On the Road with Neo-Cotton Mather

BULLFROG MARINA, Utah, Oct. 8, 2018—Today marked the first time since May that I have worn long pants, a fact that I noted with a twinge of sadness as I pulled on my trousers before heading out of our comfortable room at the Defiance Lodge at Glenn Canyon National Recreation Area.

Waking up on a cloudy day at Lake Powell

Looking out from our balcony at the drenched landscape this morning, you’d never know that Lake Powell had dropped some 32 feet during the past year. A week’s worth of rain from Hurricane Rosa followed by a newly minted cold front had left the ruddy sandstone cliffs and dunes saturated to the point where the entire landscape was oozing clear fluid that reflected the gray light, substantially muting the scene and our mood. Temperatures this week were 20 degrees lower than previous weeks, necessitating another layer of warmth and full-length trousers.

It did not escape us that this new chill settling over the land coincided with the U.S. Senate’s decision to confirm Bret Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, clinching an ultra-conservative majority.

A flash flood at Bullfrog Creek impeded our access to the back-
country

Though temperatures likely will rise soon enough and winters will become a fading memory, according to a new report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it’s probably fair to say that the United States will continue to be a cold place for women. The bizarre gas lighting displayed during the Kavanaugh confirmation process—in which a graying horde of male senators were able to declare with straight faces that women had successfully victimized men as part of an ongoing war that is using allegations of sexual misconduct as its primary weapon—ensures that nearly any rape or sexual assault charge by a white man will be playfully dismissed as “boys being boys” and women being hysterical creatures with memories that falter during stressful situations.

Snow in Utah's high country on Oct. 8 must prove that global
warming is a hoax, right?

Maine Sen. Susan Collins confirmed her belief in just such a narrative while explaining her decision to support Kavanaugh’s nomination.

Oh well, the waters of shame will recede soon enough, I thought to myself as we sat on the banks of a swollen Bullfrog Creek, waiting to see whether we would be able to drive the scenic backcountry Burr Trail or be banished back to the main highway. The water won out this time.

Earlier we had driven through the southeast corner of Utah, skirting tribal lands that are peppered with archaeological sites and geologic wonders. A small herd of wild painted ponies joined us at one point, even as natural gas derricks dotting the landscape continued to bob up and down, like hungry locusts feeding on a fragile ecosystem.

Fracking: Out of sight, out of mind; and necessary to
Make America Great Again

If you doubt the hold that Big Energy has on this country, you need only to visit this area. New natural gas leases have led to a new era of wildcatting. Fracking will ensure that every drop of natural gas will be extracted from beneath the Earth, regardless of the consequences. Gas lines are draped across the landscape like poisonous vines. Energy companies gain access to fracking areas via the main roads, but they set up shop behind bluffs or natural contours so as not to alarm the people who live here. Behind one hill, we saw a fracking operation that spread as far as the eye could see. Waste water tanks and pumps dotted the landscape nearly to the horizon.

It’s no wonder humanity will see increasingly lethal temperatures across the planet by 2040: Our addiction to fossil fuels is more powerful than our common sense. Moreover, with guys like Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, corporations will continue to call the shots, and more and more wealth will continue to be concentrated into the hands of the already wealthy. Education and social programs will continue to dry up. The United States will be headed toward a new version of the Dark Ages that ravaged Europe, and nationalism and superstition will rule the day.

Wild horses couldn't drag me away

It’s only a matter of time until people like Sens. Collins and McConnell will team up to declare that witches are responsible for the climatic calamities befalling our species and ritual burnings and public executions of all types will entertain the masses as lengthening brownouts and blackouts render our televisions, cell phones and other electronics largely useless.

But we’ll worry about that road when we get to it.

Meantime, we will continue our travels west and join the ranks of the rest of the world who will continue to run full speed ahead until the wheels fall off.

See you on down the road!

Stretch Break

POIPU, HAWAII, Nov. 16, 2015—About four hours into our seven-hour flight into Kauai, we noticed that our flight attendant had disappeared. She had provided impeccable customer

The Hawaiian islands from space

service throughout the flight up until this point, so her absence was unexpected. Figuring it was a good time for a "comfort break," I made my way to the lavatory—an incredibly dilapidated and cramped space that afforded barely enough room for me to slump forward uncomfortably over the sad stainless steel commode. Had I been any fatter, I probably wouldn't have fit into the small space. I wondered whether flight attendants are ever called upon to administer lubricants to the love handles of obese passengers in order to facilitate their entry and exit into the toilet. Figuring that such a thing was, indeed, not out of the realm of possibility, I made a concerted effort to avoid contacting the walls of the water closet, which reeked of the blue chemical enzyme used during the flushing process.

Sunrise from the lanai provides a moment to reflect

A sudden spate of turbulence caused me to bump noisily against the bulkhead. I recoiled involuntarily and checked my sleeves for the telltale stains of the "special lubricant" that would be unceremoniously sprayed upon the corpulent. Luckily, there was no oily residue, and I was able to maintain my aim into the bullseye flap of metal at the center of the bowl below. I re-holstered my junk, inspected myself for any "spoon spots" on the front of my trousers and took an extra moment to thoroughly wash my hands. As I exited, I smiled at the flight attendant, who had resumed her position at the front of the craft.

"Did you need anything?" she asked as I walked by.

"No thank you," I said.

Beauty of this variety can't be found in the Atomic City

Once seated, we noticed the flight attendant was doing subtle leg lifts, doing reps of 10 on one leg and then 10 more on the other. It was a routine she had probably kiped from the pages of Self magazine, under a heading of how to keep your thighs and buttocks firm and toned while working, in just 10 minutes a day!

Good for her, I thought. Everyone needs a stretch break. It just so happened that ours involved a seven hour flight to a place 2,984 miles away.

That last mileage figure is pretty close. We know that because our iPhones told us the distance early on in our flight. We had neglected to switch our devices to Airplane Mode, but thankfully our negligence did not cause our craft to plummet from the skies. Shortly after taking off out of Phoenix, we had asked Siri to provide us with directions to a Kauai restaurant. When Siri protested that she could not fulfill our request, we hurled insults at her disembodied electronic voice. This caught the attention of our friendly flight attendant, who asked us politely to switch our phones to Airplane mode.

Admittedly, we are no experts on these things but
some of the currents we encountered while snorkeling
here in the Pacific were unusually warm—much warmer
than the surrounding water. This was a particularly
interesting way to experience the phenomenon of the
so-called "El Niño" oscillation that forecasters are
saying is a harbinger of a cold, wet winter in North
America. Ironically, at the same time we experienced
these currents, it was snowing back home. Go figure.

In the wake of the hysteria after the attacks on Paris, we were quick to comply, and apparently a good thing, too. Two days later we would learn that a rude, drunken Polish traveler had been taken into federal custody in Boston for unruly behavior aboard an airplane, and that another traveler had finked on passengers they didn't like for apparent "suspicious behavior" during a flight into Washington, DC.

We are living in weird times right now, and The Fear drives the simpleminded toward vengeance and unconscionable behaviors. Presidential candidate Donald Trump has fomented this sentiment and used it to his advantage. He has tapped into a nerve of uncertainty and has duped the fearful into embracing the politics of xenophobia. Our nation is on the verge of madness, and  I firmly believe that everyone could probably take a tip from our flight attendant and take a stretch break before things escalate any further. That's easy for us to say, I suppose. We are in the middle of a stretch break in a tropical paradise.

Our Hawaiian wake-up call, so to speak.

The day after our plane ride, the sunrise outside of our temporary quarters make it hard to believe that there is any strife out there in the world. Yet the freakishly hot currents we encountered intermittently while snorkeling did betray that things are heating up, and perhaps there is something desperately wrong with things in the world right now.

And that creates a peculiarly difficult scenario, doesn't it?

How do you provide the Earth with a "stretch break" that will reinvigorate and rejuvenate our beautiful home planet without disrupting the slap-dash house of cards we have assembled in the name of commerce, supply chains, quality-of-life, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? Donald Trump seems to believe we can accomplish this by erecting walls, our President believes it can be done by snooping on our own citizens, Congress believes we can accomplish this task with decreased spending, corporations are banking on increased consumerism, environmentalists think the answer lies in electric vehicles and plastic-bag bans; everyone, it seems, has some sort of solution in mind—as long as it doesn't involve regulating the population or depriving anyone of the luxuries to which they have become accustomed. 

I don't know what the answer is myself, but we will be sure to ponder these things here on this island during our own personal stretch break. If we come up with anything profound, we will surely share it. Otherwise, we likely will take the example of our charming flight attendant and simply disappear into the moment of bliss that we have carved out for ourselves during the course of our otherwise busy lives.

See you on down the road.

Long overdue

SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN, Nov. 15, 2015—This year has been tedious and stress filled. In addition to the sudden shock of being drafted into new duties at work, tragedy swarmed around us this year like a cloud of fruit flies dancing above a freshly cut pineapple. We suffered death and despair at every turn, it seemed, and while my fortunes at work had seemed to soar, my personal life was fraught with setbacks and disappointment on numerous levels. Most of all, I was left reeling by the death of my mother, despite the full expectation of her passing.

The view from the airplane window

Consequently, my adrenal gland spent most of the year pumping my body full of cortisol—the powerful and dangerous hormone released into the system during periods of extreme duress. Since most humans these days suffer no real dangers that would cause a person to fight or flee, modern men in the throes of a cortisol orgy simply balloon up like bratwurst over a hot flame, and I was no exception. I had grown fat and sluggish, my eyes had lost their shine and had become surrounded by dark bags, and I noticed that my hair had become dull and flat. And while Nutrisystem®, Maybelline, and Vidal Sassoon all promise cures for such things, it was not lost on me that each of these things was a sign—and a troubling sign to be sure.

Always travel with whimsy

Many people who become saturated with stress hormone fall prey to sickness, injury, or worse. It is the mind's way of taking the "victim" out of the game so to speak. Being a resilient person, I did not succumb. But in late August,  while looking at an impossible calendar of duties that would keep me more than heavily occupied for the foreseeable future, I had an epiphany: Either take some time off or drop dead. Even though I have a decent life insurance policy, and Caroline would fare okay in the wake of my demise, the thought of checking out before my reservation here on Earth had ended seemed like a cruel waste. I realized after my Mother's death that we only get one shot at this life, so we'd better make it a good one.

We started making plans for a restful vacation that would commence at the end of the stressful string of deliverables that loomed large on the calendar.

The preferred cure for negative thought

Today, sailing above the Pacific in a rickety metal flying machine, we were able to see the fruits of our labor and planning shaping up. At 30,000 feet, a person can really appreciate the wonder of the world. At this altitude, the curvature of the Earth is almost perceptible with the naked eye. The bright blue sky above and the deep-blue sea below is a testament to the wonderful anomaly that Planet Earth is in the cosmos. How we humans can continue to despoil and poison our host terrarium remains a marvel and a mystery to me. It brings me no joy to reiterate that there are far too many of us here, and that the vast majority of us are far too selfish to be good stewards of this world. Even though the sound of the surf below provides us with a metronome that honestly and unapologetically marks the passage of time, most of us feel as if we will be here forever, and that all of our actions during the past 100 years in particular can and will be forgiven without consequence or discomfort.

I, like many others, I'm sure, am beginning to suspect that such an assumption is probably untrue. Meanwhile, the mass media and a drumbeat of wishful thinking has done its best to convince us that electric powered vehicles, good intentions, and Carbon Offsets will certainly overpower the unsustainable system of rampant consumerism we have created for ourselves. And outside of a few sink holes, some weird weather, and the occasional manageable plague now and again, Mother Nature has done little to betray this canard. 

We arrived at a wonderful destination

Lest you think that I must be a real drag to vacation with, please remember that it takes much longer to write down such thoughts than it takes to actually think them. Thankfully for Caroline, most of this negativity was unspoken, drowned out by the drone of the aircraft, and even the unquiet moments were banished in roughly the same amount of time as it took to prepare a nice cocktail in the airplane as we streaked through the sky toward our tropical destination. They say no man is an island, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't visit one. And after spending hours in the air and leaving a giant hypocritical carbon footprint on this fragile ecosystem of ours, I was instantly astounded by the beauty and the heat of Kauai, Hawaii's "Island of Discovery." It seems like a fitting place to heal and ponder the events of the past year, and I intend to take full advantage—hopefully as "sustainably" as we can.

See you on down the road!