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Show The Park Record A-14 Wed/Thurs/FH, September 22-24, 2004 SUNDAY IN THE PARK By Teri Orr Far, far, so far away in the wild B Visit our new expanded resource center featuring a complimentary capacino bar! We can help you create your own wonderland. Whether you are looking for a single sofa or furnishing an entire room we can help you make your house a home. Our talented designers can help you plan an entire home or just assist you with the finishing touches. Stop by and visit Utah's largest collection of fine rustic & contemporary home furnishings. Park City • 645-7072 1890 Bonanza Drive Salt Lake • 467-2701 2970 Highland Drive www.sanfranciscodesign.biz ARTASK FOR. MORE:. For more information about tho importance of arta education, pleaso contact www. AmerlcaneForTlieArte.org. WOSHASCRlAirtl 14 MILLION OKMWfiVramOWlOt 10 HEIP, UAli R66-AjaS-IUN0 OR GO 10 APAlHYISLEIHAL OfiC AIDS IS PREVENTABLE. APATHY IS I E T H A L AMERJCANS NATIONS IJH1 ack in May I took a leap of faith and purchased in at that moment. Gripping the door handles, we an annual pass to the National Park System. I inched our way in a night so fierce that had we been at hadn't been in a national park in more than six years but home we'd have found the power had been out for I thought by buying a pass, which doesn't pay for itself hours. When we arrived back in the kitchen we recountuntil your third visit, it would force me to play in the ed our adventures, giggling, for hours more. The next morning we slept in easily, lulled by the parks more. After last weekend, my Scottish mother will be pleased to know I have already paid for that water lapping on the rocks at the shore of the lake and the romance of the train whistle in the distance. We pass. Twice. grabbed the next day by heading into a private area my A new-ish friend had invited me to spend Labor Day friend knew 6f where bears who couldn't be fully introweekend at her other home in Whitefish, Mont. Since I have this romantic notion that I could live and write out duced into the wild lived, gently, but invisibly, fenced in. my old age in the last best place, I jumped at the chance. With windows rolled up we watched three grizzlies rub I would drive, either powering up in a one-day, 11-hour, up against trees and splash in a pond. Around the corstraight-through freeway trip or, as it turned out, spend ner and over a hill we watched five black bears do the two days coming and going, meandering on back roads, same. Up that close the creatures are so comically stopping to take pictures of deserted barns and water- shapeless and lovable looking it is tempting to forget they are fearsome as well. We kept the windows up. falls and tiny boats on clear mountain lakes. We visited a dude ranch on the shores of Flathead The more direct route would have me driving up Lake that is the stuff of through Idaho and storied vacations. Where then over into fancy sailboats were tied Montana, somewhere / left the park when night fell and up next to old abandoned around Butte. The less direct route, adding arrived an hour later at a funky, but decided-wooden Indian buildings. Which is pretty much hours on the trip, took ly hip place in what appeared to be true of much of all me through Utah and Wyoming and Idaho, Godforgot Montana. But the Chico Hot Montana where Crow, Blackfoot, Flathead, Nez back and forth until I Springs are actually located in the tiny townPerce, and Blood tribes ended up in still live. It is a spiritual Yellowstone National of Pray" l an d where canyons feel Park. By then, it was ^ ^ ^ m ^ ^ ^^m^mi^m^^m^m^^m^m like cathedrals and neverlate afternoon and I hoped that all the animals hadni tired of showing off ending waterfalls mesmerize and you feel a drum during the day. Those familiar with wildlife know how beat/heart beat pulse from the earth. Montana is magithis story goes - at twilight the animals come down to cal. It is as simple as that. feed. Every corner I turned it was as if someone in the The last morning moved too quickly and all too soon universe just said, "Okay, Charlie queue up the buffalo, we were like kids at camp promising to stay in touch. I queue up the elk, don't forget the moose, drop in the drove off slowly, letting the dappled light take me past eagles. Add some golden light, take away other cars and old growth forests and clear rivers until I found myself people." It was the dreamiest drive. at a crossroads, which meant a shorter route home or, I left the park when night fell and arrived an hour once again, through the park. I chose the long way later at a funky, but decidedly hip place in what home. And while I thought I would stay at the Blue appeared to be Godforgot, Montana. Bui the Chico Moon Saloon cabins, the place where so many Parkites Hot Springs are actually located in the tiny town of have lived so many tales, I arrived as the sun was setting Pray. Long a hangout for celebrities because of the heal- to find the entire town of 500 boarded up, closed and no ing water and fabulous food, I sampled both after a six- one home. In the twilight, that soon became darker year absence. The dining room rivals the finest menu than the inside of a cow, I inched my way along the and presentation of any restaurant in any state. The Madison River to the only town in the middle of waitress noticed the book I was reading and mentioned nowhere, West tacky Yellowstone. Never mind, I would the author came here often to write. I started imagining sleep, and rested I would be in the park early the next a whole new life for myself. After quite a spell in the day. hot healing waters, I drifted off to a seamless sleep. This time I was content to watch the ghostly shapes The next day I drove on backroads until I arrived in rise from the earth as geysers hissed. I felt infused with Whitefish where the third member of our group had promise by the cool fall air. The new growth from the flown in from Los Angeles that afternoon. We started decade old fire was stunning. The car surrounded by talking and eating and laughing right away. We added a buffalo was a bonus. Ditto the six-point elk. And the little crying by the end of the three days and shared as meadow of baby moose, over the top! if we had known one another for decades. The fact we On my final leg home, when I had tired of my music cheated death together, probably added to the bonding. and there wasni a public radio station to be found in The first day we loaded up the pick up truck and hit three states, I found my voice. Sang songs my grandGlacier Park. Stopping at grand old lodges and water- mother had taught me, then songs from the '60s and falls and wind-whipped lakes. We kept driving - into every decade since. By the time I turned onto my road Canada eventually and the Waterton Lakes, where we I was silent again and not surprised by the white tailed had high tea at the grand Prince of Wales Lodge. Night bunny that hopped in front of my car, though in 25 years was falling as we re-entered the park in Montana and I have, never seen another near my home. It seemed we saw a blaclc bear by the side of the road catching his only right I-should be bringing a bit of, the wild home dinner. It was dark when we came back across the park . with me. It was in the spirit of honoring my Sunday on one of the most dangerous roads in the United spent in another Park... States -- Going to the Sun Road - a road that is closed Teri Orr is a former editor of'The Park Record and during the winter. Which is exactly the season we were director of the Park City Performing Arts Center. CORE SAMPLES We built our bank on appreciating the customer. Here's our latest gesture of appreciation. Bring in this ad when you open any CD account before 10.29.04 and increase the yield by an additional .25% above our already high rates. PERSONAL. MONEY MARKET ACCOUNT 1.85% APY* 6O MONTH CERTIFICATE or DEPOSIT 4-25% HomeSavini 4580 North Silver Springs Drive • Park City, Utah 84098 • 435-649-6032 Member FDK • Annual Percantaga Yield band on doUy compounding ot intern i t on deposits of 190,000 or «ort. Account Includes three free checks per • o n t h . *S,000 ainiauB depo»it to open a aoney aarkat account. Rates subject to change wt thout notice. •*Annual Percentage Yield based on daily compounding of intarast on deposits oi *10,000 or to change without notice. subject By Jay Meehan Autumn daze I And although this is a time of balance, with day and go at the Autumnal Equinox from all sides. I rub it the right way and it returns the favor. It massages night becoming equal once again, for those who have my left-brain/right-brain sensibilities in a most sensuous trouble remaining in the moment there is also a hint of fashion and seldom, if ever, leaves me wanting. It's all trepidation in the air. From now until December's about seeking balance and smoothing out the ruts in the Winter Solstice, night with its visually inherent darkness, will increasingly hold sway. road - and I get rather rut-rich this time of year. The upside of this is that, for some reason, it's easier On the astronomical plane, I see it as a point where the sun appears to be moving across the equator from to get inside oneself this time of year. With light ebbing the northern celestial hemisphere to the southern celes- on the exterior, it is within us that it maintains its luster. tial hemisphere. Textbooks, telescopes and tequila, of The pace lends itself more toward the meditative as we course, have taught us over the years that it is the earth celebrate the harvest of our community and the kinship of others to get through the longer, darker, colder nights and not the sun that is doing most of the moving. Depending upon the time you acquired this won- of winter. There is also the flask, of course. Actually, I get off on the time frame that surrounds drous rag this morning, you may still have time to participate in this momentous occasion. Autumn officially this change in the earth's aspect. On the outside there is gets out of the gate in our northern hemisphere this year usually a storm and a freeze or two on the near horizon at 10:30 a.m. MDT on Wednesday, Sept. 22 Whatever that is often followed by a glorious Indian Summer. At ritual you choose is yours least, that is the to invent. It all works! promise of the equinox. I will spend it close to • • Autumn officially gets out of the The interior landhome this time around. Other years have seen me gate in our northern hemisphere this year scape is also oftentimes blustery and wandering about in a daze at 10:30 a.m. MDT on Wednesday Sept 22.chilled at this point on in a maze searching for that illusive instant of change. Whatever ritual you choose is yours to the cycle but there can be a certain comFrom the Rough Rider invent It all works!" fort in hunkering Saloon on the north rim of the Grand Canyon to the •••MiiinHBBkiMHBMi ^am^mK^m^mKma^^mm^^m down and circling the cooler beside the tent in wagons. Not that this Hovenweep to a trading post near Shiprock, I have fol- works as a healing process but it can help stave off the Huns so one can live to fight another day. lowed my muse. So the search along the multi-dimensional matrix for My peer group has long been aware that the spring equinox is located alongside the Green River just out- the dot that signifies the space-time of the Autumnal side Vernal, Utah, but we have never been able to locate Equinox will go on without me this year. There musi|be the autumnal version geographically. Of course, my others who share in this obsession that are out there cohorts doni see this annual fishing expedition as being plodding and trekking and analyzing the grid, but,it's hard tellin' not knowin'. all that important. In lieu of once again chasing that particular wild At Jeast no one has ever raised his hand to volunteer to accompany me on this heretofore-annual mission. It goose, there will no doubt be other preoccupations and would appear they see the objective as one that would fixations upon which to attach my scrutiny. For exammore befit a quixotic character such as myself - one ple, there is the need to nurse my Dodgers and Trojans who would, in their vision, sally forth to tilt at windmills. through the mental minefields that become manifest each fall as a roadblock along their individual trips to Where's the love? Don Quixote had a Sancho Panza - someone with bountiful. But that doesnt mean I won't miss the southern common sense that he could ignore. Not one of my multiple personalities has common sense. Each year the desert as it waxes autumn. You see, I have long held the Crusade became more solitary. Even after my vehicle belief that no right-minded equinox would locate itself began to resemble Quixote's trusty swayback elsewhere than the red rock country of the greater fourcorners region of the wild, wild West. "Rocinante," I denied the La Mancha connection. Hmmm? Maybe we're getting somewhere, here. Actually, it was never that important to me either. It was just a great excuse to get out of Dodge and cele- Could it be that all these vision quests for the Autumnal brate through song, dance and feasts that which I would Equinox have in fact been nothing more than ploys to head south, to get a fall desert fix? Ah, say it aini so. otherwise have to wait until St. Patrick^ day to do. How could a few days of warm sand between the i J dp||i ry to keep in rrtind that, for millennia, this has been a' rite of Thanksgiving among those who think toes possibly serve to recharge one's inner light? How that, just possibly now, the monotheists have been could lying upon the desert floor while absorbing the screwing up the planet. I donY know where that comes sheer pleasure of the night sky and then arising to greet from, but what do you expect from a bunch of pagans if the dawn help bring one into balance? Eco-blissing does not rituals centered around the reaping and threshing of rule, however. And iffe never too late to store a few spiritual nuts for the winter. shdaths. |
