A Walker in the Suburbs

Theodore Roosevelt Park, North Unit

Theodore Roosevelt Park, South Unit (panorama shot)

View from TR’s cabin

Yesterday’s adventure was Theodore Roosevelt Park, visiting the cabin where the 26th president lived and wrote and seeing the places that inspired him to become an ardent conservationist. 

The buttes and buffalo, the badlands and the grasslands. It was a perfect, blue-sky day with fluffs of cottonwood floating through the air. The parks (both sections, north and south) were relatively empty.

I’m writing this from the deck of a working ranch as chickens peck beneath the boards and vast hills of green stretch to the horizon. I’m thinking about how profoundly the environment shaped TR. How profoundly it affects us all.

It was after 7 yesterday and shadows were already softening the North Dakota badlands when I finally entered this state. I’ve wanted to come here for years, had missed it on other cross-country vacations. And no wonder. It’s up here. And out there. It feels both otherworldly and strangely familiar.

The familiar part comes from the 10-gallon hats and the moose heads on the wall. The cowboy culture I’d just seen in Montana. And after driving much of the width of that state yesterday, I would be hard pressed to pick pictures of North Dakota out of a lineup if a bunch of Montana shots were thrown in.

Still, there is a difference here, a roof-of-the-country feeling. And a quaintness, too.

And then there is this: North Dakota is my 49th state. I’ve visited every other but Hawaii. All I can say is, it was worth the wait.

Yesterday I couldn’t stop taking pictures. Today I have at least 25 photos of the same vista. It was the photographic equivalent of drinking it in. I couldn’t sit and absorb the beauty then and there so I snapped shot after shot to do it later.

Today, I’m in the midst of great scenery but with the chance to hike into it. But before taking off I had to download the photographs, look at them and conjure up the sights we saw yesterday. The Grand Tetons, some of the youngest mountains on the continent; jagged, snow-topped peaks. Alpine meadows for contrast, easy on the eye. A cold, clear lake.

What to say? Only that sometimes it’s enough just to know such splendor exists.

Yesterday I was in three time zones, two airplanes, two cars, one bus and the tail end of a tropical storm. I landed in God’s country.

Tall firs reaching to heaven. A mountain pass that made my ears pop. Blue, blue skies. Motorists that allow safe following distances. And, at the end of the road, the town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The air was delicious, the scenery divine.  We thought we’d walk to town to stay awake. How long, I asked the desk clerk. Twenty minutes, she chirped.

You know how this story goes. It was double that. But with the good luck that can sometimes befall the hapless traveler, we found a free shuttle bus that brought us home.

We had ice cream for dinner. We haven’t eaten a real meal in 40 hours. But we are here, on the road to Montana. Next stop, Big Sky!

Starting today I’ll be trading tree canopy for big sky, hot and humid for crisp and cool, Eastern Daylight for Mountain Time.

It’s been a while since I’ve been out west, and sitting in my living room now, with still some packing left to do, it hardly seems possible I’ll be there this time tomorrow.

But I’m already seeing the vast expanses, buttes in the distance, red rocks and sage. I’m already tasting the air out there, and feeling the altitude in my lungs and head.

The walking may be slower but the views go on forever.

The motions of weeding are simple: Reach, grab, pull and throw to the side. The question is whether you perform this operation standing up, kneeling or sitting down. Given the buggy nature of the territory, given the topography of my garden (the weeds are scattered across a wide area rather than concentrated in one patch), I decided the other day to weed while standing.

This entailed not just standing, of course, but bending and straightening. And bending and straightening. And bending and straightening. And … you get the picture: Now I can barely bend or straighten at all!

Which brings to mind not just the weakness of my flesh but also the posture of Africa. My visit last winter was brief but long enough to see that the average Beninese spends much of his or her time bending over to wash clothes, sweep or tend a fire.

The Africans I met have no need of exercise classes or Fitbits. No “Absession” or “Buns, Hips and Thighs” for them. They walk to the pump, tote the water, pound the yams. They bend and crouch and stoop all day long. And when they wake up the next day, they have no trouble getting out of bed — if they have a bed to get out of, that is.

In Benin, West Africa, more than four and a half million people were expected to cast votes in the parliamentary elections held last Sunday.

Land borders were closed during the election, and Suzanne has been on “steadfast,” which is another way of saying “lock down.” She can’t leave her post, which in her case this year is the capital but which for many Peace Corps volunteers is a tiny village.

I read that yesterday an observer from the African Union declared Benin’s elections to be “transparent” though with some “organizational challenges.” I can only imagine. Benin has been independent only since 1960, and there are coups and one-party elections in its not-so-recent past.

A reminder of what fair elections mean to all free people — and a reminder of the marvelous and somehow workable chaos of that beautiful country.

We have family visiting from Portland, and they’ve brought with them the energy of the tourist. Up before dawn to wait in line for the Supreme Court. Out in the evening to sample a hot new restaurant.

Days crammed with sights and monuments — the Magna Carta and the Constitution; the Washington Monument and the Vietnam War Memorial; Ford’s Theater and the Holocaust Museum.

What a gift they are to weary residents!  We who too often see tourists as annoying people who dally at street corners and stand on the left hand side of the escalators. Move it people. We’re important. We must rush to the office where we’ll — hmmm — let’s see …  What will we do at the office that’s more important than ambling the streets of this stately city, letting its wonders unfold before us?

Travelers may think they’re only lugging laptops and suitcases. But they also bring with them the gift of perspective. They help us see our place as a new place.

(The view outside my office, seen from a new perspective.)