494 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
494 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Tue Jan 8 09:50:03 1991
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To: wordy@Corp
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Subject: Part 51 of CAA #2
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THE MIDNIGHT ATTACK
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(#51 in the second online CAA series)
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by
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Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)
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Milpitas, CA
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July 20, 1989
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Copyright 1989, Steven K. Roberts. All rights reserved.
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Eureka, CA; Kinetic Sculpture Race '89.
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These are the times that make all the others worthwhile. Cold, misty
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wind. Surf rumbling in the dark; fresh thick Humboldt beer the color of night
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foaming in a plastic cup. A mountain bike beneath me, warm and responsive.
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Along two miles of blustery sand between ocean and bay is a ragged encampment
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of kinetic madmen; hungry for adventure I drain the brew, draw a water bottle
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full for later, and pedal south.
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Biting wind, fingers numb on the handlebars, wild grins in the blackness.
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The road barely visible; glimmers of firelight wavering through beery
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perception on either side. Now and again a strange face flashing orange in
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cigarette glow or bouncing behind a flashlight. Dark hulks parked haphazardly
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in the dunes: leering abstract dinosaur heads, a maniacally grinning 12-foot
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pink shoe, shotgun marriages of art and engineering. Laughter darting betwen
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wave crashes. Headlights on the bluff lashing deep into the sky, triggering
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confused memories of ancient rock concerts and laser shows. It's a night, a
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WILD NIGHT, and god damn, I'm alive after all!
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I push into the wind, savoring the numbing cold and full bladder.
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Feeling! Wind spatters my face with light rain, and the chain grinds sand.
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Every nerve is alive, unlike the familiar Milpitian evenings of
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deadline-driven, coffee-wired urgency.
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Ah, a fellow human! Indistinct in the dark is a mirror image, pedaling
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toward me. I recognize him before I really see him, and yes, I think it's
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time. "Hi Jerry... what are the Christians up to?"
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"Hey, Steve. They're singing around the fire. The crosses were still
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leaning against the truck last time I checked."
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"I think it's time for a firewood run, don't you?" I ask casually. We
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laugh, and the sound is sinister and giddy, deliciously conspiratorial. I
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flash back two decades to the days when I had little to lose, freight hopping
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and riding drawbridges, tripping through strange nights, strange towns --
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immortal, curious, trying anything once.
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The Christians have been irritating everybody. This is a Kinetic
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Sculpture Race party, the end of the second day. Dead Man's Drop and the
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Humboldt Bay crossing are history; only Slimy Slope and a dozen or so hard
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miles remain. This night belongs to racers and friends, but what's this? An
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encampment of proselytizing Jesus-hustlers has appeared in the middle of us,
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and all evening they've been tromping back and forth dragging 8-foot bloody
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crosses of 4X4 redwood beams, exhorting us heathen party animals to Witness the
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Glory of God. They've been crashing conversations, preaching aggressively, and
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challenging our restraint with something that smacks of the hard sell. One man
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was even accompanied by a brainwashed, doomed child of about 10, dragging his
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scaled-down cross...
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Yes, it's time. The crosses will make a good bonfire, only fair after
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their owners arrived early to hoard all the driftwood on the beach... but can
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we penetrate the defenses around their blazing campfire where the believers
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stand singing in an orgy of pious fellowship? Some of those guys look a little
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dangerous... like retarded bouncers wearing self-righteous scowls of
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intimidation, insinuating physical challenge into every eye contact.
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Time to reconnoiter. Quietly discussing strategy, we pedal slowly toward
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the encampment of Christian soldiers, clearly distinguished from the others by
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a giant 30-foot cross planted in a low dune. The towering symbol is aglow with
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reflected firelight and casts eerie flickering shadows into the seaward mist.
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We coast past their military-surplus personnel carrier where the crosses had
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been stacked an hour earlier.
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They're gone.
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"Probably getting them out of the rain so they won't be too heavy to lug
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around tomorrow," Jerry observes. We stop a discreet distance off and watch
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awhile, quietly considering the options.
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"What about the big one?" I finally ask, pointing skyward.
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You know the kind of wide-eyed look of laughing horror that kids exchange
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when a prank is suggested that's incredibly naughty, a bit dangerous, and
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exactly right? The look that says, "we could get in serious trouble for this,
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but what the hell... it's worth it"?
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We exchange that look.
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"It has to be from the beach," he says. Indeed, between the road and
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their fire is a snarl of vehicles -- one bedecked with an array of flickering
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votive candles and some kind of verbose sign about The Word, Glory, and
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Salvation. They're still snaring passers-by, even at this late hour, inducing
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many to stumble through the sand to avoid harrassment.
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We stash our bikes and find a long way around to the ocean. It's a
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different scene out here... dark and magical, the barely visible beach littered
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with giant driftwood. Distant voices and windblown flickering firesmoke rise
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from countless campsites, including the largest one of all. Their cross, grand
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and backlit now, towers magnificently over the scene like something from Dante.
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We drop to hands and knees in the wet sand and let our eyes adjust.
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Moving slowly from driftwood to dune, we work our way toward the objective,
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absurdly conscious of playing junior commando. I have a brief thought about
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Maggie, warm in the bus somewhere up the beach.
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Voices! Close! We drop to our bellies and wait, breathless.
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"Hey, Brother!"
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"Paraaiise!" in an exaggerated TV evangelist voice. Giggles. "You drunk
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too, man?"
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"Ohh, a little. This is great. Did you see Sister Sara back there?"
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"Yea and verily, Brother. The woman's feeling no pain!"
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A new voice, female, heading our way from the Christian fire. "Oh shit!
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Who's out there?"
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"Just us Brethren, taking a Righteous Leak in God's country. No peeking
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now..."
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Giggles. "I can't see a thing-- oooff!" Muffled sounds of a struggle
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and more laughter.
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"These are hard-core Christians?" I ask Jerry in a whisper.
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"Incredible! This is quite an education."
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"I think we're on to something. Let's get closer."
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Creeping on our bellies, we approach the sacred icon as the chosen few
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continue their revelry. Tall grasses tickle our faces; sand works its way into
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our clothes. Raindrops tick-tick on my blue nylon jacket. A few inches at a
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time, we climb the last dune and peek cautiously over.
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The scene is typical. A few sleepy "Christians" hover around the fire,
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one nursing a beer. Most have apparently stumbled off to bed; we watch the
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last few for a half hour or so, shivering in wet sand and stiffening into total
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silence whenever someone crashes cursing into the brush to relieve himself.
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We are almost at the base of the giant cross, no more than 20 feet from the
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fire. And... our strategy has just suggested itself: one good push and the
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giant false advertisement should drop heavily into the flames.
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Not wanting to kill anybody, we wait until the last two guys wander up to
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the candle truck. "OK, let's hit it!"
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As one, we leap up, sprint the last few feet to the cross and throw our
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shoulders into it. It starts to give... but too slowly. "It's in deeper than I
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thought!" Jerry says between grunts... and we push harder, harder, trying to
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hide our faces as it becomes clear that we've been spotted. "Damn!" One last
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shove and it drops to about 45 degrees, hovering over the flames -- but a big
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scowling guy is heading our way at a trot. "Run away! Run away!"
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We sprint through dark dunes, leaping driftwood and unnamed debris. One
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pile catches me unaware and I land face first in wood, numb chin, dazed. Unhh.
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I struggle back up and we hurry on, zigzagging in the night until giggles
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overtake us. We collapse and look back.
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They've given up the chase -- we are invisible in the rainy night. A
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couple of guys struggle to straighten the cross and pause to peer out toward
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the beach, and there are stirrings among their vehicles. "Well, at least we
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shook 'em up," I comment. "I think we sent 'em a message about how welcome
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they are here. Someone will be up all night guarding that cross."
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"Yeah... that's some consolation. But we should have rocked it back and
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forth a few times." We recover our bikes and ride slowly to the bus, where we
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find our friends huddled in a quiet circle around the tiny fire.
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"What? You've come back empty-handed? I thought you guys went off to
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look for firewood..."
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* * *
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Of course, the kinetic race itself was wonderful... it always is. Two
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things stand out now, a month or so later:
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First, it was a potent reminder of play. The Bay Area is a serious
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place, dangerously expensive, and our pilgrimage to Humboldt County was a
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desperately needed reminder that there are whole populations out there that
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fundamentally enjoy life (and I'm not talking about fundamentalists). Easy to
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forget in the fast-paced City, even with all the thrilling technology.
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Second, it was a useful perspective on the Winnebiko's place in the
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world. It has become a sort of altar for me lately -- I bring it offerings of
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gizmos; I kneel before it daily; seekers come to pay homage to it; I see in it
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the sweet promise of an afterlife to the endless penance that is this layover.
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But one morning in Eureka, I pedaled past a couple of people in town for the
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Kinetic Sculpture Race. "There goes one!" cried the lady, whereupon the
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husband replied, "no, that's just a normal bike." I smiled, strangely
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refreshed, and then smiled even more broadly at my reaction.
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Oddly, the adventures that happen during non-travel seem somehow invalid,
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as if driving a mega-bus to Mount Shasta and clambering all day is less real
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than it would be if we sweated our way there aboard eccentric machinery. This
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is not entirely silly: it's hard to flow into the spirit of adventure when it's
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an abrupt discontinuity from normalcy, framed against Milpitian reality by a
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pair of hot marathon drives through the <yawn> Central Valley.
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Nevertheless, we have our moments. We drove the bus up to Mount Shasta,
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getting our usual fuel efficiency of about 1.2 light-years per cubic-mile of
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gasoline, ostensibly to give a talk at a conference on amateur radio
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satellites. This I did, of course, but the real pleasure was in the mountain
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and the people... another case of living in a setting of deep beauty and
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affordable real estate, but no job market to speak of. Perfect escape.
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And clambering to a false summit through the snow to make love in cold
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brittle sunshine... that was a moment. So was an evening with Irv, the
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mid-70's world-class ham who's just starting to learn Spanish. And so was the
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evening with Michael the climbing guide and his family in their homestead below
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the mountain, lying in the moonlit bus and catching flickers of camp stoves
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from high above on the grandest and most poetic hulk of rock and snow I've seen
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in many a mile. <Pang...> I miss the road.
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* * *
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Back in the Valley of Silicon, we re-immersed ourselves in the Project,
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with a quick break for a Grateful Dead concert of tie-dye, twirlers, dancing,
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the sweet smell of smoke from what seems like a previous life... and of course,
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stunning music. I jam down railroad tracks on the mountain bike now and then,
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and occasionally wander up to Lupin for a naked day in the sunshine with a few
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hundred relaxed people-at-play. But mostly we just work at this crazy nomad
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business.
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The new bike, a grand vision indeed, still seems impossibly remote. I
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have spent over a month on the CSPC WASU (cellulose-core silicon-matrix
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polyester-filled composite wheeled auxiliary storage unit, otherwise known as a
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bicycle trailer made of fiberglass over hot-glued cardboard). This is becoming
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the other half of the Winnebiko, with a 72-watt solar lid and a flip-down work
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surface in the back that exposes a complete HF, satellite, and TV ham radio
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station. It is taking a long time to build.
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Which is why the little tastes of adventure seem so poignant -- they once
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were the essence of my life. Familiar theme by now? There's good reason for
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it. I struggle daily with an ever more complex device for escaping complexity,
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and sometimes the inconsistency is a bit overwhelming. Bear with me through
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this long dry spell (or better yet, take a sabbatical, move out here, and help
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me build this thing... er, um, no. Sorry... there's no money in it).
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Cheers from somewhere in clutterdom,
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Steve
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