As you can imagine blogging on a bike trip is difficult thing to do and, largely do to weight concerns I sent my computer to Merrin and stopped blogging.
That was about 3 months ago.
So many things have happened since then! I am in, in some ways, a slow point in my life. Although everyday CAN be filled to the brim I have taken time to call friends that I have not talked to in months or even years... Telling the same story over and over again is not something that I enjoy so this is a skeleton catchup of what happened so that when I talk to you we can skip to the details or skip to your life...
We were still in LA for the last blog. Since then "We" biked to Phoenix Arizona by way of Joshua tree and some of the most intense days of my life. Some pleasant, some awful. The 'whole thing' could be a book in itself complete with "fencing, fighting, true love, hate, revenge, giants, hungers, bad men, good men, beautiful women, snakes, spiders, and beasts of all natures and descriptions..." This is the abridged version.
While in Phoenix we stayed with friends of Jaz's family. Harry Mai is a sweet, powerhouse of the short Vietnamese variety. He was helping to start a Loving Hut Restaurant in Phoenix. The restaurant was opening the day after we arrived and we helped setup, mostly by eating great food and telling everyone how much we enjoyed it!
We left the bikes in Phoenix due to time constraints and Jaz's re injured ankle. After a full day of trying to get through the city we managed to get a ride to Sedona AZ with JP. JP was an awesome guy, this would be my second novel but I will cut it short to say that JP wanted to get the gypsy experience and camped with us overnight so that he could see a glimpse into our lives. It was really nice to share in that way.
During the week stay in the mountains of Sedona I got terribly ill in the bathroom of the Circle K that we filled our water at. Damn, the police were called to check on me, the whole thing sucked. As soon as I could walk again I hiked the mile to our campsite and after getting lost in the dark I passed out. The nest day was spent half dead. I didn't move more then five feet to go pee all day. Trying to figure out the cause, Not dumpster diving for over a week ath this point and having eaten hardly anything but restaurant food and prepackaged items that were bought for us I blamed it on MSG which I had eaten more of recently then ever in my life. Most likely, I think, It was contaminated water? I got better of course and life returned to normal after a few days. Normal for us was meeting someone on the side of the road, hanging out in there illegal housing and enjoying good company, and eventualy making our way to Porenge's house. A friend that we met at the wintercount festival. Many many good times on trampolines and hiking and etc... meeting a man who was a catholic priest of 8 years AFTER he had lost his faith only to find a new life and a spirituality he could live after being introduced to Psycedelics, now in his late 80's and living a beautiful life...
There were many lives between Sedona AZ and West Yellowstone MT... Many beautiful people and places.
But, the BFC (Buffalo Field Campaign) stands out as outstanding.
My job was essentially to hike around for 8ish hours a day and track buffalo. It was beautiful, everyday profound for both Jaz and I. The story of stories was the day when I saw 150-200 buffalo stampeding past 30ft from where I was standing. It was terrifying and exhilarating! Our job at that point was to alert the rest of the staff and follow them along a bluff for hours. Wild buffalo are not the docile Beefalos you sometimes see in fields, behind fences, on the side of the road. A few cow genes dose a lot to mellow out a wild animal, and when they are on the move they can move in a hurry! Noah and I kept a good pace for hours through the snow and only caught up to the head of the group just before they got to the road. Our job then was to alert the road crew to where they would be crossing to aide in the safety of both cars and the buffalo.
While I was there 8 buffalo where killed in car accidents at night. I imagine the wounded pride of the buffalo spirit that used to roam these lands freely. Now confined by roads and laws and irreverent people in helicopters trying to drive the noble beasts into death traps for the sake of money and grazing rights.
I was joking about taking up a life of crime, stealing and scamming millions from whatever corporate enterprise, maybe banks, whatever. A defense of all the innocents that would be hurt was cut off by a sharp. "No one is innocent". I love you all, but you have to know that I am thoroughly disgusted with our culture, the way we live, everyday. I HATE the immoderate human influences on both the human world and the natural environment. Though it saddens and angers me to see splattered buffalo guts, dear, turtles, squirrels, or people on stretchers on the side of the road... And knowing how millions lives human and other are not just ended but also made miserable by our daily decisions... C'est la vie.
On with the story!
From West Yellowstone we made our way to Boulder, UT to visit Dave Holiday. A wonderful man who lives in a little cabin on a magical piece of property tucked away in a canyon with a stream paralleling an impossible driveway. In northern Utah, on the side of the road, Jaz and I were wondering how long it would take to hitch through the seldom traveled 100 or so miles to Boulder!?! Only a handful of cars had passed all day when a guy pulled over. "Where you headed"? He was an old school punk, a lost boy. He drove us the whole way, out of his way, and we talked and listened and I was very happy both to have a ride and to have a friend in the middle of nowhere.
We stayed with Dave and Jill for about a week, camping, hiking, and sharing in one of the most wonderful lifestyles I have witnessed.
The Jaz and Daniel Drama was ever present and finally at this point "we" no longer became "we". The details are unimportant and difficult to think upon. We were going to try to be "just friends".
We stayed in Kanab UT with some new friends and caught a ride through Zion National park on our way to Denver at which point hitchhiking was too much of a drain to continue... We were defeated by the city. We took a plane to NYC from Denver with the help of James Burgdorf who, in the middle of the night arranged our flights by telephone while he should have been working. Thanks Jimmy! The flight was awful, NYC was Awful, everything was Awful... For Jaz. We left the city as soon as we arrived. I was, at this point, very broken. Nothing I said or did or didn't say or do could do anything to positively effect her. This breaking for me was perfect. Ask Rumi, Hafiz or Kahlil Gibran for an explanation. I gave up for a moment. I rested in Love.
Everything was greatly improved after our few days of bumming around Danbury, CT. and we got back to camping. Even while in Danbury things became functional again. I met Lincon, one of Jaz's friends who came to interview her for his book.
Finally we started our Job at Great Hollow Wilderness School!
This is a good breaking point.
