May, 2016
(A Lost Episode)
If one is in Moab, Utah and puts Minnesota into Google Maps, several routes will come up – all of them heading north and east. That would be the sensible way… but not the Idiot way!
The Idiots have not been to mountains in Wyoming in several years. The Bible says that man does not live by bread alone. Wise words. The body needs food but the spirit’s need for sustenance is equally great. Thoreau lived by a pond in Massachusetts for a few months and gave us “In wildness is the preservation of the world.”
If Thoreau had ever seen Wyoming, he probably wouldn’t have been so eloquent. In the sanctuary that is the Rocky Mountains, silent awe is the most appropriate response.
So the Idiots decided to make a pilgrimage. They worked their way through north-central Utah, winding through small towns and over remote passes. The poetry of place marked their passage - Manti-La Sal… Duchesne… Mountain Home… Flaming Gorge… Vernal… Red Canyon... Green River…
Through fog, rain, and snow, they drove the entire west flank of Idiot He’s beloved Wind River Mountains… a hundred miles and more of the Continental Divide with nary a road across. They passed through the southern Absarokas and the Gros Ventre Wildnerness and dropped down into Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park.
Words fail…
