Southern Utah has its own magical charm in that the landscape seeks to dominate your very imagination and blur the line between the real and the fantastic. It should come as no surprise that this landscape was essentially populated by religious separatists, where the impossible was possible on a razor fine edge between what could either be a wasteland and natures own cathedral. The geology here conspires to create a paradox of relationships … the far seems near and the near is far—away. Land seemingly carved by God’s own fingers makes one seem closer to his majesty and in the same moment, the vastness of the landscape makes one feel small, inconsequential, unimportant and frail.
The towering hoodoos mark a different and infinitely grander expanse of time than we calculate and manage with our timers, clocks and calendars … our negligible seventy or so years. Here, one’s psyche is confronted by time immortal and a space so immense that it seems as if it could successfully contain the soul. The land here confronts man’s spirit demanding reverence and awe … destroying the ego and sending him on a journey of self-discovery.
However, I am a man with two important tools. The first is an iPod that happens to have “The Essential Ozzy” programmed into it, and Mr. Osborne has sagely reminded me that “the road to nowhere leads back to me.” Secondly, and more importantly, I have a motorcycle. This tool attacks the vastness of space and brings the far near and reflects the near into the rearview. This tool also allows me to quickly transform my relationship with any geographic location, constantly altering and thereby enlarging my perspective.
Equally significant, this tool, this motorcycle, by its very geometry makes it a special kind of classroom. With every thrust of the starter button, this thing shakes to life and seizes me … body and soul … and demands that I confront my own morality in this and every following moment. This relentless master demands that I should always be ready to pay in full … maybe here … or at the next blind curve or just over that hill. When I twist the throttle and pop the clutch, I already know that I had better rozen up my bow and play this fiddle hard because if you lose, the devil gets your soul. This reverence, this slavery … to two wheels … breeds a type of foolish arrogance that gives other masters less of a hold over my imagination.
The motorcycle intoxicates one with a sense of power and invincibility … or the illusion of it. I think of my bike as Mephistopheles from Christopher Marlowe’s play, Dr. Faustus. Riding a bike can be simply summed up as a deal with the devil. Like Faustus, I apparently think that the devil is a dupe, or is he?
http://s254.photobucket.com/albums/hh83 ... CF0974.flv
http://s254.photobucket.com/albums/hh83 ... CF0976.flv
And, whirling round with this circumference
Within the concave compass of the pole,
From east to west his dragons swiftly glide
And in eight days did bring him home again.
Not long he stayed within his quiet house
To rest his bones after his weary toil,
But new exploits do hale him out again,
And, mounted then upon a dragon’s back,
That with his wings did part the subtle air,
He now is gone to prove cosmography,
That measures coasts and kingdoms of the earth,
Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus (B-Text)
For the curious, this was an eight hundred mile round-trip south from Salt Lake City to HWY 6 to 31 to 10 to 72 to HWY 12 down Burr Trail, Capitol Reef National Park, back to HWY 12 to Dixie National Forest and Bryce Canyon National Park back to SLC. I spent the night at the edge of Escalante State Park in a for $#!t private campground that had one saving grace, a shower. Made dinner at my campsite (Ramen and peanut butter crackers) and then walked to a local cafe for a beer. Turns out that you have to buy food in order to drink a beer in Utah. One ten dollar salad later, I had a very cold and well deserved Hefe Weizen. Seems like you can have fourteen wives down there, but you have to order a meal to get a d@m^ beer. IMO they have the whole temperance thing backwards .... Personally, I would rather have fourteen beers and have to think about the whole wife thing over a meal ... or maybe with some sort of waiting period, ... let's say a mere decade.
On the way back home, I stopped in at a place named "Mom's Cafe" in Salina Utah. I highly recommend this place if "Flowers in the Attic" happens to define motherhood for you. Otherwise, you might want to opt for a pack of stale cheese crackers at the local 7-11.
Faustus (to the scholars): Gentlemen, farewell. If I live till morning, I'll visit you; if no, Faustus is gone to hell.
