This is what Boredom Creates: The Last Few Weeks

So, yes, it has been a while since I jotted anything down here. I guess towards the end of the school year and the beginning of the summer the rant tank has been somewhat on the empty side. I am, however, back with a large new entry about, believe it or not, the last few weeks. We begin at work:

For those not initiated, I work trail crew for Saguaro National Park. Now, as of right now I don't actually work AT Saguaro, but rather at this little place called Coronado National Memorial which is in the Huachuca (Waa - CHU- ca) Mountains right on the Arizona/Mexico border. Besides the occasional party of illegal immigrants passing through, or a spare wildfire here and there, it's a pretty quiet place with only a few visitors each day, which is a pity, because all in all it's a pretty bitchin' place. Not many people know that 8000 foot peaks with pine trees and forests and whatnot exist that far south. To be honest, I was rather surprised at the elevation myself. Anyway, I could give you a short job description, but I don't feel like writing that much. Basically, I build and maintain trails, which is about 20 times more difficult than people imagine. The people I have explained the ins and outs of trail-building to have summed it up as "slavery". Haha, well, dammit I like it.

The full effect of working in a remote setting doesn't come to one while working, however. Our crew is pretty damn lucky to have this guy, Frank, working. Frank is a guitar-playing son-of-a-bitch, and watching the sun set while he strums his ass off to songs that he wrote is quite the experience. One particular night a few weeks back was rather memorable. The eight of us were sitting out front, which overlooks the San Pedro River Valley and watching a storm blow in as the sun set. As we sat there listening to the guitar and enjoying a few drinks of the finest beer money can buy (Miller High Life), the dark clouds came in from the Southeast. The sun set, and night fell on us, and the guitar slowly got louder, but slower, and the conversation slowed to almost a whisper. Lightning started flashing across the valley and up the ridge to our east. As the lightning danced to the guitar, and thunder added the bass hits to an increasingly natural soundtrack, I thought: How in the hell can someone NOT like this? How can one sit in the city, surrounded by crime and smog and all that other shit that makes me so claustrophobic that a few days in the city seems like more than enough? I guess it all comes down to decisions, right? You all can have your cities and clubs, where the damn light never dims, and the heat only increases. I'll take this, the outdoors, where sitting on the porch enjoying drinks with some great people leads to a few minutes where music connects everything that lives, surrounding us until the storm breaks, and the music slows revealing a full moon that casts a singular beam onto everything, turning the mountains silver, and coating the surroundings with a silence. Everyone got up, bid their good-night's and we slept, ready for another day.

This is the view across the San Pedro River Valley from the top of Coronado Peak

We got the fourth off, as naturally, it's a holiday. I hung out around Tucson, attended a BBQ, and stopped on the drive home to watch the fireworks be shot off A-Mountain, and didn't really have too much time to think about it, much less write anything. So consider this next paragraph my ode to this country:

How can we be so proud right now? What is so damn great, that once a year we need to shoot explosives in the sky, and get all drunk, and say 'YAY USA!' How many of you are actually happy with what's going on right now. This country is slowly becoming more of a police state where only an elite group of the rich are supported. Our president only works for the 28 percent of Americans that support him. As we shoot off fireworks and whoop and holler about being free 3606 AMERICANS have died in the pursuit of helping another country find freedom which OBVIOUSLY, they don't want. Aren't Americans supposed to be fighting to protect our freedoms, not the freedoms of some religious radicals who would much rather murder each other? I'm sorry, but that just doesn't make sense. The fourth of July is about celebrating a country and the fact that a country was founded based on certain freedoms, none of which exist today. Scooter Libby can be convicted of a crime, but that doesn't matter because he's a Republican. When justice comes for William Jefferson, Bush won't give one shit, as the man is a Democrat. We're supposed to live in a society free from the bonds of religion, but global warming can't exist because judgment day is soon. So, rape the earth, it won't matter when the chosen go to heaven and the rest of us are sent to hell. Global Warming doesn't exist when carbon emissions line the pockets of the rich. Basically, what I'm trying to say through this convoluted paragraph is you blindly celebrate our freedom, but if you look around, there's nothing to celebrate, not one damn thing. We're not free.

Well, by the fifth, temperatures here in Tucson had reached epic proportions to the tune of 115 degrees, which was complete bullshit, so I said fuck it, and headed west for the cooler confines of the Pacific. Several hours later, and a confusing discovery that if you miss your exit on Interstate 8, you end up in San Diego instead of LA, and that the Imperial Valley really is quite a horrible place, I ended up at Matt's house in Provo... or Irvine, CA. I think the Bozek had it right, Irvine, CA is a lot like Pleasantville, where everything is neat, manicured, and quite white. Call me insane, but I like to mix things up. The whole experience was quite disorienting. After a few beers on the beach in a bitchin little bar with amazing pizza, I decided to head out the next day. I went north on CA 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) out of Malibu, though Ventura and Santa Barbara, and hit the 101 towards Santa Maria. I was going to camp in the San Rafael Wilderness there in the coast range, but as I came around a bend on the 101 I was greeted by the site of a rather large wildfire exactly where I wanted to camp. So I drove on, turning and eastern course onto CA 166 towards Bakersfield (ugh) with and eventual destination of the Sierras (or so I hoped). The road wound pretty deep into the southern Coast Range there and the same wildfire greeted me once again. This thing was a monster. The local authorities, however, didn't have this highway closed, so I plowed on into a wall of smoke that did some pretty cool things as the sun set. About halfway through, I could finally see the fire crest the ridge line to my east through the smoke. It was an amazing site to say the least, so I pulled the car over and watched it until about 9:00, when I figured that I better start moving. The smoke chased me as I descended into the Central Valley. It gets lonely driving at night on empty roads where basically nothing can be seen except that dashed yellow line disappearing into the smoke and smog ahead. I found that my mind starts to wander on to some strange conclusions, parallels to life, where I don't know where I'm going or how I'm going to get there. Turning back seems pointless, because hey, I've already been there, done that. The road ahead is where everything lies. Stopping, there's no point in that either, because the next mile might have something, a twist or turn, dip, or mountain to climb that might make things different. Seems a little... emo, right? Well, here's what I decided: I'm here because I want to be. I'm on this endless road blasting through smoke, smog, and the endless night because, hey, I like it; and maybe, just maybe, no destination is actually a destination all along. I'll let y'all know when I get there. By about 11 oclock, the journey inside my head had started taking the turn towards "Fuck, I'm tired" so I pulled the car off on to some farm road and slept. The next morning, I looked at the gas log I had been keeping and decided this little sojourn westward was getting rather expensive. Begrudgingly, I turned the car eastward over Tehachapi Pass and made my way down to the right Interstate (10) this time and headed back to Tucson. When I got back that afternoon, thankfully, I found that rain had once again returned to the desert and yet another symphony of weather lit the skies around the city.