Different Modes of Exploration: Experience 1 – A Lion’s Trail

Posted on January 7, 2012 by mlgray

While spending a raucous two weeks in the California sunshine with family and friends for the holidays, I fell into a lovely rhythm of getting outdoors far more regularly than I’m able to during a typical Denver work week.  The daily fresh air spurred thoughts of the many ways we wander through this world.

I usually relay stories of travel by car (I am American after all), or the occasional plane or train or boat, and some times I even sneak in a tale or two about hiking (really, with my own legs). But all of these modes possess a certain stride, a directness to reach a far off place. Yes, the journey is everything, but even while hiking we cover ground at a rather fast-pace.

Since I was five, my dad has taken me tracking (the simple, yet rather complex art of following animal sign through their habitat). So on New Year’s Day, we avoided the more classical pass time of watching the Rose Parade (not that it happened on the 1st anyway), by going out to check our “tracking boxes” in some near-by public lands.  We’d smoothed out large sections of trail with a broom on New Year’s Eve in hopes that we could capture some clear, crisp prints of a mountain lion we knew to be traveling through the area.

I won’t confess to any shananigans, but tracking is a perfect way to spend the day after celebrating the end of 2011. Continue reading →

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Thanksgiving Travels Part V: Why We Return Home

Posted on December 19, 2011 by mlgray

From Sedona, we flew across the 40 to Albuquerque, New Mexico where we made our way through a couple of local breweries and a pizza stop for greasy calzones and Italian sandwiches. It always amazes me how one can go from the slow, leisurely pace of hiking, to the nutty speeds allowed by our nation’s interstate system. We live in a remarkable world.

Thinking that Santa Fe would be a nice stopping point for the night before making the final miles north on I25 to Denver, we found a no-frills motel room on the outskirts of town.  After dropping our bags and looking-up directions, we meandered up to the local brewery for the last of some live music and a few small samples of malted barley.

Over drinks, we made conversation with a local ceramicist-sculptor and heard about his escape from Yale into the art world. Lucky bastard. Continue reading →

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Thanksgiving Travels Part IV: Sedona

Posted on December 16, 2011 by mlgray

If Thanksgiving is for just one thing, it’s for family.  And I’ve had the good fortune that one of my long-time travel companions is my father, who joined us on our Sedona sojourn.

On Thanksgiving Day, my Dad and I started up a canyon with Daniel and Margaret (my brother and sister-in-law) around 10:30 am for a leisurely stroll, seeking to induce Turkey-day appetites and find the elusive Javelina, the local wild boar, (for wildlife watching, not as a festive side-dish). Around noon, the canyon kept going and going and going. Our little group happened to be filled with type-A personalities (one of our family’s strong suits), and there’s always a desire, despite my romanticized vision of hiking, to reach some semblance of a destination.

Eventually the trail wore thin and long, frustratingly so, if such a statement can be made about such a stunning landscape. Daniel and Margaret turned back, fulfilled by what they’d seen, the destination they’d reached. As for Gary the Cowboy and his terminus-seeking son, we kept going. Continue reading →

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Lunar Eclipse

Posted on December 10, 2011 by mlgray

We travel the world far and wide, to be amazed, to observe, to enjoy the beauties and complexities of humanity and the world. But what we come to realize quite quickly, is that the most profound beauty, the deepest enlightenments, might just happen in our own backyards, when a moon eclipsed mingles with mountain tops. Continue reading →

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Thanksgiving Travels Part III: Another Country

Posted on December 10, 2011 by mlgray

After leaving Four Corners National Monument, we wove our way south by southwest through the Navajo and Hopi Reservations. It seemed pertinent to travel across these lands, these wide-open (maybe even desolate) spaces, during our Thanksgiving Holiday. I think we’ve done a better job in America celebrating Thanksgiving as a time for honoring family and friends and life instead of making up stories of Pilgrims and Indians and what good friends we all were back in the 1600s. But we have a long way to go.

Reservation lands are a stark reminder of the atrocities and genocides and abuses we committed against the First People of this continent. There’s a beauty to the wide open desert, but to force entire Native American nations onto tiny parcels of land was absurd and unjust.  And then to keep them there through systemic oppression without a modern day apology . . .

From my steel box zipping through this country at 70 miles per hour, it’s surely not my place to make accusations about the quality of life and the general happiness on these lands.  Continue reading →

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Thanksgiving Travels Part II: Touching Four Corners

Posted on December 5, 2011 by mlgray

“Do you have anything smaller?” The kiosk attendant at Four Corners National Monument asks me curtly. It’s 9:03 am and we’re clearly the first tourists on site.

I fumble in my wallet for a moment and turn to Lindsay, “Do you have any change?”  She shakes her head no and I look back towards the toll both operator.  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”  I suddenly feel like I’m back in Vietnam, where the banks dispense massively large bills, but it’s a street crime to attempt to pay with currency worth more than three dollars. I want to ask what am I paying for anyway?  But I hold back, knowing that there’s no reason to increase the strain on our entrance any further.

The attendant fumbles around for a moment, clearly hoping I give-in before she does, (and I would if I could), until she finally hands me the change.  With our epic battle for money exchange over, we drive forward and pull into the empty parking lot. Continue reading →

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Thanksgiving Travels Part I: Road Line Yellow

Posted on November 21, 2011 by mlgray

After three months of shorter one-day and weekend trips, I’m glad to be out on a ten-day journey. We awoke early on Friday morning, right at sunrise actually, to wander our way down to Sedona, Arizona for Thanksgiving.  With the image of the pink and orange sky gently reflected in our neighborhood lake still fresh in my mind, the road miles began to pass-by with a comforting ease.  It didn’t take long to remember why I love the movement of the road . . .

Snapshot 1: Somewhere in Pueblo, Colorado an elderly couple sits on their porch. Leaning back in old Adirondack chairs, they watch the 80 MPH traffic on I-25.  I imagine they’re happy, and that they have no intention of joining the highway buzz.              Snapshot 2: An abandoned green Mustang, probably from the 70s, has found its resting place beneath two oak trees out in the middle of a forgotten field.  I wonder what stories it could tell, what roads it has seen. Continue reading →

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Building Community, One Craft Beer at a Time

Posted on November 12, 2011 by mlgray

After visiting the Arvada Beer Company (ABC) last night, I am once again convinced that hometown breweries are restoring community to our neighborhoods.   I watched for over an hour as friends gathered for their TGIFs and children enjoyed homemade rootbeer and board game classics such as Sorry and Checkers with their parents. One group continued to grow and grow and grow into such a boisterous party, that it seemed like their whole neighborhood had showed-up to celebrate friendship, family and good beer. Located in the heart of Olde Town Arvada, families can enjoy food from a variety of local restaurants (including a Belgium Fries place right next door) with their choice of a half dozen well-crafted standard ales in ABC’s well-lit taproom.

All of this reminded me of that fine T.V. comedy, Cheers, but with a family twist.  And in a world where we often claim to lose in-person community because of electronic distractions like Facebook, I think the case can be made that brewing establishments are restoring some of our American roots. In our beer travels this fall, I’ve seen this on several occasions: Continue reading →

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Ants Marching

Posted on November 5, 2011 by mlgray

I sit down on a bench in the middle of the 16th Street Mall, Downtown Denver.  Other than the Free Bus and the roar of the occasional motorcycle cop patrol, the Mall is reserved for pedestrians only.  The wanderer on the Mall is prone to seeing humanity in the raw, up close and personal. Tourists gawk about, business men and women move to and from offices, homeless men play chess, street musicians provide a consistent soundtrack to the pace of shoppers, and the aromas of food float down the street, coming from noisy restaurants and humble food carts

While sitting in this rush of foot traffic, I think over my past few years of commuting by car to work.  I’ve written poems and reflections on the nature of traffic.  I’ve worked on my rising levels of frustration, and attempted to use traffic as a lesson in patience, stillness, inner-peace.  Some mornings it works.  Most mornings it’s a disaster.

Amidst the flow of people walking up and down the street, I realize how remarkably similar the pedestrian commuters are to people driving up and down the freeway. Continue reading →

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A Walk in the Universe

Posted on October 29, 2011 by mlgray

Last week we walked the Mt. Galbraith trail out of Golden, one of my favorite local hikes.  The trail ambles up the side of a small front range hill, allowing sweeping views of the Denver skyline and the plains. Early on during the hike, I was struck by the observation of how familiar I am with this little patch of earth.  I certainly don’t know every nook and cranny, but I’ve walked the path enough times now to recognize certain elements of the flora and fauna.

We came around a bend and I realized I actually hadn’t hiked this trail in a long time.  Sometime recently, a fire crept up Mt. Galbraith and wiped out portions of pines and grass and shrubs.  Despite my earlier thoughts about the longevity and relative permanence of the natural world, the burn area reminded me of the cosmic understanding that even things we think won’t change, often do.

A couple days earlier in my course on Creative Leadership, I showed some TEDTalks and other video clips about the expansiveness of our Universe.  One assignment in my class is for students to walk outside and look up, and to think about what this galactic glance inspires.  The responses from the students who take the assignment seriously (and most everyone does), are tremendous and intriguing.

It turns out that most people share some pretty similar thoughts when looking up. Collectively, we often think about the massive expanse of space, and about what a miracle it is that earth and humans and life exist. Our next thoughts often then lead us to contemplate how insignificant we are, and how, despite these realizations, we are inspired to live our lives more completely.

Back on Mt. Galbraith, I come around another bend and spot this tree. Behold! I think quietly to my self. The Universe.

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