Different Modes of Exploration #15, Part 2: Highway Aphorisms

These were an enjoyable process to put together last week, and I only traveled through ten of the reflections.  I thought I would try out just a few more:

1. During sunset, I talk with good friends in New York, watching and waiting out Hurricane Sandy.  They are enthusiastic and cynical. It seems crazy that they’re so close, but so far away, that they’ll see a historical storm, and I’ll see but a few rain drops.

2. I wake up in the absolute dark of Mountain Home, Idaho. What time is it? 7:30 at night? Is it really morning?  Did I sleep through a time warp? Where is everyone?  Did I sleep through the apocalypse?  Disorientation in the unfamiliar.

3. Finally, I can see the faint silhouettes of mountains in the distance, the full moon offers the lunar complement to the rising sun . . . what a lovely contrast to see both at once.

4. The fog roles into Boise from the Treasure Valley . . . I hear all about this unfamiliar experience on the local radios. But for the thousands I pass on the freeway, this is their familiar, their everyday . . . it is my exotic.  While they know the road names and locations of accidents, I know nothing . . . I think of someone from here driving through Denver, having this same experience.

5. The fog is thick and mystical, as it always seems to be.  Truck tail lights appear tall and ghost-like, beating red.  Headlights emerge from the dusty horizon.

6. As I cross into Oregon, the fog lifts, but a low ceiling provides more wild cloud formations . . . one looks like a volcano, while others roll and dance across the countryside. For a moment I think I’m in Ireland, but instead of lush green, the hills have turned that lovely burnt yellow.

7. Atop Oregon’s Blue Mountains I gaze towards more clouds moving across the sky. Wisps of fog rise up from gulches and canyons and valleys as the recent snowfall evaporates.  The light begins to turn, all those different shades of sunset harmony.

8. My day has come full circle.  The road shows itself as a medium for movement, as a method to see the landscape in detail, and expansively.

9. With love, with mystery, with beauty, // with great adventure and grand nuance, // the road continues.