An addiction to kinesthesia may be satisfied and indulged in many vehicles. Currently, at the venerable age of 63, driving an 80,000 pound gasoline tanker fits the bill just fine. At one time it had to be satisfied at the controls of an aircraft. It was the only conveyance that would satisfy the need for movement at the time. Then, one day I discovered the sublime pleasures of a wild river kayak and the zaney people who run the frothy white.

Kayak Dreams in Westwater Canyon

Drifting on unseen currents,

quiet, somber, trills the Canyon Wren.

Osprey tears the flesh of captured prey.

Sweet sun shines hard,

Hot, white paddle rises, falls,

flichers in a play of light.

Channel main, the mighty Colorado,

slow, facile, comes the drop.

Low rumble, strains the senses, try to hear it,

try to feel it, reach out and touch its fury.

Drawing ever closer, trepidation is for not.

No path to portage, no place to walk.

Enter now the gates of madness,

throw yourself upon its mercies, sublime the gifts to be bestowed.

Cataracts roar, white frothy leaping waters,

a gift of melting snows.

Sunlight splits each droplet,

precisely placed prisims,

every sun beamed hue in regal brilliance.

Suddenly without resolve to roll capsized beneath the churning waves, darkness,

far off thunderous sound now muffled by the deep.

Once jagged rocks, now ghostly smooth dark apparitions fly by at near sonic speeds.

Their ghastly tentacles anchored deep into the earth, mock the hydraulic power of the flow.

Composed of schist and gneiss from some Precambrian time a billion years ago.

Will the monolith dubbed Skull fly to close and end my journey before the waters are again at peace?

A smashed and lifeless corps predestined a million millennia ago, ages and ages now past; the soul catcher waiting eons.

Beckons now the Room of Doom.

Torn viciously from the tiny craft, my dive begins as if some leviathan has hold.

Lungs scream to burst.

From brilliant light, to murky dim, to crushing awesome bleack, eyes search for the light yet dark and cold engulf as if prelude to my final act.

Eternity seems to pass as I am thrown and churned like a girl child's rag doll in her mothers immense Maytag.

My lungs burn - There! There is hope!

A flash of light, though diminished by the flood,

finds my tiny aqueous pupil and signals hope directly to my soul.

Another flash and I am thrown free, to know the glory of another breath of air.

Sheppard Hobgood,

after one of the rougher trips through Westwater, Canyon, Utah

The snowball

Several days agoI had the dubious pleasure of meeting the young man who rolled his gasoline tanker off the edge of the road near the top of Loveland Pass, CO. The rig rolled twice and came to rest against a huge cushion of snow that built up in the process. There were no trees for several thousand feet below the rig and nothing else to arrest the plunge. It was a gas-haulers ultimate nightmare, one that he should not have survived. The story that the young man related seemed somewhat implausable, but then there are the police reports to consider. Going too fast off the top of an icy windswept road high in the Rocky Mountains is not something that an accident victim is likely to admit to the State Patrol. He told me that he was parked in a blinding blizzard and the side of the road simply gave way. It's a shame that there is not a third bore (for all big rigs) to add to the Eisenhower and Stevenson bores under the continental divide. Driving over Loveland Pass day in and day out with 8,000 gallons of no-lead and premium is bound to add up to trouble now and then. This would be a good place for Mr. Obama to start spending our infrastructure dollars. The skiiers would like it too. I hope our new president is a downhill enthusiast.

December 8th, 2008 - I opened the windows of the semi cab and gazed out at the stars. The time was 4:30 am and sunrise was not due for another three hours. The sky was brilliant. The temperature hovered around zero degrees F. The moon must have set over the western horizon and the air was remarkably free of polution from the big mines just to the east. I had seen such a clear night dozens of times, but the number of visible stars was remarkable for such cold temperatures. Once, while on a boating trip down the San Juan River in New Mexico, all of the rafters and kayakers were in awe of the brilliance of the night sky. Every conceivable dark spot in the heavens was illuminated by a point of light. The air was very dry and the temperature was in the 70s. The Coors beer added to the appreciation.

This was such a night, only 70 degrees colder. I opened the door of the cab and climbed down to the pavement. I started walking north, judging the centerline by the rise and fall of the roads camber. After a while my eyes adjusted and I could see the faint glimmer of the blacktop. I continued walking for a while. It occured to me that the distance to one of those far off stars was almost impossible to imagine and that the earth I was walking on was all I have and all I would ever have. It was all anyone would ever have.