Hometown Healing

It has been a less than rest full, but much needed week in Colorado. As soon as I got to Denver I headed back up to the Gunnison valley, my home. The cool thing about home is, every time you come back, you get the little piece of yourself that you left behind last time. Due to the rapid approach of Burning Man, I was only able to spend a night apiece in Gunnison and then Crested Butte, and was only able to see a handful of the family I have there, but it was another amazing weekend. I actually got choked up enough to cry, just for a second, as I was leaving town to meet up my old friend Johnny B, on his way out of the valley for the foreseeable future as well. The bummer thing about home is, every time you depart without knowing when you will return, the piece you leave behind gets a little bit bigger. But the ride back to Denver was good. For anyone currently living in, or planning on visiting Boulder, CO, watch out, you are about to have a Texas-sized tornado-o-fun dropped on your town. In fact, he's already there... The last couple of days I have been running around trying to see everyone in Denver and failing miserably. I've gotten most of the core now, but shit there are a lot of them here. For the first time, I almost miss having a cell phone. Tomorrow I am finally going to get to meet up with my dad, which means one of the best meals I've had in the last couple of months, as well as some also much needed paternal love. Then Friday is Yonder at Red Rocks, which I must say is one of my favorite days of the year, for the last bunch of years now. After Xavier Rudd, I will have seen Yonder Mountain String Band share the Red Rocks stage with: String Cheese, Umphrey's Mcgee, Keller Williams (a couple times), Michael Franti and Spearhead, New Monsoon, Willie Nelson, the Allman Brother's Band, Gov't Mule, Rodrigo y Gabriella, Todd Schneider, and John Fishman (ech). I have a lot of people I consider family in the Kinfolk community now, and it is always great when 8,000 of them get together. And then after that, the path to Burning Man, which I'm still a little fuzzy on details for...That should be quite a wild freak-fest, and I promise to record it all with the integrity of a true Gonzo journalist. That's all for now, May the four winds blow you all safely home...

What Next?

Here comes another big one, sorry it's been so long, but i have been really busy. Well, maybe busy isn't exactly the right word, but very occupied. I realized the other day that there have now been somewhere around a dozen 72 hour or so periods where I haven't even seen a building, which I think is kind of cool. I guess I should start back at String Summit, because I never really gave a good account of what happened from there anyway. So all weekend I spent running around with Alex, Haley, and a good bunch of Colorado family. Horning's Hideout is awesome, and I think the high point of the weekend might have been at the end of "No Expectations" on saturday night when a space station flew overhead and we all turned down the lights and stared at it together. You can hear it all on Archive.org, check it out. It was, as expected, a completely magical experience, and I urge anyone that can to go and participate sometime. As they always do, Monday morning came far too quickly, and I said "goodbyes" to everyone and headed down to the recycling barn to go make myself useful. A few crazy days and nights later, after I had fallin in and out of love in 48 hours, I ended up in Diego Fuego's van headed north. Diego, or Doug for short, and his girlfriend Lacy were heading back up to the ranch where they lived so that Lacy could gather her things and move back to Portland to continue on her path towards her p.h.d. The plan at that time was to head up to the farm with them for a few days and bale hay to hopefully make some cash and some good square meals. Then I was going to head back to Portland with them and go see my new friend Linda. When we got to the farm, I met Brian, or just B, and his nephew Mason, who was visiting for a few weeks from So Cal, along with Mary and Bob, the proprietors of the Hoh Humm bed and breakfast ranch. I got some great pictures of the summit and the ranch, but sadly, my camera was stolen out of the van somewhere in Montana, and I lost them all. On that note, I would love it if people started submitting pictures of the places mentioned, or of yourselves, its time to start making this more of an interactive experience. I currently need pictures of: the 8th annual Northwest String Summit, the Hoh Humm ranch, Polebridge and Glacier National Park, and Lolo Hot Springs and the Darkstar Orchestra show that took place there. Anyway, I hung out at the ranch where I learned all kinds of cool things, and we discovered the Darkstar show. Doug and B each had not much going on, and needed an adventure, so invited me to join them on a road trip to go see Darkstar Orchestra at Lolo Hot Springs, 45 miles southwest of Missoula, MT; and meet some of their friends up at Polebridge, which is the little pirate town at the mouth of west Glacier. I immediately agreed, and we set about getting ready for the journey. We spent a week fixing the van, taking care of things around the ranch, and turning a Llama into jerky for the journey (it was an extra male, and llama herds don't operate well with too many males when in captivity as they all fight for dominance). We still headed back down to Portland for a few days, and I got to go spend them with Linda, the queen of the Ganja Fairies. Linda is an amazing, beautiful woman that has a really cool piece of land southeast of Portland. She most definitely has fairies that live on her property with her, and that sounds kind of silly until you see the place... but we also have the same birthday, which is really cool. It got up to 109 while we were hanging out, which I hear is close to record setting temperatures for Portland. After several fun days with Linda, I met back up with Doug, and we headed back up to the ranch to get B and the jerky. As it turns out, the ranch is about 40 miles south of Forks, WA, which I guess is the setting for those stupid vampire books that everyone seems to be reading. I only say they are stupid because I haven't read them, but Forks is capitalizing on the fad in a huge way, and there is even a store there called "Searching Twilight" or something dumb like that. Fucking vampire kids... So we grabbed the last of the supplies and headed east again. We blasted through the night, and made it from the northwest coast of Washington to Glacier Natl. Park in 15 hours, and hung out at Polebridge, riverboarding and playing volleyball for a week. We stayed with the Ramone family, who are some of the nicest people I have ever met, and made a different group of friends every night with the tourist flow through traffic from Glacier. The plan was to show up to Lolo early and get ourselves on volunteer crew rather than pay for tickets. This was the 12th festival that Doug did this for so far this summer, and it is really easy if you don't mind working. We left Glacier and made it to some state campgrounds called Lee Creek a mile or so west of Lolo. The campground host here is hereby nominated for biggest douchbag in the universe, by me, officially. After we made sure to double check with him that we were camped legitimately and for the appropriate fee, he still woke us up the next morning demanding that we pay up, or he was "callin the cops." So, groggy, and freshly woken up, we asked what the problem was, and he explained that he had no record of us paying him, and that this was a crime, blah blah blah, and that we owed him $10 immediately. After having already put the $5 our national parks pass said we owed into the box, we gave the dude a 20 and apologized sincerely for any misunderstanding, and went back to bed. About an hour later, the jackass shows back up with Ranger McFriendly, whom he had called and told that we refused to pay. When we stumbled back out of the tent again and tried to sort things out, the old bastard had the nerve to stand there for twenty minutes and say that he had no receipt of us ever paying, and he didn't know anything about our money. Finally, after all three of us refused to budge, and the ranger started seriously losing interest, he grumbled something about thinking that we were making a donation to the park, he would go run and grab a receipt, blah blah blah. If you drive by here and see the grumpy old bastard that works as the campground host for Lee Creek, pee on his door or something. Nothing seriously harmful, just teach the old fuck a lesson, or maybe just drive up and give him a hug out of the blue, I think maybe that would be better actually. Again, sorry for tangenting out (made up word, I know) but the Ranger there told us about some hot springs up the way with free camping that we would probably like a lot more, so we headed west on route 12, and ended up at Weir Creek. A small parking lot at the end of a guard rail near milemarker 142 are the only trailhead, but there are a dozen or so primo campsites and a few very nice rustic pools starting about a half mile up the trail. The first one is about 105 degrees and sits 7 comfortably. We hung out here for about a week eating fish that Doug caught and a big back of bacon we had got for 5 dollars. We had bacon in I think 6 meals in a row there. Delicious. After the springs, we rolled over to Lolo four days before show time, and got hired right away. Lolo hot springs is a very very cool little place, with two large cemented in pools, one hot, one warm, a bar with a great pool table and jukebox, and then across the street, room for at least 1000 people to camp. Up behind the bar is a 12 hole, backyard frisbee golf course that is a lot of fun to play. One of the friends I made hit two holes in one, including a double eagle on this par four. It was awesome. The whole resort is located in a little bowl where the valley opens up for about a quarter mile to make the perfect little bowl of rock around the river. The sound was amazing, and despite the rain that never really seemed to let up until monday, Darkstar threw down and rocked the house for two nights. It was really cool getting to see the entire festival happen, from putting up the first fence to tearing everything down on sunday morning. Those guys are having another party the 21 and 22 with Jessica Kilroy and Railroad Earth. If you can make it, you should, it will blow your mind how cool this place is. This is where the Hoh River crew had to split up, unfortunately, and B had to head back to take care of some very serious family shit that came up, and me having to start heading south towards Burning Man. I was planning on going to Grand Targhee Bluegrass, but I think an extra week in Colorado is going to be a little bit better for my headspace right now, especially with the Burn fast approaching. Right now I am hanging with Eric, or Matthias, in Billings, MT, with Jennifer and her beautiful family. We are partying down at a railroad earth show here tomorrow night, then I am heading to Denver and CB on Thursday. The last few weeks have been a wild crazy ride, and a continuing affirmation that I am on that path that I need to be on. I have seen and felt things that can not possibly be conveyed in writing, and have reached some very interesting conclusions on life. Again, conclusions might not be the right word, because they are only observations that I'm sure will change and grow constantly throughout my life with me, but some "seriously heavy shit" nontheless. I apologize too that this entry is so sporadic, i'm just kind of barfing stuff up that still hasn't been completly digested, but I had to get something out. Again, sorry about the pictures, but I'll be getting stuff up. Thank you to everyone that has helped me along on my journey, with everything from a hot meal to a kind word or a smile, and especially for all the great rides. Thank you to everyone for listing and exploring the world with me. I love you all.
G. J. Supertramp...

Border to Border, Coast to Coast

It has been a little while since i have updated because it has been a little while since i have seen a computer. We are currently hanging out at a place called Polebridge, Montana. The closest thing to civilization here is the one flush toilet at the saloon. It is basically a mountain pirate outpost at the mouth of Glacier National Park, 20 miles from the Canadian border. This is another place where time seems to barely move at all. Tomorrow, my friends from Hoh Humm (Brian and Doug) and I will head through the park and do a week long hotspring tour leading up to the Geothermal Jerry Bash. That is going to be two nights of Railroad Earth and DarkStar Orchestra at Lolo Hot springs. From lolo we will head to Grand Targhee Bluegrass festival, and then I will part from my new friends and head down into Colorado and out towards Burning Man. Sorry this post is so rushed, but the battery power is dying on this laptop, so I will post more soon.

"What kind of an adventure is a straight line?" - Linda, queen of the Ganja Fairies

Babylon to Zion

Ahhhh!!! This is how I am feeling. I don't know any other way of putting it. I feel like I have once again over committed myself to far to many places. I am teaching out in Lenox and need to be in Nevada in less then four weeks. I need to stop in New Mexico on the way and being so close to home it would be crazy not to stop in Colorado. I have the option to possibly go back to school but may be cutting everything to close and at the same time I am trying to backpack around the world. Ha, when it is all down on paper it sounds as ridiculous as it feels. Oh and lets not forget to mention the added ingredient of love.

Ah love, what a crazy thing. It will knock you off track in a heartbeat and destroy your emotional state in moments while at the same time making you feel happy. I have been a little love drunk over the past month and I think it is time for me to get back on my own horse and ride. Really, I mean here I come with my big plans. Doing my own thing and then there she is one of the loves of my life put back in my path, and for that matter I back in hers. What is this all supposed to mean I don't know but I can surely say we will both learn something from it. It is hard to make someone happy in a materiel world when you are a anti-materiel man. I swear everything would be easier if I believed in the false security of money. I have to walk away from a life that ties me up with materiel attachment, so is this to mean I have to walk away from love. This is a much harder thing to do then to say. As soon as I even begin to walk away I feel my heart drop, this is the payment for letting myself get foolishly swept up in emotion. I will have to stand tall and speak my truth and let the cards land where they may. I am on a journey towards Zion not back into Babylon.

A king asked a sage to explain the Truth. In response the sage asked the king how he would convey the taste of a mango to someone who had never eaten anything sweet. No matter how hard the king tried, he could not adequately describe the flavor of the fruit, and, in frustration, he demanded of the sage "Tell me then, how would you describe it?" The sage picked up a mango and handed it to the king saying "This is very sweet. Try eating it!"

They who give have all things; they who withhold have nothing.

The man who is happy and pure
And likes his own company
Gathers the fruit of his practice
And the fruit of wisdom.

The man who knows the truth
Is never unhappy in the world.
For he alone fills the universe.

Peace Love Light,
Dr. Avatar