White Pickups, Gray Bones & Snow Capped Mountains
Friday, June 2
In parking lot of Best Western in Craig, CO there are six white 4×4 pickups, a Ford from Co, A Ford from Utah, a Chevy from Montana, a GMC from New Mexico. They were lined up perfectly next to each other, showing off. Hmm. I guess white pickups are part of the Cowboy Contract. I continued walking and found a blue pickup parked behind a dump truck. I guess the blue pickup cowboy was ashamed and hid it.
And then there’s the white pickup For Gov’t Use Only. We’re paying for a gas guzzling huge white Ford pickup?
From Craig to Vernal is just plains, boringly beautiful . No development. Everywhere else seems to be bursting with, new businesses and housing developments. We took a back road over the Rockies through the Roosevelt National Forest. The scenery was beautiful. The snow-capped mountains were both gorgeous and, to this Eastern guy, unnatural. There shouldn’t be snow in June. I don’t care if we’re a mile-and-a-half above sea level. In some spots the snow was still four foot deep.
Dinoasaur National Monument. Been here before. The bones are still in the rock. Nothing’s changed, including the people. Old folks with canes. Men with red, sun-creased faces wearing battered cowboy hats. Little kids bored silly and wanting to run and when they can’t they cry. I don’t blame you kid, I want to do the same thing. Instead I go outside and smoke my pipe.
Dinosaurs appeared 250 million years ago and disappeared 100 million years ago. They were here for 150 million years.
We have a recorded history of a few thousand years and claim we know the truth.
Supper at The Whitewater grill in Vernal. The floor is concrete and the walls are decorated with hastily framed photos of whitewater rafters. There’s a bowl of peanuts at each table, which turns out to be a good thing since we wait a half hour for service., Seems that two waitresses didn’t show up. Since Leigh and Kim and I have been together all day, no one has much to say.
There are two TVs. The one in our room is on ESPN which is showing football highlights. The TV in the bar, which I can see through an opening in the wall, is showing a rerun of The Shield. TV becomes a surreal and entertaining thing with no sound. I watch a cop kick the crap out of a bad guy. Another guy is shown in a motel room bloody and unconscious as the lead actor yells for help. Two cops in uniform kiss each other in an aggressiveness dance that makes me hope they never get their clothes off. They’ll tear each other apart with manly love.
For some reason with the sound off, I realize that no one on TV laughs. If TV is a reflection of our culture, we don’t have enough easy laughter. I’m not talking about the sit coms where artificial laughs come as a result of sexual innuendo or sarcastic remarks. I’m talking about genuine laughter that comes from having a good time being around people you like. There is none of that on TV.
As a culture, maybe we’re too serious.
Finally a waitress appears. Leigh has a burger. Kim and I have a Portobello mushroom sandwich which is really good. We go to a grocery store for soda where teens are roaring their car and truck engines looking for fun in a western town that’s no different than an Eastern town. Kids feel isolated and have too much energy and sex drive. Later the boys will chug beers on a mountain road, try to get laid and go home drunk and disappointed.