Rides, ramblings and rants on a motorcycle.
- We are scientists, too!
8.06.2007,8:24 AM
Call of the West
My friend, Ara is traveling around the country on his BMW with Spirit, his dog, in the side car. When he arrived in the Oregon high deserts, he emailed me expressing his awareness to proclaim and reclaim his love of the desert. He knew I would understand and share his reverence for the desert country.
I can empathize. I remember feeling the same not just when I was in the desert, but in it's polar opposite, surrounded by the never-ending lush green of Arkansas. I found myself craving the browns, beiges and sparse vastness of the open spaces and arid (even semi-arid) country in Texas, Colorado, NM, Utah and even Oregon.
It also reminded me that I was born and grew up on the wrong side of the continent.
Yet...... even the mountains and high deserts of NM, Colorado, Arizona and, yes, even Oregon, have an overlapping ecology and climate, almost a perfect marriage of desert-like and temperate land. A sense of wildness, untamed, unsettled and a juxtaposition of new and old geography. Whereas the Northeast and southeast seem overgrown, old, tired and worn out. Like a barren old woman sitting in her rocking chair waiting for time immortal to end. She's raised her children and they are all gone; now its time to pull the cloak around herself and weather away. Oddly enough, I see an element of this in the people that live there, too. Whereas the west.... the land and the people are still wild at heart and vibrant.
From a favorite song:
"You've come a long way, I know, you got a longer drive ahead
through the bones of a buffalo, through the claims of the western dead
and just like the spokes of a wheel you'll spin 'round with the rest,
you'll hear the drums and the brush of steel,
you'll hear the call of the west."
Call of the West, Wall of Voodoo
I can empathize. I remember feeling the same not just when I was in the desert, but in it's polar opposite, surrounded by the never-ending lush green of Arkansas. I found myself craving the browns, beiges and sparse vastness of the open spaces and arid (even semi-arid) country in Texas, Colorado, NM, Utah and even Oregon.
It also reminded me that I was born and grew up on the wrong side of the continent.
Yet...... even the mountains and high deserts of NM, Colorado, Arizona and, yes, even Oregon, have an overlapping ecology and climate, almost a perfect marriage of desert-like and temperate land. A sense of wildness, untamed, unsettled and a juxtaposition of new and old geography. Whereas the Northeast and southeast seem overgrown, old, tired and worn out. Like a barren old woman sitting in her rocking chair waiting for time immortal to end. She's raised her children and they are all gone; now its time to pull the cloak around herself and weather away. Oddly enough, I see an element of this in the people that live there, too. Whereas the west.... the land and the people are still wild at heart and vibrant.
From a favorite song:
"You've come a long way, I know, you got a longer drive ahead
through the bones of a buffalo, through the claims of the western dead
and just like the spokes of a wheel you'll spin 'round with the rest,
you'll hear the drums and the brush of steel,
you'll hear the call of the west."
Call of the West, Wall of Voodoo
