Colorado part 2

I’m back in the South. Boo. Yesterday, I spent much of the 12-hour drive through Texas thinking about how bleak and hopeless the desolate land made me feel. Today, I followed that up by driving 14 hours on I-20 through such lovely towns as Chunky, Mississippi and Moundville, Alabama. What am I doing here?


In Colorado, you can drive a short distance to one of the “14ers” and spend all day huffing and puffing your way up to the peak of a 14,000-foot mountain. Here in Georgia, I can go hike at the Botanical Gardens, or if I’m lucky, go test myself on the grueling climb up Stone Mountain. Please. Driving 2 hours to get to North Georgia is not out of the question, but it seems to deflate my spirits a bit.


I do this every summer. I go off to Colorado and dream of moving there. I tell myself it’s not practical to move just yet. I have loans. I have a good job. I have friends here. Family is close by. Can a new place really change my fortunes? Or is one’s attitude about a place enough to make meaningful change that translates to other areas of life?...


Well, we climbed Mt. Princeton the other day. At 14,197 ft, it’s not the highest mountain in Colorado, but it only needs a couple hundred more feet. I laugh at myself now for having such a “can do” attitude at the beginning of our hike. We were gradually going up on a nicely groomed trail when – POW! It was as if an avalanche had covered the entire trail, and the grade of the hike kept getting steeper and steeper. Obviously, we didn’t witness an avalanche, but there were a few times when our slipping and sliding on the rocks was going to cause a new one. Literally, we climbed over boulder after boulder. There was very little visible trail toward the top, so we just made up our own path through the rocks. I was the last of the three of us to reach. I was sitting on a rock just under the peak while the others were up top, when I saw a giant storm coming our way. I almost used it as an excuse not to finish, but instead it became the motivation to get the hell up there and then make a run for it going down. Earlier I had seen a small memorial near the top of the mountain about a woman who died getting struck by lightning just a few years ago, so that kind of loomed in my mind when little pieces of hail started to fall on us.

Needless to say, we survived. There was lots of foul language on my part on the way up, a little bit of dancing at the top, and lots of shaking in the knees on the way down, but I’m glad I can now say that I made Mt. Princeton my bitch! – ha!

Colorado part 1

It’s Monday night in Salida, Colorado. I’m sitting in a lawn chair by a stand-alone fireplace made of brick probably some thirty years ago. Troy has started a fire and the temperature is steadily dropping. I can hear the flow of the river just a few yards away and the cool breeze is starting to make the hair on my arms stand up.

We’re staying at a place called the Chateau Chapparal. It appears to be somewhat like a trailer park, but instead of sad desolate trailers, it is filled with all varieties of campers and RVs. Some people clearly have put a lot of money into their lot. Several places look like they started as simple campers and have since been renovated into full-fledged houses outfitted with large wood decks and porch swings. A lot of the residents are elderly and come during the summer, but I’ve also heard stories of people who live here all the time and just drive into Salida or Buena Vista for work everyday. One guy next door is the janitor at the local high school.

The lot that the Crain’s own is around thirty years old. Their little trailer is called the Lil’ Burrito and is perhaps one of the smallest campers on site. Troy’s grandpa bought it a while back and in the past few years, his dad has come to own the lot. His brother and sister have also bought their own lots here and are a bit nicer, but I’m loving the quaintness of theirs; having breakfast on the picnic table and sitting by a fire. It just feels more like camping when you actually spend your time outside. We are staying in Troy’s aunt’s camper. We’re on the floor while Matt and Roxie get the bedroom. There’s a bath house just a driveway away to take showers and do other bathroom things. I feel like I’m at summer camp and I love it. I only wish my family would have done things like this when I was younger. I guess there’s still time.

Oh yeah…how’d we get here? Troy had to work his usual 12-hour shift on Saturday, but threw caution to the wind and decided that we could drive all through the night to get here. I’m not really sure how we did it, but both of us stayed up all night and made it here in 12 hours. Our drive was not without incidents. We stopped in the middle of the road several times to look at stars, sit and gawk at the openness of the land, and of course stare at a random buffalo who was standing right at the edge of a fence. Oh and I can’t forget being stared down by a bull who had gotten loose in the street somehow.

When we got here, Troy’s family had pancakes waiting for us. We scarfed them down and immediately made plans for the day. We had no dinner and no sleep for the past 24 hours and decided…let’s go on a hike. We wandered just across the river on the trails back through the San Isabel National Forest searching for an Indian Campground. Troy’s parents had been hyping it up since we saw them in Texas. I’m still not sure what actual landmarks we were looking for to find said Indian Campground, but after 5 hours and a lot of off trail hiking, we decided to quit the search. It was sad not to find our destination, but the hiking was eventful enough. Most of the time we were climbing rocks and wandering aimlessly. Eventually we followed a creek bed into what looked like a bear’s den in hopes of meeting up with the river. On the way, we also saw mutilated animals, lots of bear poop, and then crept up on some rafters as they were relieving themselves, thinking they were off the trails (they were). The hiking was quite possibly some of the most strenuous I’ve done, but of course, that’s bound to happen when you’re not actually on a trail.


Well, there’s more to write, but the wind has gotten downright cold and a night walk to the river is in order.

The days ahead...

We still get to go... I’ll get to that soon

Texas has been great the last couple of days. Unbeknownst to me, Troy’s whole family was coming out here before their jaunt to Colorado. During a 14-hour drive, it was a pleasant surprise to suddenly arrange a stop at the Cracker Barrel in Monroe, Louisiana to eat dinner with my “second fam”. Seeing them and knowing we were all going to the same place gave me a nice little burst of energy to make it the rest of the way without dozing (as I so often do). We arrived pretty late a few days ago, and in the short time we were all together, we shared some great meals, beverages, and conversation.

There are very few places or people I’ve been around where I feel completely comfortable about all my insecurities or faults, and being with my “second family” is one of those times. I can’t seem to even analyze why I feel that way around them. I suppose it is just one of those things…or better yet, perhaps it’s just the rare feeling of being wholly and completely accepted for who you are. I hope I make people feel that way.

The last couple days have been incredibly relaxing. Troy and I played a little disc golf one morning, but most of the time, I’ve just been chilling out on their incredibly comfy couch watching their incredibly large TV. Of course, we’ve been doing our usual “beer tour”, where we go out and customize 6-packs of craft beer, and like I said before, meals have been wonderful.

Today had a little twist. I was hanging at the house on my own today while they were at work when another friend of mine called to go to lunch. I’ll call him Yeti. Yeti used to live in Athens briefly and we only knew each other for a short time. Our first impressions of one another were quite similar; I thought he was kind of a weirdo. He thought I was a jerk. We eventually got over all that stuff back in Georgia and hung out for part of yesterday.

It was an interesting list of activities…
1. Go off-roading in a jeep in a place where all the mud puddles smelled like sewage.
2. Drive downtown to go to the great vegan restaurant for lunch
3. Go to the gun shop

Here are my takes on them…
1. Most of my ‘country’ students are big into this activity, whether it be with a 4-wheeler or some ratty old truck. I usually make fun of them for it, but I guess I can see the allure of it all. It was rather interesting to see how well the jeep could maneuver itself over rocky terrain and sewage puddles. We didn’t go crazy and get all muddy, but I’m quite okay with that.

2. Yeti did not seem too excited about this one. I love the vegan restaurant here in Fort Worth. I would venture to say it is one of my favorite places to eat in the whole country. The menu has so many choices and everything I’ve had so far is delicious. I love being able to pig out at a place, feel stuffed, and lie to myself that it was all perfectly healthy. Unfortunately, Yeti thought the texture of the tofu was weird. I think the texture of chicken is weird. Touché.

3. Guns…I despise guns. I’ve heard all the arguments, but I don’t care. Yes, I’ve shot them before, but I just don’t get the attraction. I feel no “rush” when I shoot a gun. Instead, I feel like I’m about to kill something. I don’t want to kill anything, so I don’t shoot guns. Anyway, Yeti needed a part to his new rifle, so he took me to the gun shop. I had never been to a gun store, but rather than explaining my experience in words, I leave you these pictures…


I love the smell of raw sewage in the morning!


"Popping my gun store cherry" - Yeti






Guns don't kill people...Elephants kill people


Oh and by the way, we are going to Colorado after all in a few hours. We’ll drive back Wednesday. Three full days may not be the weeklong adventure I pictured, but if it’s Colorado, I’ll take it.

Another beginning...

Here I am on the eve of another traveling adventure. We just finished celebrating one of my friend's last nights in Athens. We had a good ole time at my favorite places, the Royal Peasant and Trappeze Pub. It's a real shame how we just found out about each other living in the same place just a month or so ago. More good times could have been had, but for now we settle for a few beers here and a few beers for the road as he goes back to Indiana to finish the old degree.

As for me, I am looking at a 14 hour drive in the morning. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I can't hide my disappointment that this trip, which originally included Colorado as the focal destination, is turning more into a week long venture in Texas. I spent a good portion of today on the floor wallowing and wishing that the trip could magically turn back into my dream trip, where we would be shouting the lyrics of whatever song was playing as we reached the snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunately, this is not going to happen and I've had to put some things into perspective...

This trip has never been about where I am going, but who I am going to see. If I should have learned anything in my life up to this point, it is the fact that people are a hell of a lot more important than places. My best friend lives in Texas. I happen to hate the state of Texas. Hate it. It is hot and full of cowboys, but there is one redeeming quality about it that I can't forget: I have friends there. I could whine all day about not going to Colorado anymore, or I could be genuinely concerned about why we can't go to Colorado. Obviously, there's a reason. Sometimes I wonder if my isolation and self-sufficiency here in Athens has blinded me to the troubles of my friends in other places. With all of my friends scattered all over the country, it's easy to forget that there's a whole lot of stuff going on in their lives too, not just mine.

I'm going to try to change a little bit this week when I'm out there. Who cares if it's crazy sweaty hot in Texas? Let's have a hell of a time honky tonkin' and cowboyin' up. I just want to get off of myself for a little while and care about people other than myself.

the day the music died...there was no american pie

Once upon a time, there was a boy. He was of no particular upbringing that made him anything special. Though privileged in comparison to so many in the world, he had no set direction in life, no lofty unattainable standards to meet. As the last of three children, he always aspired to be different. One day, he came to meet a young man who was just a year older than him. There was nothing peculiar about the meeting, but something about the encounter would change his life forever.

The older boy gave the young boy a ride home one night, and playing in his car was a kind of music, of which the other boy was unfamiliar. The music filled the night air of loud brass and heart-wrenching strings. It was nothing like the music boys their age typically listened to, and provoked a pain and agony that caught the boy’s attention like nothing had done before. It was the music of Mahler, of Shostakovich, of Stravinsky; romantic composers not yet heard of by the ears of a young, curious 15-year-old child. Though unknown to the effects of the music at the time, the young man would come to find that this one moment in his life would define him in a way that was unimaginable.

The young boy was an active member of the high school band and had both a brother and a sister go through long seasons of marching band and other related activities before him. For his age, he was already a pretty good trombonist. He practiced daily, took lessons here and there, and showed a commitment to excellence in his craft even before the life-altering moment. The music he heard that night was but a doorway to a world that would consume him. He began to purchase the works of these romantic composers and stayed up long nights listening to their masterpieces. While everyone else was blasting Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys from their fancy car speakers in the high school parking lot, the young boy was shunning teenage conformity by blasting Mahler’s 6th Symphony and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite from the feeble stock speakers of his hand-me-down Ford Taurus. The music inspired him. It moved him like nothing had done before. He had been to Christian youth rallies, to Dave Matthews concerts; He even thought he had been in love, but none of it compared to the music that screamed through his car and his veins. No baptism could compare with the soul-piercing feeling the music invoked in him.

At times, he tried to push it aside. He pursued love, like all teenagers, but when all else failed, he could fall back on the music. He tried to be like everyone else when moments called for it, but when it was needed, the music was there. Finally, he gave in to its call. He forsook his future plans of pursuing a business degree at his hometown college and tested the waters of a new path. He began to dream of playing in a real Symphony Orchestra. He had tasted it only briefly as a member of the area’s Youth Symphony and loved every moment. He imagined a life where the “everyday grind” was simply to perfect all-important excerpts of his favorite symphonies. It was late in the game to change his college plans, but he was able to audition for a more renowned institution that was out-of-state and in his mind, a better, more prestigious place to pursue his dreams. Perhaps his pride led him away from his home, or maybe it was just in the cards for him. Nevertheless, it caused his parents much sorrow and cost them even more while ostracizing a number of his friends. Though he appeared recognized the price, none of it mattered or could possibly stand in the way of his dream…

Fast-forward nine years… The young man is now without a dream. He is but a passionless drone trying to find meaning in the muck of it all. It’s uncertain what all happened to him in that span of time, but what you’ll find is a shell of what he once was. Was it burn out? Was it heartbreak? Was it homesickness? Perhaps all three? It only took a year for the boy to retreat, to give up on the one thing that was in tune with his soul. Long ago, he packed up his collection of classical recordings, his trombones, and his sheet music. Fortunately his love of music didn't completely subside. He pursued meaning in other genres of music, but none could capture his soul like the one discovered in what seemed so long ago to him now. He is but a critic, a connoisseur, an appreciator, not the performer and creator that he once was. So many things have happened in his life since those early days, instances of beauty and moments of sadness that may have forever swallowed that side of him. Will he ever rediscover the passion he once had?

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Talk about over dramatizing things, right? Honestly though, I’m not so sure. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the paths I’ve taken in my life. I have often made impulsive decisions that I look back on in scorn and embarrassment. Were they the right decisions? Were they somehow “meant to be”? If so, then were the things I chickened out on somehow predestined as well? Phooey. I often think I’ve made a right mess of my life, but then again who hasn’t?

Someone recently asked me if I was happy. Most of the time people answer this question as they do any other obsequious banter, but I take all questions like this quite seriously. I suppose I just got so tired of enduring my mother’s meaningless chitchat growing up that I have to rebel in the other direction. Nevertheless, the question is quite a loaded one and I answered as best I could at the time. I’ve been stewing over it ever since. “Am I happy?” I’m not unhappy, but I’m certainly not as happy as I could be, or have been in the past. That’s where that whole above post came from. After reconnecting with a couple old friends from the high school days, I started to reminisce on times when I truly could say I was happy. I don’t know if my memories of being involved in music have since been glorified or possibly misremembered, but I want to say that I was different back then; Still a cynical asshole and all, but I had a passion and drive to be better at something.

Since school let out for the summer, I have been extremely restless and antsy to get back on the road and travel. Most of my days are spent reading and watching movies with little human interaction. This undoubtedly produces all sorts of crazy psychobabble, overly analytical thoughts, and pounding headaches. I’m not really even sure why I’m posting this for all eyes to see, considering I have no idea who all may be stalking me out there, and due to its rather personal nature, but I am certain Chase would want to read these thoughts. So here you go man…