I'm sitting in the Landmark Motel in Moab, Utah---which is precisely where I was sitting at this time one week ago. The amount that has transpired in the intervening time has been, in a word, absurd. My past week, in brief:

Wednesday- Finished packing, drove 4 hrs to Moab. Actually patronized place called "Eddie McStiffs"

Thursday-- Up at 6 a.m, entire day spent hiking in Arches. Copious natural beauty seen. Legs destroyed. Nice people met. Walking stereotypes encountered. Campsite in Arches full, nearby campsites either full or awful. Ended up staying in The Gonzo Inn---rather appropriate. (More details on Arches to follow in my next post)

Friday--Booked whitewater rafting trip. Got phone call that my MRI results from a few days prior were back and I had minor tears in BOTH rotator cuffs. Canceled whitewater rafting. Got in car and drove 4 hours back to Colorado, sketchily picked up MRIs from underneath picnic bench circa 9 PM.

Saturday-- 7:45 A.M. flight back to Cleveland to see orthopedic surgeon. Running late for plane. After 8 hours plus of driving over the past few days, it is the twenty minutes to the airport where I'm pulled over by someone straight out of Super Troopers, complete with hat and mustache. All but acknowledges he is trying to get an early start on his quota, does acknowledge that I wouldn't have been pulled over if I didn't have out of state plates. Miss flight. No more flights to Cleveland, so I get on a connection to Chicago via Denver. Travel agent tells me that he told his building contractor that he wished the contractor's wife had ALS. Get into Chicago, meet up with best bud from college and hang out for a few hours. Thoroughly confused.

Sunday-- O'Hare Hilton claims they never got my wake up call---I wake up at 6:59 for a 7 a.m. flight. Manage to sprint from hotel to terminal and make a 7:50 connection. Stop home, shower, proceed directly to Cavs openning playoff game with Dad and one A.R. Madorsky, esq. Cavs win, shwarma consumed, sleep had.

Monday-- Go see orthopedic surgeon who pokes me, then has resident A poke me, then has resident B poke me. Altogether too much poking. Says that surgery in my case might make matters worse, best option is to do PT for 3 months and let the body heal itself. Also says to avoid activities that obviously strain rotator cuffs. One good example: white water rafting.

Tuesday-- AM flight back to Denver, hoping to be in Beaver Creek around 1, allowing me to get to Moab that evening. Encounter massive blizzard, several Semis stuck on Vail Pass, two hour drive takes 5. Finally get into Beaver Creek around 6.

Wednesday-- pack (again), drive 4 hours to Moab, handles some logistics, marvel at that fact that I've engaged in either air travel or vehicular travel exceeding four hours six of the past eight days.

It's been a doozy. I guess this falls under "character building experience" The good news is, with the exception of a few activities, the doc didn't seem to feel I should avoid doing much on my road trip. It is also a relief to realize that my arm pain/weakness the past 2 years or so was due to a legitimate medical issue, rather than my hallucinating. So, we'll take a mulligan on the past week and try this whole thing again. (2 to 1 odds my next blog post is about getting a snake bite in Canyonlands tomorrow.) Apologies for the rather linear posting---I promise my next post will be rambling as usual. Now, a few pictures of Arches:

View down into the "Fiery Furnace"--I'm going on a Ranger-led hike there tomorrow

Aptly named "Balanced Rock"

Ute Indian petroglyphs

"Delicate Arch"--the most popular and famous Arch in the park. Well worth the hit my ego took on being based by a 70-year old woman on the hike up.

From a post about the past, we turn to a post concerned with the future. (As you can see, I'm not particularly good with the present!) I've always wanted to drive cross-country, and am in the unique position of having the time, and a nominal reason (getting my car to Cleveland) to do it. So, beginning on Tuesday, I'll spend somewhere in the neighborhood of two months going from Denver to Los Angeles to Newcastle, ME. The first bit is going to be primarily camping out/hiking through Utah's National Parks, where as the last bit will be essentially a whirlwind tour through places I have friends. (I know, you thought you were my only one...) One of the advantages of this road trip is the flexibility---if I love a place, I'll stay a few extra days. My primary goal for this trip is to not get ahead of myself. Now, a VERY rough itinerary, and highly subject to change. Basically, a best guess.

Depart Edwards, CO through Grand Junction, CO to Moab, UT
The five National Parks of Utah, roughly 3 weeks, me thinks. (Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce, Zion, plus Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument)
Hoover Dam/Las Vegas
Death Valley
Los Angeles---for a bit, I'll definitely need some civilization at this point, plus I have family/friends there. This is also likely where my sis will meet up with me for a bit.
Joshua Tree
Grand Canyon
Mesa Verde/Black Canyon of the Gunnison
Denver
Flat, boring, nothingness
Custer State Park/Rushmore/Badlands, maybe a jaunt to Pine Ridge if I feel like getting depressed.
Chicago!
Cleveland
DC
NYC
Boston
Acadia if I'm not passed out yet
Newcastle, ME. Nibbling on sponge cake, watching the sun bake

So, there it is....I'm pretty excited, provided I don't get bitten by a rattlesnake in the first 24 hours. Incidentally, I'm hoping to write a decent amount of postcards---I got one from my Aunt Shell the other day and realized how nice it is to get something hand written. (Plus, what the hell else am I going to do??) So, if you want one, e-mail me your address.

Once I get to Maine I'll take a few weeks to relax, then I'm heading South. As in, I'm moving to Argentina, most likely Buenos Aires. This hasn't been fully fleshed out yet, but the basic plan is to stay down there until I can speak Spanish. Living in a foreign country is something I've really wanted to experience, and I am in the unique position of having essentially no commitments, making it an ideal time in my life to up and move to a foreign country. I really think having a fluency in Spanish in today's America is an invaluable skill--it also allows me to get back to an intellectual challenge. I think I'll take intensive language courses for the first few months until my Spanish is passable, then move somewhere and devote a few months to doing humanitarian work. (Something else I've been committed to doing at this highly flexible stage of my life)

Needless to say, most National Parks don't have WiFi, so my blog posting may fall off precipitously. When I do get a chance to post, I'll make sure to include a link to pictures as well.

A couple of travel-related quotes before I go, ranging from quasi-pretentious to geeky:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
- Marcel Proust

"A good traveler has no fixed plan and is not intent on arriving."
- Lao Tzu

"The world is a book, ,and those who do not travel read only a page"
- Saint Augustine

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. "
T. S. Eliot (Oh Shaker Theatre, you follow me everywhere. And, resolve.)

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost"
- J. R. R. Tolkien "Lord of the Rings"

As my time here in Edwards comes to an end, I think it only appropriate to devote a few words to reflection. Certainly, my time here did not work out as I anticipated---for four primary reasons.

Reason 1: The job thing--already much belabored in this blog.

Reason 2: My penchant for tilting at windmills---it was probably a touch unrealistic to expect I would become an expert bartender, ski like Bode Miller, play guitar like Jimmy Page, speak Spanish like Borges, and get in shape like LeBron.

Reason 3: My personality. There are very few people who could manage to make skiing and bar tending in Beaver Creek stressful, yet I managed. I think I just need a base level of stress in my life, and this stress is so internal that it doesn't change much if I'm lying on a beach or running the CIA. (my night job) In short, I don't relax well.

Reason 4: Going cold turkey from an academic environment to its very antithesis. I try very hard not to be an intellectual snob, but most of the people I worked with probably thought Barack Obama was a tasty Indian curry. I don't need pretentious assholes, but people with whom it is possible to have a conversation beyond how many inches of powder there are would have been nice. This, in turn, contributed to a much greater isolation than I had anticipated.

These factors notwithstanding, my time out here was quite valuable, and a unique experience that I don't regret. When I graduated, I felt strongly that a break from academia was needed, and this seemed an ideal way to do it. I cemented a love of skiing, and improved drastically in that area. (Of course, not as much as I wanted to, but that is to be expected) I also ended up feeling very positively about my aptitude as a bar tender, and there certainly were aspects of it that I enjoyed. Moreover, I think the mere experience of working consistent 12 hours shifts in the service industry was invaluable. I was able to get very close to Jon, Meg and their three children---people who force me to challenge my sometimes dour view of humanity by virtue of their overall terrific-ness. (A technical term) Last, but certainly not least, I fell in love with this part of the country--and realized how beneficial an active lifestyle, couple with unending natural beauty, can be to not only your physical but mental health.

A mixed bag, certainly, and quite the growing experience. What lies in store for me next?? Well, that will be for the next post.

Every once in a while, someone will do or say something that makes it very difficult to be a cynical asshole, and my three year old cousin Ava filled that role admirably the other day. I was taking her for a walk and saw some flowers that had fallen from a tree. I suggested she pick them up and take them home for her mother, at which point she insisted I take some for my "mommy and daddy" too. I then suggested that Ava smell the flowers, and asked if they smelled nice. Her response: "They smell more beautiful than I could have ever imagined in my heart." [pause for aww-ing] When they say things like that, it really isn't fair. Part of the wonder of kids that age is that they feel everything so acutely. Their emotions are essentially lacking any sort of gradation, so every joy, and for that matter every sorrow is felt with equal and extreme force. (The flip side of this equation was manifest by a meltdown over not being able to ride in a specific car seat)

So, I'm planning some portions of my road trip and reading a guidebook on the Utah national parks. Some of the gems I've encountered in my bedtime reading:

"Southern Utah is awash in critters that, if bothered, can inflict a fair bit of pain, including rattlesnakes, scorpions, tarantulas, black widows, wasps, and even centipedes."
"Rattlesnakes, who like to warm themselves on trails..."
"[the ringtail cat] has been known to unzip tents and backpacks..."
"Don't run, as that will trigger a chase. If the lion does attack, fight back"

Fight back? I think once the mountain lion starts attacking I'm going to pretty much give up the ghost...My bold prediction: what is supposed to be three weeks of camping turns into two days after I get so freaked out by every minute noise that I'm only able to sleep with a bottle of Balvenie in me.

Speaking of sleep, I have to get up in 4 1/2 hours to catch my plane, so it's beauty sleep time.

Of course, I also might do enough peyote to truly commune with nature and become this guy

Forgot to post this before, courtesy of IMDB

Rolling Stones star Keith Richards has stunned fans by revealing he once snorted his father's ashes, mixed with cocaine. The 63-year-old guitarist, who has long been associated with all manner of substance abuse, has told Britain's Nme his most bizarre drug-taking session came after his father Bert died in 2002. He says, "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared. It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

There's fucked up, really fucked up, and then there is this.

It really is true, as my dad remarked earlier today, that if you aren't careful, hospitals can kill you. I've been pretty blown away by the overall lack of care my grandmother has received: the other day she was in so much pain her teeth were chattering, yet it took her "team" of nurses an hour of tripping over red tape and each other to get her a heavy duty painkiller. This is made even more remarkable by the fact that Grandma is at the Founder's Suites at the Cleveland Clinic---essentially the VIP rooms. The Clinic is held in universally high esteem, and if this is the level of care the "important" patients receive (a notion I have major problems with in and of itself) it is really a sad statement. Another sad statement: while leaving the Clinic yesterday a nurse in the elevator commented to my mom that she must be excited to be taking me home. I know I'm pale, but I didn't realize I had a deathly pallor!!

On a more lighthearted note, LeBron James is building a 35,000 sq. ft. house that features a bowling alley, two-story closet and a barber shop. Oh, and a limestone bas-relief sculpture of his head. I wonder if he sprung for Cedric the Entertainer.

I was totally taken aback walking through Hopkins on my arrival back in Cleveland. I've been in something of a bubble out in sparsely populated, active Eagle county, and getting back to the midwest made me realize how damn fat this country is. Walking through the concourse watching people waddle up to Sbarro was really fairly appalling. Of course, I'm being a touch hypocritical as I went out for a brief jog today and almost died. I could literally feel the fat dripping off of my tell-tale heart.

We had a small party for my father's 60th birthday last night, which was notable primarily due to the relative civility everyone displayed, and by the absence of a certain salient feature of such events. That feature was my father's mustache, which he shaved shortly before the event. My mother, who has known my father since she was younger than I am, had actually never seen my father sans stache. My dad has had his mustache for 39 years---and seven presidents. The poor man is having a bit of separation anxiety, as well as bewilderment at the strange sensation breathing through his nose now imparts to his upper lip.

My grandmother, who transported chicken liver wrapped in tinfoil to our house in her purse today, is having hip replacement surgery tomorrow, so we are all a bit anxious. Then again, as my mom quite correctly points out, on paper Irene is probably healthier than any of us!