Day 23

I have spent most of the day listening to the audiobook of "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson, which is about a hiking trip up the 2,000-mile long Appalachian Trail, and now I find in myself the nearly overwhelming urge to be outside, hiking or camping or biking. It is a good thing that I am going to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon when I get out, but that's not necessarily enough. I want to camp on the beach. I want to hike the Appalachian Trail. I want to bike the Great Divide Trail, Mexico to Canada.

I actually am thinking about biking the Great Divide Trail, all 3,000 miles of it, next summer. I think I might rather hike the Appalachian Trail, but you can't do that in a summer, while you can bike the 1000-mile-longer trail in about 2 months. Next summer is a long way off, and a lot can change, but the idea sounds pretty good to me. Of course, that would mean spending the next year getting in shape and taking shorter prep rides, but that alone sounds pretty good to me after 42 days of sitting around. In that endeavor, I spent some time looking at mountain biking trails in Big Bend National Park. In THAT endeavor, I realized that I might need to consider using some of my money buying a truck or some transportation that could carry a bike and equipment. So I spent some time browsing the car listings on Craigslist. All the time listening to Bill Bryson describe the hells and heavens of walking from Georgia to Maine.

It's funny how these things happen. And it's a little discouraging: I like nature, camping and stuff, and recognize that if I don't need to be driving, it's better for that nature if I don't drive, so I decide to do my best to go without a car. Bike and such. But without a car, I can't actually get to that beloved nature, and it is too easily forgotten! So, in order to appreciate the trees and deserts, I have to get a car, a truck even, and drive hours, all the while giving Al Gore and Ralph Nadar something to cry over.

The only way to do what is claimed to be "right for the environment", it seems, is to value the existence of the current natural environment for its own sake, to exist on its own, apart from nature. Unfortunately, I cannot claim that sainthood. I like nature because I like the way it makes me feel, the connection with something huge, and the connection with humanity - how humanity has interacted with nature for millennia. I can't come up with a really great answer to the question of "What makes a tropical Antarctica worse than a frozen Antarctica?" Well, there are social answers that convince me (the mass displacement and death of millions in poor coastal regions like Bangladesh) and theological questions of stewardship (it matters because it is our fault), but I can't think of anything absolutely 'better' about a pre-global warming nature over a post-global warming nature. Except.

Except for the fact that I happen to have an affinity for the great American nature, a wilderness that really does still exist on this continent unlike any place in the temperate world. Europe was completely tamed when they discovered America and it blew their minds, and - even after 500 years of unending cultivation, there's still some truly amazing wild here. The sky in West Texas is bigger than anywhere, because people's lights haven't tainted it yet. The vast forests, or what remains of them, and the huge plains. I really like that stuff!

I think everyone has something in them that really likes that stuff. A lot of people I know aren't into camping and claim to have no love for the wilderness. I don't exactly understand that mindset except to assume that these people haven't ever really had the pleasure of really getting to see something so powerful as nature can be. Or else they have grown too used to the comforts of a tamed and civil world. Or maybe they gave up the pleasures of getting to be part of nature in order that nature can exist all on its own, special but forgotten.

I honestly don't care if all the trees burn and little smelly rodents start breathing in carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen except that I like trees. I like how big they are and the metaphor that they mean to me, and I like the shade they provide. And I like all this probably just because I grew up with trees. So what's the point in saving trees if that means riding my bike across cement streets, head to the ground, shaded only by cement overpasses?

So, here I am, thinking about buying a truck so I can drive somewhere and see nature...