of vicodin and I don't need it... that bodes well.
Made good time so around noon, I found a provincial park on the map and pulled in for a snooze. I had the place to myself and it was lovely. Down in a sheltered river valley with plenty of shade and wonderfully warm. I rolled all the windows down and slept in the warm sunlight for a couple of hours, then woke up and had a leisurely grooming and lunch, followed by a slow walk along the river. I was refreshed, relaxed and very peaceful. But I have to make the US by Monday, so I had another 8-9 driving ahead of me - Time to push on.
Maybe 20 minutes later, I'm driving in heavy traffic approaching a city... 3-lanes each side of a divided highway – when this magnificant buck leaps across the road in front of me. I manage to stop as do the 3 cars behind me.. and the buck almost makes it across the oncoming lanes of traffic, but he's clipped by the very end of a trailer and is spun about and flung into the air. The trailer is unharmed and the driver pulls over to see to the deer... which lets me drive on. I assume he will do the right thing and kill the deer (I doubt it was dead, looked like smashed leg and maybe internal injuries). If it had been a woman driver, I would have stopped... but I don't think about my double-standard until later. Maybe I should have pulled over... guys can be stupid and cruel too. I'm hoping it was a good ole boy with a sharp knife and freezer space for some venison. I abhor suffering and waste.
I was very down for the rest of the drive... crying at retro songs on the radio and wishing I was home in my own bed. I feel overwhelmed sometimes by the inescapable structure of nature... and how we multiply it with our obliviousness and designs.
Tonight I'm back in a provincial park. The frogs are having a grand operatic time. I miss the frogs singing... although there is always that Lovecraftian moment when they stop at moonset. I boiled up a generous baths worth of water and am clean and in my jammies. My down comforts around me and I've a good book. I just realized that I didn't take the evening dose of vicodin and I don't need it... that bodes well.
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