309 lines
8.6 KiB
Plaintext
309 lines
8.6 KiB
Plaintext
From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan 7 17:25:19 1991
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To: wordy@Corp
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Subject: chapter-3
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by
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Steven K. Roberts HtN (WORDY)
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Granby, Colorado
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August 22, 1986
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Granby, Colorado
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And so it begins. I am writing from a motel room in Colorado, Columbus
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far behind, the road suddenly a reality. Before I start telling stories, two
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bits of additional background are necessary.
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First, the general plan. We're driving a van to Vancouver (then a car to
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Carson City, of course, followed by a brisk walk to Waukegan and... oh, never
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mind). The Winnebiko will be on display at Expo '86 for a week, then we'll
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spend a month, more or less, in Seattle -- with the intent of finishing the
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wiring and software design. Then the road, at last, with the van sold or
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driven back to Ohio.
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Second, the reason for the word "we" in the last paragraph.
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During my first Great Escape, a major theme was love -- to put it gently.
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"I have both freedom and security," I was fond of saying, going on to
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rhapsodize about networks, travel, friends and the surprising new twists in
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romance that come from living in Dataspace.
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But people have often suggested that the first word of "Computing Across
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America" should be replaced with something else, and it has occasionally even
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occurred to me that the variety of on-the-road encounters might have had more
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to do with late-blooming adolescence than True Love. On one level, of course,
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it was Everyman's dream- come-true; on another, it was a dangerous flirtation
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with a dizzying variety of pathogens with transient delight as the only reward.
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My only true love was the Other Woman... that sweet piece of asphalt known
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as "The Road."
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It's time for a new approach.
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Maggie and I met six months ago, eyes sparkling across a smoky jazz bar,
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the awareness of Something Significant as tangible as the articulate guitar
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riffs filling the air between us. Flowing black hair, high cheekbones --
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pretty, poised, and smiling as if waiting for my arrival. We met with
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exuberance, celebrated the event with passion, and shared the kind of bliss
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generally associated with falling in love. Even the cat couldn't stand being
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in the same room with the two of us, and yes, we even quoted Gibran.
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Six months later, we're still at it, falling in love over and over. Nice
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change, doing that with the same person. And yes, my sweet cyclamate is going
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with me on this adventure: she glides along on her own solar-equipped
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recumbent, long hair wafting in the breeze, tan legs pumping, a smile as wide
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as the highway lighting her face. Yes, she's going with me, and as I tap the
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keys here in the ham- operated Fronteir Motel she's out there gatherin'
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provisions for the road ahead.
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OK. Now the background is complete. The stories begin at last.
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* * *
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Phew. This was a day, a major day, a day of mountains and impressions and
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exquisite desolation -- a welcome change after yesterday's 925-mile marathon
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drive from Columbia Missouri to Boulder.
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Boulder Canyon: echoes of that time 16 years ago when I pedaled
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unprepared and silly into the beginning of alpine winter only to turn back
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within a week. Different now, a new eye, a new purpose. We clambered the
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rocks, gazed at nascent vastness, played hide and seek among the boulders.
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Boulder itself (the town) is now expensive, gentrified and trendy, still
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echoing its recent hippie heritage but too smooth somehow... we ate in the
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"last American Diner" under the sounds of 50's music (Duke of Earl, Little Town
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Flirt) and pressed on, forgetting our resolve to park and explore.
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Nederland (a shop called "Gopher Baroque"). Ward ("Thank you for stopping
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in-Ward," I joked). Sweet silence and that unforgettable Colorado character
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that's so easily forgotten in suburbia. Vastness, smiles with Maggie, and the
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refreshing brisk cold that chases torpor and clears the psychic pipes -- the
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road a thousand miles of mental floss. Colorado, at last.
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At Estes Park, preparing to head west into Rocky Mountain National Park,
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we saw the crowds -- the bicycles, cleats, and Yakima racks. Cold, wearing
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inappropriate shorts, we pressed through the masses and found ourselves in the
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middle of the Coors Classic -- a world-class bicycle race with the likes of
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Greg Lemond, sponsor logos and support teams everywhere. Sounds of French,
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Italian, Aussie, German. Crowds concentrated at the starting line -- and at
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every curve, breathless for action. We found a place to stand above crowd-
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heads and watched the start of the 55 mile circuit; minutes later a tight line
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of powerful human-machines blasted by at nearly 30 mph, raising goosebumps with
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their intensity, honking wildly up the home- stretch grade in what, to them,
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must seem a continuous roar of claps and cheers. But then the rain began,
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slicking the track, breaking one head, and slowing the pace. We stocked up on
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exotic chocolates and pressed further into the mountains, climbing, climbing,
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until even the trees gave up the effort and all around us was only cloud and
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rock.
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Rocky Mountain National Park is a spectacle of unimaginable magnificence,
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Trail Ridge Road rising into the clouds to 12,183 feet -- above treeline, into
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the tundra. We stopped frequently. On one giant slope, far enough from the
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road for quiet to rule at last, I stood alone on a rock outcropping and savored
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the sensation of massive wind-driven fluidity. Maggie watched me a moment, and
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then bubbled into a sudden exultation of irrepressible childlike exuberance,
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closing the space between us in an open-armed dash and appearing warm in my
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arms. Light rain ticking ripstop. Hair beaded with droplets. Warm, warm human
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holding me in a place primordial, vast, humbling. A kiss.
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The love of that moment pervaded the day, each stop another discovery,
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another step further from the habit of mediocrity. Visibility a van-length;
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occasional lines of headlights appearing bright on white and passing into our
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past, sometimes a sign, sometimes a solar-powered bathroom that flushes with
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oil. We stopped at that one, confirmed the relative specific gravities of oil
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and water, and walked into the tundra -- trail-bound, hushed in blowing cloud,
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somewhere in the skies of America. Tiny flowers, tiny beasts; an ecosystem
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fragile, a place bizarre. Closer we grew.
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Down the mountain, over the divide, west at last. The sky show of evening
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kept our faces to the windshield, gaping out and up at a confluence of
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mountains, lake, and sky that evolved from moment to moment like a concerto --
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bound by a theme, constrained by style and key, yet free to roam through
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variations infinite until all scores are settled and the tonic nigh. Sunset
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itself was anticlimactic: we turned the volume down and devoted ourselves to
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finding a home for the night. And thus we come to be in Granby.
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"KA8OVA," I told the man behind the counter, "and that's KA8ZYW out there
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in the van."
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"Well, hello!" came the grin. "I'm KA0SWQ, and P's in the other room."
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Thus began the stay at the Frontier Motel, presided over with humor and
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delight by Pat and Rich Agnew. They promised to let us take a late Jacuzzi and
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sent us off to eat at the Longbranch -- an unlikely place in this frontier
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town. Food exquisite, the Smothered Mexican Combination alive from item to
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item unlike the homogenous sameness of most such dishes; Maggie's trout
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perfect. Ya never know in a place like this -- the chef is European, sick of
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big cities. Maggie's thinking of writing a compantion book, a book by my
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companion, a compendium of eateries and recipes discovered through the endless
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wanderings of two sensory mendicants. Maggie might not put it quite like that,
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but that's the way it feels.
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Tired bad, but last gasp: Hot tub room. Frolic in the bubbles. Massage,
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moans lost in the wet roar, door open to the night pouring steam and admitting
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more of that delicious Colorado air. When we left, I locked the room key in --
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and had to play cat burglar to enter the room without waking our friendly
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hosts. Brought to mind a moment about 24 hours earlier, somewhere in the
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eastern Colorado plains, when I locked the keys in the van. Not like me,
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really, any of this. I climbed in through the sunroof, attracting more than one
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startled glance.
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Just a jaunty way to hop into my van, ma'am -- I used to drive a
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convertible.
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And now, west again. Three days to make the drive to Vancouver, a
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lifetime of sights in between. I plan to appear here weekly from now on,
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sharing snippets of experience and tales of adventure. Cheers!
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---Steve Roberts
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