After having been home for a week, I still wish it were.
I love driving and traveling. Now, the 97 straight hours or driving or riding or sleeping in a car would (and did) definitely get old, but doing 400-500 miles in a day, then taking a day off, then doing it again, became a comfortable rhythm on the drive back. We saw Craters of the Moon, Yellowstone, the Bighorn National Forrest, the South Dakota Black Hills (including Wind Cave, Crazyhorse Memorial, and Mt. Rushmore), along with the Badlands and some friends and family.
**Pro tip: The Crazyhorse mountain sculpture is several magnitudes bigger than Mt. Rushmore - see the Presidents first, so you're not underwhelmed.**
We drove 1700 miles in two different (back to back) 24-hour periods (and then followed those up with two more 1550+ mile 24 hour periods) in an attempt to set a World Record for driving all 48 contiguous US states. We fell short, partly from a little too much navigation gambling, partly from driver error, and largely because of a flat tire. It was still a tremendous experience and one we're already talking about doing again.
The subsequent two weeks were spent with my family (my wife and daughter flew to Boise to meet me) - where we put an additional 3,000+ miles on the rental, experiencing some small parts of the West!
My favorite day was the drive out of Yellowstone - we went up to the Mammoth Hot Springs, which were as cool as anything in the Park, then headed out the Northeast Entrance along the Lamar Valley, which was packed with Bison (and a coyote!) (not to mention incredible views). When we left Yellowstone, we took the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway down to Cody, WY. This was what I believe must be quintessential Wyoming. The views were indescribable. Huge mountains. Big sky.
We drove down the mountain directly ahead, stopped to check out a bridge over an 800' ravine, then up the switchbacks you see in the foreground. The top was only about 8,000' - nothing like the 10,000' summit of the Beartooth highway you can sort of see off to the right (the one where they take those photos in the winter of a road with 25 foot snow walls on either side) that I greatly wanted to try, but will have to save for another day.
I've written before that I like hiking and driving, because the expanse of the universe comforts me. The feeling of small-ness and insignificance gives me great peace, when most of my life my brain is telling me I need to be better and do more. There's nothing like giant wildlife or expansive mountain views to help one understand the world does not revolve around them.
Even crazier, on a scale I'm still struggling to understand - even after barely scratching the surface of a National Park that's almost twice the size of our home state, we drove hundreds of miles through brilliant, amazing Wyoming wilderness (because there's almost nothing but wilderness in Wyoming) only to realize we never even left the top third of the state.
I have driven through large parts of Wyoming on other trips and a lot of the state is nothing like the majesty of the mountains (although I'm one of those people who finds a real, rugged beauty in the high plains), but it's still amazing to think that such a huge expanse of majesty exists - not only that, but there are two large states south of it, with similar mountain vistas, and another north, not to mention thousands of miles on either side of the border, as well. And that doesn't include the deserts of Utah and Arizona and New Mexico. Or California. Or the rest of the world.
It's a big country - and even though we saw more of it faster than all but a handful of people, there's so much we missed. Getting to go slower on the way home was helpful. We stopped wherever we wanted to stop and it was glorious. It definitely firmed up in my mind that once our cats have died, we should definitely spend our summers traversing the country like this. We'd probably have to stay in fewer hotels and more campsites, but it's an experience that just doesn't get old... even with a six year old.
I like accomplishing tasks, but it's also good for me to have some tasks that are basically impossible. I can't see the world. I can get to the highest point in a lot of states, but 50 is pretty doubtful - and after that there's a whole world full of high places. I can see all 50 states, but not all of them and for not enough time. The world is a beautiful mystery to be explored, but you've also got to balance that with the people around you; your own community is also an endless, beautiful mystery, and there's not enough time to explore that deeply either.
Perhaps, in the end, this trip has given me even more reason to believe in eternity. There simply isn't an end to everything good in the world and I have great hope there is also no end to the time we have to explore it. The paradox of eternity, though, is that while it seems, on the surface, to be reason for patience, it's actually a drive to urgency. We've got all the time in the world, why waste any of it?
The first order of business was introductions. People had arrived from all over the eastern US - New York, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, you get the idea. In an instant we were friends. The excitement bubbled over as we anticipated 1:16, when the moon would begin its slow march across the face of the sun. As far as I can tell, no one there had ever seen a total eclipse before. Some were clearly weather nerds - one family, toting an infant, had searched through three other locations and a plethora of cloud cover maps to choose this location. Another guy seemed almost embarrassed to be happy to be there.
Eventually the time came, we all stood, necks craned, staring at the sun. Then the real wait. It took 88 minutes for the moon to fully block out the sun's rays. Things were pretty normal right up until the second we achieved totality. It got dim, of course, but barely noticeable if you weren't looking for it - then all of a sudden it was dark. I've never taken much time to marvel at the power of the sun, the source of life on this planet (and any others where life might be hiding, in our solar system, anyway), but it's incredible. Just the mere sliver was enough to light the planet and in the blink of an eye it was gone.
I've seen pretty skillfully captured photographs of a fully eclipsed sun (my wife took the one on this post) - the dark circle with a ring of light around it - and they're beautiful, but nothing could ever capture the experience of seeing it. Celestial bodies, the size and scope of which we can barely begin to fathom, moving in intricate orbits, at predictable times. More than just the aesthetic wonder of the moment, is the subconscious realization of the profound expanse of existence.
We were just people, I suspect people who might not otherwise get along all that well, sharing an experience we'll never really be able to explain. I recognize that it's just mechanics, no different than the sun rising and setting every day, but there really is something more. I won't say a "spiritual" experience, both because its cliche and because spirituality is sort of my field and this was different. It's almost the opposite of a spiritual experience - a profoundly physical one - the eclipse grounded us firmly within the universe. We might be small and insignificant, but we're a part of something majestic and beyond imagination, and that something is real, physical stuff. We can see and touch and observe it as easily as we can our own arms (well, technically, not AS easy, but you get the idea).
There's not really a point to all this. When the eclipse was over it was a race to pack up and hit the road, where at least 90 minutes of extra traffic were waiting on us. Along the way, roads were littered with cars, people still watching, through those silly little eclipse glasses,
as the moon made it's exit from the scene.
It really does seem a silly little thing - certainly not one worth driving with a five year old for 1200 miles in three days - but I am insanely glad we made the trip. I enjoyed connecting with strangers - fellow humans - for a few moments, in a shared experience that represents something important to those of us who got to see it.
The next one's April 8, 2024 - it'll be coming up from Mexico, through the middle of the US once again, through Michigan and northern New York and New England. Totality will be right over the part of Vermont I grew up in; I hope there's still a few familiar faces there with an extra bed and some hospitality, because I'm going. Absolutely. I wouldn't miss it for the world.
I've been a lot of places in the US, but I'm not otherwise well-traveled. I've left the continent only twice, but in both instances discovered one of these places of refuge. The Causeway in Northern Ireland and an ordinary, non-descript public beach on the Big Island of Hawaii. I'm not one for sun or sand, necessarily, but this beach was tree-covered and sheltered - as much as I have a long list of international locales I'd love to see, I might want to return and just sit on this beach more than any of them.
Previously, those feeling have not been associated with the places in which I experience them; they've felt more like participation is some larger truth. I've got profound memories of rightness sitting on a rock, near the top of Mt. Elbert, in Colorado, watching the morning fog stream up from the valley into the sky at almost impossible speeds; the same feeling in a similar spot on Mt. Katahdin, in Maine, viewing the vastness of untouched wilderness comprised of nothing but trees and lakes, the bright sun magnifying the colors and reflections. But those are simply places connected to connection; it doesn't feel like the places themselves are part of it.
I love those moments because they remind me of my insignificance and that is unbelievably comforting. All of my anxieties and stress melts away in the wild as I'm reminded that this vast, complex, unfathomable universe does not in any way require my participation. It puts things in perspective. I also enjoy the realization that such profound beauty - an experience, a reality beyond just the physical attributes of location and composition - is literally impossible without my participation. No one will see or experience exactly what I see or experience. That's also comforting.
So many things I do I do just to check them off the list. I've been to the highest point in 31 states now, but they're not all magical - most are pretty formal. That doesn't make those experiences less valuable, just different. Unless there's some real (likely unrelated reason), I probably won't go to most of them every again. I don't tend to read books a second time, even if they are profound or enjoyable or profoundly enjoyable, because there are always other interesting books to read.
Maybe it's because those two locations are so disconnected from my normal life - they are exotic in that they're far away from any place I ever reasonably expect to be. Perhaps they're special because they aren't places I ever planned to be. I was in Ireland for a work conference on ministry in places of conflict - our retreat center was rural and remote, but most of our time had been in the city. We took an afternoon whirlwind tour of the coast and snuck into the Causeway just before it closed. The beach was my wife's idea - the beach is always my wife's idea - I've never seen a beach I've particularly liked or disliked in any way save that one.
I don't know what it is that drives my desire to return to those places. I don't doubt that water has something to do with it. I've always found comfort in the crashing of the surf, in the cool cut of an ocean breeze, in the peace of otherwise silent nature. The steady rhythm of the waves, perhaps reminiscent of the heartbeat felt in that womb I don't remember, brings a calm and a peace no amount of psychoanalysis could ever touch. I wonder more, though, if my having experienced them before somehow adds to the beauty. There are plenty of beautiful places around the world I would love to experience, but perhaps its beauty already infused with experience that speaks more deeply to the heart and soul.
I do a lot of art - I can't draw or paint or sculpt, but words are my medium (or maybe my canvas) - rarely, though, do I create something that feels truly beautiful. When I do, there's a sense that it's not mine, that it's never been mine - and yet my DNA, my fingerprints are all over it. Beauty is a portal to something cosmic, something true on a level beyond our understanding, yet there is an element of beauty which cannot exist without our participation.
A great painting is not beautiful on its own; it is beautiful when someone recognizes within it both themselves and something so outside themselves as to be nearly unapproachable. Beauty is a connection between the impossibly immanent and the indecipherably transcendent.
I doubt my experience of beauty perfectly matches with the experience of any other - perhaps my experience is totally foreign to every other -
but I suspect that my experience of beauty is precisely what people experience when they experience beauty in whatever ways they experience it.
Whatever that looks like, it looks as it does because of our presence.
Maybe, just maybe, the key to seeing beauty in everything is just to be constantly present - not here, but present - and isn't that beautiful?
