OK, so my last diary launched a series I'm calling Into The West, a nod to Jon Krakauer's book Into The Wild, and more so a nod to Chris McCandless, the protagonist of that biography.
The last forty eight hours I've made my way almost 900 miles west to Indianapolis, car camping the first night along I-90, and tonight I've fetched up in a motel with good internet so I can finish my presentation for the fifth annual Ammonia Fuel Network conference next Monday. This isn't all that 'west' in the scheme of things, so I thought you might like a little taste of things to come.
Krakauer's book, Into The Wild, chronicles the life and untimely death of Chris McCandless, a bright, intense young man who went off into the Alaskan Bush and lived on little more than his wits for 113 days, until two simple mistakes laid him low. Krakauer also talks a bit about his own life, the adventures of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and a couple of lesser known and much more eccentric fellows who've managed to perish in their quests.
These men, along with the likes of Jack Kerouac, Jack London, and Robert Pirsig were captive to what Krakauer calls "the prison of our genes"; a seeming genetic imperative to wander, seeking high and lonesome places, and always the undercurrent of personal quest is there, very frequently taking on religious tones.
I picked up and watched Into The Wild just a few days ago because someone had compared my story to that of McCandless in a comment in one of my Walkabout series, then I promptly got the book and devoured it whole in about two hours flat while riding the T into Boston to see a Lyme specialist. I was very taken by both the similarities and differences between McCandless and I.
I have two friends who are cut from this same wanderer cloth as well. One is a Colorado resident who has all of the skills McCandless lacked and spends twenty or thirty weekends a year out in the back country, hiking in miles to find solitary camp sites. The other did much of what McCandless did in his twenties, disappearing into the wilds of Idaho and eastern Washington for nearly a year, white water raft guiding on the Colorado, and bumming about the west on an old motorcycle. Both are relatively domesticated now, holding IT jobs and keeping apartments, but even a little time with me and my unstructured schedule seems to scratch the veneer of civilization off and threaten to send them roaming again.
There are others like us out there, men who've simply gone out and quite often up in their pursuit of ... something not even they can define.
I met Daniel Klennert at his sculpture park, filled with gigantic whimsical iron creations, just outside Mount Rainier National Park. He'd settled into the land and his creations, but he told me a little of his story before the settling, and the pattern is unmistakable.
I never met Jim Stone, the keeper of Ward, Colorado's hubcap shrine, but I'm told that in addition to the nexus on main street there are trails surrounding the town decorated in this fashion. These photos would, I think, leave one with the sense of unorganized junk, but I hope the last photo conveys the care with which this display was created.
The room of the west draws people out from the Stueckrath boot collection to the massive whimsy of Carhenge; creativity on display in a quintessentially western fashion, but without the wanderer's hand behind it.
I'm going. I'm not coming back. No, I don't mean I'm disappearing into the wild like McCandless, but I'm done apologizing for the way that I am. Krakauer and Kerouac have given me the courage to take this step. My work, such as it is, provides great flexibility, and I'm going to stop secretly standing with one foot in each world and just be open about it. Last night I slept by the side of the road, tomorrow I'm meeting with an investment group here in Indianapolis, the next night I'm under the stars again, then speaking at a national conference, neatly hop scotching betwixt the two.
The Ammonia Fuel Network holds me for two days, then I'll turn west again for a site survey in South Dakota. I'm going to end up less than an hour from a place McCandless was with the grain harvest in full swing; I do believe I'll stroll in to see his old boss and maybe try to retrace some of his steps by joining the harvesting crew, if they'll have me. After that Wyoming beckons with more work, and I'll finish dangerously close to Colorado. Too close, in fact, not to do something along these lines with my back country dwelling friend, Matt, and his furry accomplice Boo.