Here is a story I wrote a couple years ago about rolling with the punches in honor of the late Hunter S. Thompson. I thought it would be fun to re-share. It's from a visit to Crested Butte, Colorado on my way to Telluride... Enjoy!
The van seems empty at times. Yet it’s filled to the brim. I have
two bikes on the rack, seven and five weight fly rods, five sheets of
high-powered rock music, a drybag half-full of wetsuits and a whole
multicolored collection of camelots, quickdraws, hexes, nuts… Also, a quart of
water, a quart of oil, a case of mac & cheese, a pint of Pendleton and a
dozen state maps. Not that I need all that for the trip, but once you get into
serious uncertaintying, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only
thing that truly worries me are the maps. There is nothing in the world more
helpful and responsible and righteous and certain than someone in the depths of a
poorly folded map and I know I’ll get into those rotten things pretty soon… now
I know how Hunter S. felt about that damn Ether.
Pushing on, I keep my high beams engaged, they are just
enough to overpower the fiery blue tint of a full Colorado moon. The washboard road shakes my van violently as if to wake it from a drug
induced coma. In the far off recesses of the night I can foresee the van’s
demise. First the wheels will fall off in unison, the undercarriage finally
kissing what’s been right in front of it for all these years. Rivets will pop
and screws will squeal as the panels collapse outwardly like a blooming flower.
The steel frame holds up a fiberglass roof and, there’ll be moment of deafening
silence, when through the roof falls the spring-loaded rocketbox. My most
treasured possessions becoming projectiles, landing upon the tall grass,
wildflowers, and the several hubcaps claimed by the bumpy 12,000ft mountain pass
that intersects the Continental Divide. I’ll watch the antifreeze race for the
Pacific; I’ll turn to see a torrent of gasoline run next to a pool of oil,
voided of color and impenetrable by the moonlight. Headed to the east, the
crude-oil concoction will eventually arrive at its family reunion being held in
the Gulf of Mexico, where prehistoric biomasses have been erupting from the Gulf’s
nutrient –rich muddy bottom. I’ll be left holding the steering wheel in
disbelief, a lone coyote in the density of the Sawatch Range, and in the
distance, the bright eyes of the roadrunner.
Meep Meep. The horn from an oncoming car wakens me from my
reverie as I drift into their lane. I swerve and regain reality. I oftentimes
play out situations like these in my head; it’s certainly not to prepare for
uncertainty. Rather to occupy my uncertain mind as I make my way along certain
parts of an uncertain path, which happens to be the only certainty in my life. Beer
is what brings me to Crested Butte, Colorado. It’s the sole bit of certainty,
but what’s better than beer is not knowing what I’ll do when I get there. An
uncertainist; Drunk on roaming, stumbling my way westward.
Arriving late, strung out on Red Bull and Rolo’s, I forced
myself into temporary hibernation. My eyes wanted nothing more than to close
and my brain yearned for reclamation. The caffeine and sugar, however, had a
different plan for my consciousness. They fought a hell of a fight but soon
succumbed to the constant hum of a dimly lit street lamp
hanging like a halo above the van.
In the morning I followed my nose and some vague directions
to Camp 4 Coffee, where I enjoyed a liter of coffee, a pound of
breakfast burrito, and a solid hour of conversation. I didn’t want to leave. It
was like sitting at a brewery at seven in the morning, just more socially
acceptable (encouraged even). I continued to sit and come up with excuses to
stay, to do nothing, to make a plan. I thought to myself, "the death of
uncertainty surely begins with making plans," so I must run, a fugitive fleeing
the custody of certainty.
I got on my bike and rode to a gas station on the edge of
town where I began asking strangers to hang out with me. Soon, I met Scott, a
local musician in the band Buntron Smith, and convinced him to take me on a
bike ride. Afterwards, he told me to visit a town called Paonia where I would
find a small church turned watering hole called Revolution Brewery. I HAD
to try their I.P.A. I fueled up and began
to leave but not before a random guy wrote down directions to an out-of-the-way
waterfall ‘I just HAD to check out’. It was shaping up to be another long
night. That was certain. I called my friends in Telluride, “It doesn’t look
like I’ll make it in time for dinner.” Oh really they exhaled, “When do you
think you’ll be here?”
I paused.
“I’m a bit uncertain.”