Escalante River to Chop Rock Canyon

Examining our topo map, another side-canyon beckoned–Choprock Canyon. It’s on the other side of the Escalante, and not over a mile away from camp. Our plan for the next day was to do a day hike there. After breakfast, We thrashed down through the nasty walls of tamarisk bordering the Escalante, and forded the river. The knee-deep water was easy to walk in if you were wearing boots, but Reed had elected to wear Crocs. They were so sloppy, he had no traction, and the shoes’ big holes let sand and gravel get inside. Mostly, I just waded in wearing my big boots. The wet insides and soaking socks caused me no problems. Chuck wore river shoes all the time, both in the water and on land. For the first 3 days, they were fine.

After we got into Chop Rock, there were no tamarisks. We found that to be true in most of the side-canyons. For some reason, tamarisks infested only the big canyons. We followed the twists and turns up Chop Rock for a mile or so, and took the right branch at a fork. We stopped when it came to an abrupt cul-de-dac where a dry waterfall dropped from a narrow cleft about 30 feet up. A mysterious Greek PSI marked the point where the waterfall would be gushing out after a rainfall. Is the PSI a natural freak of algae or moss? Is it a petroglyph? Hard to say.

Reed had spoken earlier about iridescence of the desert varnish. We saw it several places in Chop Rock. Desert varnish is usually black or brown. Here, with the canyon wall illuminated at an angle by the lowering sun, in many places it was an iridescent blue. We also peered up at concentric semi-circles in the rock of the walls. The semi-circles in some cases looked painted on the walls, in other places, they appeared to be carved. I asked Chuck, our transient geologist about the reason for the arcs. “Concoidal fracturing”, was his answer. But the process itself had never been explained to him, and so we left the side canyon only having learned a new geological phrase, but essentially unilluminated.

We wondered about the llama trips. Several places we had spotted llama tracks, and we had heard about llama trips starting down the river from the town of Escalante. How do the llamas penetrate the bamboo-like walls of tamarisk that line the river? Whenever a meander pinned us between a wall and the river, we were forced to find a ford and then struggle through to the bank. Often, if we couldn’t find a well-beaten trail (and some times even if we could), we’d have to hunt up and down stream for a place we could hack through the tami walls. (Oh for a light saber!) It wasn’t ever a pleasant exercise, and it was hard to imagine a llama doing it. No horse or burro could.

Here and there on sloping canyon walls, there appeared to be patches of snow. Impossible! Coming closer we saw that it was immense spreads of Cottonwood Cotton. Immediately I thought of a use for it. Chuck had been feeling pain in his heel where a blister had appeared. He put two layers of moleskin on it. But would Cottonwood cotton have done as well?

On one of the canyon walls we saw a petroglyph carved by a Mormon explorer. 1 8 T 1917, or perhaps I B T 1917. Was this guy trapped by snow or a flood, or running out of food? The canyons have many mysteries.

Back at camp while cooking dinner, we watched some bumble bees chasing each other around a big dead log. Was this a territorial battle, or a mating ritual? Two bees chased each other madly, apparently colliding at one point in their trajectories. One of the bees headed away and circled a nearby cottonwood tree. Then he sped full tilt into the tree and bounced off it to the ground. He staggered a bit, then stopped and fell over dead. Reed picked him up and we looked at him. Was it suicide by a spurned lover? Or had he been damaged–maybe blinded–by a fight with his rival?

When the sun set, we watched the moon through the black spidery branches of the cottonwoods. Venus and Saturn sparkled in the west and south. There was too much moonlight to see the Milky Way until long after bed time. Chuck said he saw it at about 2 am when he got up to answer nature’s call. I promised myself that I’d get up, but I blew z’s soundly all night long.

Photo Gallery

–rakkity

The house that heats and cools itself.

We’re away for a long weekend on the Cape with friends, and I was up early stalking boats in the harbor. Some to come, but these are better, both taken through the rain streaked windshield.

More photos from our last trip to Temple, including some of Matt’s sophomore housing which is in an apartment near campus.

Flowers from the bicyclist.

The Workers (Matt, Robby and Goose) continue to grind through our household projects. The barn is now clean, as is the basement, and our guest room, what we call Susan’s Room, is freshly painted. And there’s scaffolding on the front of our house in preparation for the big painting job which will begin next week.

Yesterday, during lunch, Matt tried to ask me something but got knocked off mid-thought by an attack of deja vu. Robby jumped in and said he and Joe were in Chemistry class when he experienced deja vu so vividly that he explained to Joe what would happen in the next few minutes. Who would turn to whom and say what – that kind of thing. They both leaned back to watched the future unfold. I called Joe to verify Robby’s story and Joe said, “Oh yeah, he’s done that more than once.”

*********

The work day’s a wrap and as Goose is leaving Matt asks what his plans are for that night.

Goose answered in his laconic fashion, “I’ve gotta see the GF.”

I ask you, how many years removed is that from, “The old lady and I are going out to eat.”

*********

Next, I’ll have photos of the crew on the outside of my house. I wish I’d taken one yesterday. I stopped at the beginning of the driveway and walked next door to talk to my neighbor who happens to be tall, thin, blond and very pretty. The painters-to-be stopped laying their planks and stared at us – all three of them, wide eyed, looking like curious crows in a bare tree.

Having your own work crew who grew up in the McCarthy Towne cooperative environment is a whole lot of fun.

(Dan read this at his father-in-law’s memorial service. It was a pefectly paced, precise and moving tribute, and encapsulated, for me, the importance of this type of sharing service as I could imagine a momentary lifting of Linda’s pain.)

Arthur Scott Laughland

August 20, 1924 — April 24, 2007

Reading from Chapter 4, First American Year, by Arthur Laughland
===============
From those humble beginnings in America, Arthur Laughland, through necessity and persistence, overcame all obstacles, eventually earning a Doctorate in Education, and the Principal-ship of a Newton elementary school.

The man I came to meet in 1983, as I was arrived onto the scene of the Laughland family, immediately impressed me as an accomplished, intelligent, charming, and self-effacing father and educator.

Underscore “self-effacing”. From the growing-up stories Linda would tell me, I was amazed at the hardships he overcame raising his young family in a hut in England with a dirt floor and no indoor plumbing, and later in a tiny apartment above the horse barn of the uber-wealthy Dole Pineapple Lincolns of Chestnut Hill, where the children had to share the same bath water every night, and in Winter had to put their school clothes on under their blankets in order not to freeze in the morning.

I did not gain a full appreciation of his greatness as an educator until I experienced how royally he was celebrated by his beloved faculty on his retirement in the late 80’s.

I had not fully appreciated his command of history — and of *his* story — until I witnessed first-hand his prodigious memory for childhood detail, when in my presence, armed with a tape recorder, he began dictating his memoirs.

While his quiet greatness was gradually unveiled to me during family events over the last 24 years, it was not until his last 76 days, when he came to live with us on February 8th, following his neck hospitalization, that I really got to know what a truly special man he was.

Here was a man almost completely blind, who had lost his wife of thirty years just 9 months earlier, with just enough strength to shuffle about our house in his walker, wearing a stiff collar around his neck — yet uttering nary a complaint, always gentle, listening intently to every conversation, doling out encouraging and fatherly advice to me on appropriate occasions.

Here was a man that despite a broken neck (and, I would say to myself, a broken life), could still establish a special relationship with Geish, a very special person herself, who came twice a week from Emerson Home Care to bathe him.

Here was an 82 year old man that despite his stiff neck and fierce longing for the independence of living back in his own house, was still flexible enough to adapt to *our* routine, eating dinner with us every night on a TV table watching the PBS News Hour, even though he would have much preferred sitting at the dining table.

Here was a man capable of introspection, and courageous and generous enough to share with Linda and me his most intimate thoughts, fears, desires, and self-doubts.

Here was a man that despite a life of accomplishment and quiet greatness, would castigate himself “a fool” for this or that foible or minor accident.

Here is a man that showed me by example how to comport myself, if and when it should come to be my turn to be cared for by one my children in their home.

Here is a great man, whose immortality is in his children and in those he quietly touched.

Here is a quietly great man: Arthur Scott Laughland.

Travis biking through the pastures along the California coast.

**************

If you watch this then take the time to see this. Yes, you can still sing, but maybe you shouldn’t.

Mike,

Katie just sent us some pictures of her latest construction work in Thibodeaux. But it’s not all work down there in steamy Louisiana. She also went with her buddies on a swamp tour.

–rakkity

For a handful of days, I had pondered upon the summons of the Medicine Shaman of the House of Or, who had demanded my appearance at a healing rite which I could not afford to miss, since it could determine my stay in this plane of existence. Duly advised, on the appointed day, when the Sun had reached his zenith, I appeared before the vestals of the House of Or and permitted them to prepare me for the destined rituals of healing. They garbed me in the thin flaxen garments that initiates must wear in the rites, and with soothing words, they led me into the outer vestibules of Or and gently laid me down on a low wheeled table. 

The lead Sorcerer entered and identified himself as An-es Theticos of Lethe. He appeared young and vigorous, and wore the sage-green robes of the House of Or.

Guided by the Sorcerer, I rode supine on the rolling table into Or’s inner chamber. As we slid smoothly through the white corridors, An-es questioned me on my preferred mode of entry into the realms of
Sensory Diminution required for the healing rite, and counseled me to accept the mode of Lower Paralysis with an easy heart. I expressed my preference for the common mode of Blind Oblivion, but his words persuaded me, and I accepted his advice with only a slight reluctance.

My supine body was pushed under a powerful bluish beam cast by an intense square of light inset in the high ceiling of the chamber.

The assisting minions of Or carefully transferred me onto the Platform of Diminution, while close to my feet, the chief Shaman toyed with his arcane tools of writhing mechanical snakes and other obscene machines. An-es rolled me sideways and pricked me in my backbone with a flinty hollow tool impregnated with one of his magic potions. The forewarned paralysis soon progressed, first in my toes and feet, then my ankles, then my legs and finally my hips. There, to my relief, the deadness stopped, leaving my upper body’s muscles and senses intact. My nervousness abated, and I gazed with curiosity at the rites being enacted.

Off in the seeming misty distance, the Shaman lifted a dead leg, apparently not my own, but somehow connected to my body, and placed it high. A deep relaxation crept over me as the potions had their way. I watched dimly as from afar, while the Chief shaman chanted secret words to his greybeard assistant. Hidden from my eyes by a low curtain, the Shaman worked his incantations and unfelt fetish manipulations on my nether parts. Strange and ghostly images slid across two great square lenses to either side of me. The Shaman spoke his toneless words as he peered into the patterns of light and dark and studied the shadows of fire and flow in the magic lenses. In due course, the Shaman made his final anointing and secreted the acquired aberrant flesh into a magic vial. In an emotionless voice he announced the conclusion of the ritual.

Quietly, while the session was tending toward its conclusion, my Sorcerer guide An-es had queried me about my recent vision quest to the desert canyons to the west of our village. He responded to my descriptions of the red lands with signs of pleasure, as he too had visited the depths of the canyons during the very same lunar cycle. I took this as an ineluctable omen of connectedness.

The mystical session of the House of Or now complete, An-es rolled me back from the sacrificial platform onto my table, and the Shaman spoke again in a clear voice. He pronounced his satisfaction with the healing rite, and expressed his belief that the gods of Or might have been propitiated. But he made it clear that I should complete my performance of the sacrifice by mutual sharing of words after the gods of the House of Pathologix had expressed to him their satisfaction or displeasure with the sacrifice. I would learn their pronouncements in a matter of days, which might foretell my fate.

An-es had promised my semi-paralysis would depart within hours. And indeed, by evening it had left by stages in reverse order, starting from the hips and progressing slowly to the toes. By nightfall my limbs had completed their return to life. Tomorrow, if other signs were propitious, I would return healed to my own heath and hearth.

–rakk-slightly diminished

Photos