Two Road Summer, 2010

Oklahoma Roads, Oklahoma Skies

I have a friend who is a geophysical engineer. He specializes in the structure of roads... All kinds of roads: Railroads and rail beds; two lane country lanes to massive 16 lane wide superfreeways. He studies their structures, what works and what doesn't. It's not just the surface on which the rails or tires run. Its the substrate, how it interacts with the road bed and the road surface which carries the rolling stock loaded with raw materials, manufactured goods, the tools and equipment that makes it all happen...And the people who work, play, guard and interact with one another on these roads.

My friend's company was approached by another geophysical engineering firm to run a survey of roadways in Oklahoma. They needed a driver. Stan, my friend, called me and I accepted the call.



- Road Trip One ~ Rain Soaked - 30 June 2010 to 13 July 2010:

We picked up the rental truck, a new Dodge Ram 3500 diesel, extra cab camper special with a tow package. My first job was to pull out the jump seats to make room for electrical equipment.

Long story short; we installed direct power line to truck's battery, loaded in a portable mainframe for collecting and backing up the data collected from the the two GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) antenna suspended from the back of the truck by a fiberglass square beam, locked to position with nylon nuts and bolts. We attached a survey wheel to measure velocity and distance traveled in conjunction with the data gathered.

Driving east to Salina, KS on I-70, we headed south on I-35 as rain clouds built all around us. It began raining in Stillwater, OK. We gathered in the equipment and settled into a motel. The next morning we began collecting data while the rain clouds collected moisture, building into afternoon rains.

We settled into a routine while staying in Oklahoma City. We collected data in the mornings until the rains came. Then we settled in and Stan processed and backed up the date onto disks. It took him long hours of babysitting an aging interface PC, as the truck mainframe could not and would not talk directly to the computer creating the back up disks.

It rained hard. Two evenings running, drainage and low lying roadways flooded in Oklahoma City. A teenager was swept away and drowned the first afternoon. It was hot and extremely humid. Walking out the hotel door at 8:00 A.M, shirt and pants immediately clung to my body, sticky and cloying.

For four days we traveled in and around OKC collecting data. Then we ran west on I-40 to the Texas border and back. Finally we made a long run south to Texas, collecting data on I-35 as it snaked its way through the rolling hills of the Arbuckle Wilderness.
On the twelfth day we headed north back to Stillwater then to Wichita, KS. The next day we drove into Denver, rattled by the harsh suspension of the big Dodge. It was a good trip, just not very comfortable riding in a massive, tight and heavily suspended truck.

The interstate roadways and byways in Oklahoma are populated with large numbers of OTR (Over The Road) truckers hauling all manner of goods and materials. In addition, there are large convoys of of oil field equipment trucks rolling across the plains on any given day. The continuous impact of all these massive trucks has a measurable effect on the road surface, the road beds and substrate structures and how well they hold up over the years. The data we collected will help the Oklahoma Department of Transportation determine what is the best course of action to take in order to provide safe and durable roads for years to come.



- Road Trip Two ~ Sun Baked and Broiled - 3 August 2010 to 13 August 2010:

Lesson learned, we rented a large Chevy Suburban for the second trip. Once again the GPR and survey wheel were suspended off the back end of the vehicle.
Stan found a portable drive that made the transfer of data from the mainframe in to the truck to the back up computer a much faster operation. That in itself gave us more time to collect more data before we had to stop and spend long hours transferring and backing up data.

The weather was much drier with an attendant spike in the heat. Most days the temp ran between 100 and 107 with a minimum of 60% humidity, creating a heat index above 110 degrees. I truly appreciate well air conditioned vehicles and hotels.

Our first night in Oklahoma was spent in the little burg of Henryetta at the Green Country Inn; a throwback to the times before the mega-chain hotels had taken over the landscape with cookie-cutter facades all along the interstates. It was a clean and interesting place, owned by an ex-patriot British couple.
From there we ran eastward on I-40 clear into Arkansas and back, collecting data. Our log sent us northeast to the rolling country around Tulsa, then once again back to Oklahoma City. From there we headed south by south-west towards Lawton on I-44. From Lawton we collected data all the way to the Texas border. We crossed the Red River and stopped long enough to give a wave to the Lone Star State.

Another dead Armadillo, all four feet reaching for the sky, greeted our return into Oklahoma. The ubiquitous critters are found all across the state; along with racoon and possum. All are slow movers, mostly nocturnal, leaving little mounds of road kill throughout the state. Armadillos have a tendency to jump straight up when startled. This is a lethal habit when what startles them is a massive metal machine moving at freeway speeds.

And NO, we did not see any Armadillo carcasses with feet festooned with four Lone Star beer longnecks...dancing with the sky. It seems that this Post-Modern Age's need for speed has curtailed this once, well respected cultural statement.

Western Oklahoma - long and flat stretches of roadway, cotton and cattle, corn and wheat, red dirt and brutal heat. Small towns still thrive along blue highways where the traditional mores of love of God and Country flourish. It really is beautiful on these high plains. Some would call it harsh and monotonous. Not so. There are uplifts and cuts here and there, like the Wichita National Wildlife Refuge in the Wichita Hills north of Lawton, where the long flat vistas are broken.
In the little burg of Bessie, I spotted this quintessential prairie icon, the concrete grain elevator standing proud and stark against the deep blue sky.

We collected our last data outside of Kingfisher, OK. We did a quick breakdown of the equipment in 105 degree heat and stopped at local diner for lunch. A sturdy doe eyed, clear skinned young gal, probably of English/German heritage served us lunch and asked about our work. Gentle and genuine, there was no pretense or prejudice in her attitude to a couple of rangy looking characters from out of town. It was refreshing, a throwback to an earlier, simpler time in America. Refreshed, we headed for Wichita to spend the night. The next morning we repacked the equipment and made our way up to Salina, KS, then west back to Denver and cool dry nights where their is no need for the constant drone of the air conditioner to keep sleep tolerable.

Ragnarock

Vallhalla

Lo, there do I see my father. lo, there do I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brothers.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning.
Lo, they do call to me.
They bid me take my place among them in the halls of Valhalla,
Where the brave may live...forever!

Mountain Recollections

Silence

Two of my favorite bloggers, Amy(http://amykane.typepad.com/blog/) and Brigid(http://mausersandmuffins.blogspot.com/) have stirred up some long held recollections on silence. Brigid in particular, wrote on the silence encountered while stand hunting. And that write brought up the following:

~~~~~~~~~

We were cross-country skiing in mid-February up the James Creek trail, across from Winter Park. It was the day after a big snow. There were no others in the virgin white landscape. My ex wife and I moved in that slow glide, taking our time up the winding incline. The only sounds were the rhythmic swish...swish of the skis cutting through blue-white powder, the creak of shoe leather against wire bindings and the rush of air in and out of lungs, gulping for oxygen in the thin, cold air at 9'000 ft. The creek was covered over with ice and snow, its voice silenced. Squirrels and rabbits hibernated in cozy dens. Crows, the only noticeable birds, circled in the lower canyons. The land up this high slumbered.

We stopped on an open rise to drink water. The thud of my racing heart slowed and I realized that there was no other sound. New snow muffled any echoes. Erie silence, nothing moved, no breeze. That silence, it seeped into my being. It would have been cold were it not for the brilliant sun pouring out radiation, burning through thin air.

As the sun worked on the snow, pine and spruce boughs released their burden of new powder. Those small, muffled small avalanches were the only sound to rise.

And I wondered how the Ute Indians and solitary trappers survived in these mountains during those long, silent winters.

And that, beloved, stirred up these memories:

Kit Carson, the famous scout, trapper, trader and early political figure in Northern New Mexico spent at least two winters in the St. Vrain River drainage, north and west of modern college town of Boulder, Colorado. In 1840 he built a rough cabin on a outcrop ledge of granite, facing more or less south by south-east. The remnants of the fireplace can still be seen on that ledge and the mountain that bears the name, Cabin Mountain.

I grew up fishing on the creek that was also named for Kit Carson’s winter home; Cabin Creek.

The header on the advertisement read something like this:

“ Luring Pines Cabins, Meeker Park Colorado – Bob and Mary Anne James, proprietors.”

They were my great aunt and uncle. They purchased the cabins in 1949 and rented them out every summer until they retired in 1972.

Some of my most coveted memories are of the early years. Those years where the cantankerous pump house chuffed and rattled on the creek. It provided an outdoor, cold water spigot for all of the eight cabins. Each of them had one electric light and one small true "icebox" and a great cast iron cookstove. Those were all the modern conveniences available. There was a double shower house up the hill. "Thunderbuckets" were kept under each bed. Each morning they were emptied in one of the four double-holer outhouses that sat off to the off side of the creek drainage.

Over the next five years, improvements were made. Dad and Uncle Bob ran real plumbing to each cabin. Harry "Doc" Sutherland brought in his backhoe and cat. He dug the hole for a double chamber septic tank and leach field, and ran the sewer lines from each cabin. The county gave a grant from the Feds to upgrade the electrical service. Refrigerators were installed. My uncle Pete and his Dad “Buzz” built a lodge addition to the main cabin. “Doc” Sutherland built a massive native stone fireplace at the far end. The lodge became the office and gathering place for all and sundry to read, play cards or work puzzles on rainy days.

It was an evening luxury to stretch out on the day bed in the den as the quick summer heat rose off the roof and our caramel toasted skin. We kids would dose off as Dad and Uncle Bob listened to the Denver Bears playing baseball 90 miles away down in the sweltering city.

On most weekend mornings, my grandmother would wake me just before dawn. In the flint cold half light, we would eat a bit of toast and drink some tea, maybe some orange juice and sneak out the back door. Outside, our fishing poles and an old spade waited.

We hiked down a steep trail, down into the dew laden hemlock and alder, aspen and willow next to the creek bed. There we dug for worms. The rich black, mica and sand laden soil yielded sleepy cold earthworms...bait for trout.

The next few hours would find us silently plying deep honey holes, undercut banks along open gravel ripples and the deep rock bound sweeps of Cabin Creek. It wasn't "sport" fishing. We were hunting for meat.

We would come up the hill at lunch, clean our catch, eat and take a quick nap in the soft afternoon. Sometimes hikes or a truck ride high on the hillside to gather deadfall for firewood would preclude the afternoon fishing. But most days we would return as the sun began to set, seeking the lunkers who came out to feed as the light in the canyon dimmed.

Time meant little. We were ruled by the moving sun. Clocks were merely a nuisance. One phone serviced all eight cabins. And supper left us sleepy, ready for the deep feather beds with crisp white sheets and heavy Pendleton wool blankets. There was a deep and profound peace most nights, broken only by the sound of the wandering breeze whispering in pines or the distant screech of hunting owls, or the errant coyote calling to its pack.

Sh-h-h-h-h-h-h...I can still hear the silence when the well house pump grumbled to a halt, the giant philco radio's tubes darkened, its hum no longer worrying, and the icebox motor realized that it was damn near as cold outside as it wanted to be inside.

That was silence.

The only sound was the echo of starlight bouncing off the Aspen and Ponderosa...and the soft distant laughter of Cabin Creek as she danced down the canyon, splashing her bright skirts in the moonlight. She was happy to know us, to share her life and bounty with us in those quiet summers so distant now.

That was silence, that was true peace.

Mourning in America

"The Darkness Around Us...
is Deep"

That is a quote from the American poet, William Stafford. In the poem, he speaks of communication between humans. If, in our broken world, our own personal brokenness, we do not communicate with depth and clarity...and brevity, we are bound to let loose the hounds of hell that ravage individual, community and ultimately, cultural relationships.

That is exactly what has transpired in Washington with the passage of the Frankenstein monster know popularly as the "Health Care Bill". It is blatantly unconstitutional and fully the largest Socialist piece of legislation to pass through both houses of Congress since Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" boondoggle.

It has polarized our country into volatile camps, the likes of which we have not experienced since the Viet Nam war. And, the responsibility for this sits on the shoulders of those who we have elected to protect us from such invasive and suffocating legislation. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barrack Hussein Obama and their subordinates stand at core of this national disaster. They must be held responsible for its passage. And we, the electorate constituency must respond with our voices, our votes and if need be with our very lives.

The existence of the United States as a Constitutional Republic hangs in the balance. The time is short. It is imperative that we stand and speak. We must act decisively.

We must act NOW!

I leave you with this quote from the fine English writer, theologian and Christian apologist, C. S. Lewis:

"Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Spring

Diving Headlong into Spring

" It is a rising tide of dazzling light.

It is heady: our skulls fill like cups of fire."

Whew! (a hat tip to Amy over at: http://amykane.typepad.com/blog/)

~~~~~

Here, its more the altitude than the latitude. Spring is defined by one's proximity to that long and sinuous, granite and quartz dragon spine that splits the continent in two. Come May, it still glitters with winter bright snow. At nearly two and three quarter miles high, some of these solitary peaks know only two seasons, winter and August.

Some unremembered, unrepentent grizzled old prospector coined the phrase a century past. And it still rings true.

I can see him standing proud, bent and twisted as the sub-alpine bristlecone pine, shaped by the brutal wind, the brittle brilliant sun and the incomprehensible weight of stone on stone on stone...The Rocky Mountains. Fresh from the assayer's office, he leans on the Silver Queen's mahogany bar. His reflection wavers in the silver dust mirror. Dark whiskey grasped in one gnarled hand, a half finished lager, golden sea foam in the other, he pulls long and slow on a fine treat, a ten cent cigar. It's blue-gray aura encircles his wicked, unkempt visage, a spicy halo.

He is Saint Mud-mucker. His parish ranges across the long, alpine creeks above Leadville. Baby Doe Tabor is his blue-eyed Virgin, The Silver Queen saloon, his cathedral.

Mud defines him; its grayness permeates clothing, skin and soul. His once bright red union suit is tattered and muted, oiled with cold sweat and dynamite dust. Crusted mud encases his boots, seeps into his deepest thoughts. Only his eyes, they sparkle with that fire, that lust for gold. THAT is the fire burning deep in his fevered skull.