357 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
357 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
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From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan 7 17:25:26 1991
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To: wordy@Corp
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Subject: chapter-30
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SOLSTICE ON CLOUD'S REST
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#30 in the second online CAA series
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by
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Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)
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Yosemite National Park, 12,368 miles.
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June 21, 1987
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Copyright 1987, Steven K. Roberts. All rights reserved.
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This is wild, wild country. I'm sitting naked with the computer sweaty on
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my lap, leaning in the sun against a massive boulder that somehow, millenia
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ago, rolled to a stop like a forgotten marble on this convex plain of
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glacier-polished slickrock. Now, the cracks vibrate with wind-driven
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wildflowers and the trees rustle like waterfalls around us... while hundreds of
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miles of trails meander from one amazement to the next like the erratic
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footprints of a hedonist in paradise. That's not far from the truth. We're in
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Yosemite.
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Maggie lies glistening beside me in a solo orgy of melanin synthesis, her
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bare back a cluster of red-white welts from the relentless attacks of flying
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hypodermics. A bird singsongs the Morse code "K" over and over: "dahdidah,
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dahdidah, dahdidah... go ahead, go ahead, go ahead." I think about that,
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smile, and interrupt my keytapping to lovingly apply insect repellent...
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* * *
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Back from that pleasant exercise, I gaze across this wild valley and
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contemplate the changes. There have been many since I last wrote; a whole new
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phase is upon us. At the end of Chapter 29, we were in Eureka wondering what
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next; now we know: we're driving to Ohio to sell the van and begin a pedaling
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jaunt through the northeast.
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Such lunacy deserves a moment's explanation. Deliberately leaving
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California for the midwest is not an act to be taken lightly. But consider
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this: if you were on a bicycle trip and found yourself in Palo Alto... WHERE
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WOULD YOU GO?
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Not north, surely, into the brutal headwinds; nor south on busy Highway 1
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toward the mecca of motorized desert madness at the onset of summertime. West
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is out, for obvious reasons. So how about east into the 100-degree
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agricultural midsection of the state, then over some 9,000-foot passes and
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across the dry, desolate mega-wrinkles of Nevada?
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Yup, you got it. The answer is (E) -- none of the above. You'd hang
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around Palo Alto, just like we have for the past 5 months, inventing and then
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completing interesting projects.
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But Columbus, by contrast, is the kind of place that inspires
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long-distance travel (believe me: it has done it to me twice). Spend a few
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months there and you'll go mad with tire itch, dreaming of the delights of the
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next county, the next state, the next ANYTHING. And if you also need to deal
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with the boxed-up clutter of your previous life and drop in on a few old
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friends, then you have a perfect excuse to go there... since you know you won't
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stay long.
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And so we're on the road -- motoring our way cross-country to the
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headwaters of trip 3.
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* * *
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This is an adventure too, of course, though somehow not as "pure" as the
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visceral rhythms of human-powered wandering. The van is a rolling sea of
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clutter, and the recumbents rattle in the back like restless rugrats and pout.
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But no matter... until we hit the plains, we're taking the time to feel the
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country.
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Take Yosemite, for example. This is a place of dizzying and almost
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painful beauty, a place that aches to be touched. It's a place of deeply
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intertwined ecosytems, of textures ranging from the silken to the terrifying,
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of rock sculpted by the eons in ways that stupefy. Yesterday we pitched camp at
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Tanaya Lake and set out on foot for a summit that seemed almost mythical in
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reputation: Cloud's Rest.
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Being ambitious and not entirely realistic, I hauled the computer all the
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way -- a 16-mile round trip trek that ranged from the merely difficult to
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soft-core rock-climbing. I thought to write -- to settle atop this 9,926-foot
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peak, gaze about, and capture the essence of the scene with a deeply encoded
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stream of passionate data. That was the plan.
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Gasping for oxygen we struggled to the top, challenged less by the terrain
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than by our questionable timing (we left camp at 1:00). "Don't turn back, it's
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worth it!" urged the occasional exhausted hiker going the other way, and we
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pressed on beyond reason, striding purposefully, picking our way at last from
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boulder to boulder along the narrow cockscomb that is this peak...
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Whoa! I had to sit down. I stood up again, gasped, and ran to and fro,
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looking out over an alien world. I gazed down on Half Dome and beyond into the
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great green-floored gash of Yosemite Valley. In all directions lay magic, from
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snow-streaked peaks to the combed mossy canopy of a forest far below -- from
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sheer concave walls to the fluid, muscular, subtle flow of rock that was far
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too smooth to be rock.
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I got out the computer and opened a file called CLOUDS. I wrote a title:
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"Solstice on Cloud's Rest." I stared at the screen for a while, chuckled sadly
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at myself, closed the file, and put the machine back in my pack for the trip
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down. It was 5:30, and time to hurry.
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Trying not to think about chondromalacia, we bounded down the mountain,
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stopping to scrounge for walking sticks when the pain kicked in. Everything
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hurt, but the other hikers had been right: it was worth it. By dusk,
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tormented by mosquitos and a steady flood of agony from all sensors below the
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waist, we reached camp and gave ourselves over to the sensory duo of fire and
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food.
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Tenaya Lake is a walk-in campground, which effectively keeps the RV's out.
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But that doesn't guarantee freedom from the supernova set, who break out their
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gas lanterns at the first sign of encroaching darkness. Squinting in the light
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of their artificial suns, keeping the unnamable horrors of the night at a safe
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distance, they cluster around their picnic tables, throwing stark shadows on
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the rest of us with every movement. The waste light from a nearby campsite was
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brighter than the candle on our table -- preventing a full retina's worth of
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dark-adapting rhodopsin.
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But that's just part of the campground culture -- as much as the mingling
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smoke from a dozen fires, the racket of Kid Row, the occasional guitar and folk
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music, and the casual visits of ambling neighbors from all over. There's
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something languid about it all, numbing the mind to business problems and
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deadlines like some kind of harmless opiate. Time? People with watches look a
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little funny out here. (Of course, people with portable computers on their
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backs probably look a bit odd too.)
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And then there are the kamikaze micro-syringes, those wee bastards that
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can turn a tender moment into a flurry of slaps and curses. Maggie stuck her
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finger in her ear earlier and killed two of them; I inhaled one with my
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burrito. Crossing a slow-moving creek on a long fallen log (a stupid act, with
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the HP on my back), I had to steel myself against an onslaught severe enough to
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make my bare legs look dark and furry. I picked my way carefully along 30 feet
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of shimmying log in rising urgency, fighting off the panicky slapdance that the
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assault demanded. I made it, of course (you're reading this story), though I
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was weakened by blood loss.
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But mosquitos, leg pain, and gas lanterns notwithstanding, Yosemite is an
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experience that will be hard to end. Even a foray for firewood is a journey of
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wonder, a wide-eyed excursion into a topsy- turvy landscape that enchants the
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eye at every level of magnification. The blue lake, the cries of "off belay!"
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from high on impossible rock faces, the echoing tattoo of woodpeckers, the
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mysterious straight lines of contrasting mineralization that cut across acres
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of slickrock, the graceful deer, the deliciously convoluted shape of the land,
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the neck-cricking horizon, the magic light at sunset... it all invites intimate
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exploration like the body of a new lover. Somewhere out there is Ohio, with a
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complex set of problems to solve: it can bloody well wait a few days.
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* * *
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Oh yes, business. Let me drag my fingers away from Beauty for just a
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moment and bring you up to date.
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My new office, the latest in a recent succession of four, is in Milpitas,
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California -- under control of Alan Selfridge and Doris Hoffman. Yes, the CAA
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mini-empire grows ever more complex, with the publications office in Chico, a
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literary agent in Berkeley, and new base support near San Jose -- all linked by
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GEnie, of course. That was one of the reasons for our two-week return to Palo
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Alto after the Kinetic Sculpture Race: building what I hope will be my first
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truly effective business structure for this zany life of nomadness. During the
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same period, I also started a biweekly column in Computer Currents, dedicated
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to the body of high-techniques that allow one to do business anywhere. (The
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humor in all this is left as an exercise for the reader.)
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In other news, I recently received one of the most entertaining comments
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ever about the Winnebiko. I was in one of those crowds of people that could
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have been anywhere, answering the usual flurry of identical questions and
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waiting for an opening that would let me hop in my getaway bike and ride out of
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town. A grinning blond fellow gestured at the control console and asked (with
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a sly twinkle), "Does all that tell you why you're doing this?"
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And speaking of computers, this week's political commentary comes from a
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friend's Macintosh. He fired up an ANAGRAM program, which figures out
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meaningful alternate combinations of a word's letters (lives - evils - Elvis -
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veils) and typed in "Ronald Wilson Reagan." The machine thought about that for
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a while, then responded "Insane Anglo Warlord." I have nothing to add.
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On that note, I inaugurate the next phase of this journey. Forgive the
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irregularity of recent columns and bear with me a little while longer, for one
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of the true hallmarks of adventure is unpredictability...
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-- Steve
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