To Elizabeth and Brian
Aug.
27,1994
And a good afternoon
to you my friends
About one
out of every two weekends when the nighttime
temperature does not drop below freezing you will
find me with my jeep and canoe (1)
somewhere
in the desert or mountains…usually in Utah but
any place that I can get from on Friday nite and back
to by Monday morning. And three times a year I get an
extra day thrown in. The picture of my jeep was taken
on Ebbitts Pass in California just south of Lake
Tahoe over the Memorial Day weekend.
But what
prompted this note was a sign that I came upon while
taking a stroll along a path in the High Uintas area
of Utah, just south of the Wyoming border. I had
planned to camp and fish at Meeks Cabin Reservoir
right on the border of Ut. and Wy. but when I arrived
there early Sat. morning I found the water level to
be too low. It has been a very hot and dry summer
here and many of our lakes and reservoirs are dry. I
went south then for about ten miles to Fish Lake and
found that lake dry also. That made it two lakes that
were too low to fish. I had just refinished my canoe
anyway and I really didn't want to mess it up again.
A wooden canoe is like the fingernail on a French
whore. The nail itself is practically indestructible
but the polish will scratch and blur at the slightest
provocation and will remain so until it's owner can't
stand it any longer and spends the time to remove the
old polish and apply a new coat. With a canoe you
sand out the scratches and apply a fresh coat of
varnish.
Somehow I
have gotten away from the "sign."
(2)
Being in
the High Uintas is no different than being in the
Adirondack Mountains or the Blue Ridge Mountains
of Virginia. Just get up high
where the air is clear and the nights are cold and
for two or three days you don't hear a word from
another, human being except a "thank you' from
the gas station attendant, and you are off again to
the dirt roads.
I think
that I may send this note to you in chapters, for as
I type each line I tend to re-live it. When the day
is warm, the sky is bright and a soft wind blows,
I'll find a spot and take a nap. Not long, maybe
forty-five minutes or so and then I'll get on down
the road.
It was just
such on Saturday afternoon as I lay on my mattress in
the back of my jeep. A storm came in, and as I closed
my eyes the sound of raindrop on my tin roof lulled
me to sleep.
After my
nap I took a stroll down the dirt road that I had
been driving on and came to the sign. As it was
getting near sundown and the clouds formations looked
as to make an exceptional sunset I returned to my car
and got a tripod. Returning to the sign not only was
the sun setting in a fine manner but a full moon was
also rising in the east. I took these three pictures (3)
(4) (5)
from
the exact same spot all within a ten minute time
period. As it was getting dark and the sky was
becoming more lovely by the second and I was using
only 100 ASA film I took this photo on a 15-second
time exposure. I have no idea what happened but I
thought it made an interesting shot.
Sunday
morning a few flakes of snow were on the ground at my
campsite (6) and a small branch
from a pine had dropped (7)
near
my car. A short distance from my camp is a small
waterfall with water so clear and cold and clean that
I washed and drank the water and used it for my
morning coffee. (8)
As there
was no lake close by I decided to stay right where I
was for the day and relax, read a bit and take a
snooze once in a while. I'm big on short snoozes and
can take one at almost any place, at any time. My
cook clams he actually saw me take a snooze while
making a turkey and avocado sandwich, but he lies.
About 8:00
I took a walk down a game trail (9)
and
came upon one of mother's favorites, Mountain Laurel,
(10) and a couple of
other spots that I thought looked interesting. (11) (12) (13) A meadow of to my
right caught my eye (14)
with
mom and her little one in It. (15) A half mile down
the trail I saw this piece of drainage pipe lying In
the middle of nowhere. There was no water anywhere
that I could see and it made me wonder WHY? As I
walked up to it I saw my tiny friend (16)
at
the far left of the pipe just about to approach its
highest point. If you use a magnifying glass you can
see him clearly. (Boats are always girls and mice are
always boys.) I'll bet that it took me an hour to get
this shot. (17) As soon as I would
move a muscle he was gone, only to appear a minute or
two later in a different spot. And he didn't just
move, he moved at the speed of light. I held the
camera to my eye until it became too heavy and I'd
have to lower it and as if he were watching me he
would appear. As slowly as possible I raised my
camera to take the shot but in the blink of an eye he
was gone only to reappear two minutes later in
another spot. As you can see he finally stood still
for 11500 hundredth of a second.
Down the
path I wandered stopping a moment to watch a honeybee
(18) or two at work (19), a tree where a
woodpecker had found a likely spot (20)
and
finally to a pretty place where I found a shady area
under a small bunch of quakies and took a snooze (21).
I wish that
you two guys had been with me.
Mo
