The Road to Escalante
The saying
goes,” it’s the road, not the destination,” but sometimes I think it
is the destination as well.
Sept. 16th Indiana
Departed
Asheville in the pouring rain. Dregs of hurricane Ivan were raising the
French Broad River past flood levels again.
Outdistancing the arms of the storm I made it just south of
Indianapolis. I could have driven further, but needed to pace myself. The
overwhelming feeling was simply a desire to drive - to drive and not stop
until exhausted. But I’ve got gigs coming and some practicing to keep up
with so tonight I’m van camping at a Pilot Travel Center in Whitelands,
Indiana.
Sept.
19th Iowa
After two quiet gigs Friday in Chicago and Saturday in Maquoketa, Iowa I found refuge in a state park near Mount Vernon, Iowa. Along the high limestone banks of the Cedar River I walked, slept, sang, pottered about the van, and generally established a peaceful state of mind. The village of Mount Vernon, home of tiny Cornel College, is the coolest little town. Its quaint little streets are settled with small bungalows and Victorian houses. The whole area is very idyllic and peaceful.
Sept.
26th Dodge City, Kansas
After a weekend of concerts in Murphysboro, IL, Hannibal, MO, and Topeka, KS, I am in fabled Dodge where the motels are cheap. I kept to blue roads early in the day and enjoyed winding around the hilly country and the small farms. Spent the afternoon driving through central Kansas cattle feed lot country where it don’t smell so good. Dodge doesn’t really look coyboyish. With the brick streets and old four-story downtown buildings it looks positively Midwest – in a plains kind of way.
Sept.
28th Dolores, Colorado
Set out from Dolores, Colorado at about 11pm after the gig hoping to cover some distance to my next gig in Boulder, Utah. Behind me the full moon pushed its light through thick dark bands of storm clouds, making milky white islands that sailed under a starry sky. In front of me loomed a blackness so dense I considered the possibility of not being able to reemerge once I entered it. Shafts of lightning cut through the distance and rain alternately beat on my windshield then stopped as my wiper blades gripped dry windowpane. As I approached the Utah border, time stood still, and the only movement was my wheels and wiper blades. Over the border in Monticello I found a gathering of semis to park next to, and slept away the night.
Sept. 29th Escalante, Utah
To give some context: in March of 2002 I performed a house concert in Orem, Utah, and there I was given a book entitled - Everett Ruess – A Vagabond For Beauty, by WL Rusho. So enamored with the book and the life of Everett, I wrote a song about him and put an MP3 of it on my website. This spring of 2004 I received an email from Steve Roberts who owns an outfitter supply and café in Escalante, Utah where Everett was last seen in November of 1934. Steve told me he very much liked the song and asked me if I would sing it at an arts festival he was organizing, called “Everett Ruess Days.”
So here I am, in the same red rock desert canyon lands where Everett Ruess walked with his paints and burros, in the company of those who are inspired by his story, his writing, and his art. Not only that, but today I am to sing “Everett” for his surviving family – Waldo Ruess, Everett’s 95-year old elder brother, Waldo’s wife and grown children. This first program of the festival felt more like a family gathering than a festival, with about 70 people attending. Emotion and spirits were high as Gibbs Smith, publisher of Rusho’s book A Vagabond For Beauty, related the story of how he came upon Everett’s writing and gained Waldo’s trust to create the book from Everett’s letters. Brian Ruess, Everett’s nephew, read excerpts from Everett’s writings while I alternately sang my own songs. It was one of those “once in a lifetime” occasions.
In the elementary school gymnasium, I viewed for the first time all 25 of the block prints that Everett created between 1930 and 1934. It is said that his later desert prints are more rare and valuable, but I am absolutely swayed by his earlier California prints. I wish there was some way I could direct you, the reader, to a place to view them. His Fishing Shack on Tomales Bay, the Cliffs Of Marin, the Lone Juniper in the Sierra - so beautifully composed, and who’d have thought that a knife cutting into linoleum glued to a block of wood to transfer black ink onto paper could convey such visceral emotion, but they do.
October
2nd
With my participation in the festival completed I had time to get in a good hike. I drove toward Hells Backbone to investigate Calf’s Creek Trail, but along the way the Escalante River Trail beckoned me instead. Solid red sandstone cliffs towered above me on either side. I walked through shoulder high groves of sagebrush, red and yellow desert flowers, prickly cactus and golden-leafed aspen. But for the faint sound of the gurgling stream, absolute silence surrounded me. After an hour I about-faced and returned by the same path…but not the same path. Everything took on a new perspective. The angle of light was different, and my breathing was deeper. At one point I had lost the trail and, looking up, I beheld a magnificent stone arch near two hundred feet high. As I scanned the red rock wall, my breath caught as I laid eyes on an Anasazi dwelling or storage hut on a rock ledge halfway up the cliff. It’s one thing when a guide points out landmarks such as this; but it’s entirely more impressive when you discover them unassisted.
That night I pack my things with the understanding that I have to return and explore this area more fully. I’ve only scratched the surface here. The country of what is now the Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument is a whole new level of absolute, isolate, and seductively vast than I’ve experienced before. This landscape shatters perceptions of time and separation from what is essential. This is good medicine. This land is holy. All land is holy, of course, but in this desert there is nothing to distract and suggest otherwise. Some of you reading are nodding your heads and know this already. Everett knew this, too. The beauty for each of us, of course, is in the discovery.
So thank you once again for reading. As always I appreciate your comments in my guestbook – keep in touch!
Dana