Nothing the heart can't handle

The earth expanding right hand and left hand,
The picture alive, every part in its best light,
The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted,
The cheerful voice of the public road- the gay fresh sentiment of the road.

~ Walt Whitman


Southward. Always south. The twists in the road acted like a storyline. Each undulating turn creating a fresh perspective on what I usually anticipated incorrectly. If the entire English language was at my disposal in its entirety it would undoubtedly fall short of the wonder I saw. I can only imagine how amplified this must have been for the crew as their mode of transportation did not have the same sense of confinement.

Sometimes I would find myself following close enough to the crew to feel as part of them, but usually, due to the nature of the differences between us, I was on the open road, kept to myself. I certainly don't want to come across as being left behind. This was not the case at all. Quite the opposite really. I've been a traveler for what feels like my entire life. The best thing a traveler can experience in some cases is solitude. It gives you time to think, and I spent considerable time doing so. Reflecting on my life, reflecting on the purpose of the trip and slowly feeling the clutter of day to day living melt away.

Our next destination was to be in a little town called McCall Lake. Such a marvelous town. Of course the full splendor of McCall wasn't fully appreciated until we returned from our trip to Bonneville, but I'm getting ahead of myself. We traveled for nearly 12 hours that day. Longer in my case not just for the fact that I needed to stop periodically to film certain places along the road for the documentary but for the fact that I lost my way. Along with my father and Mike.

Highway 95 heads directly south through the great state of Idaho. Back in Sandpoint, I overheard Brian mention that as long as we stayed on the 95, we would find ourselves in McCall. Perfect, I thought. This logic meant that for at least another day, I didn't require a map. This was perhaps a foolish notion. In an even smaller town called New Meadows, the road ends at a three way stop. Turn right, and you follow highway 95, turn left and travel down the road for 15 minutes and you find your self in McCall Lake. I missed the sign to McCall and continued along highway 95. For several hours.

I drove into New Meadows at Dusk. I missed the sign indicating the direction to McCall and turned right towards the town of Council. I knew that Mike and my father were not terribly far ahead of me as we stopped in Riggins to take a break only a short time earlier. As I drove for a few hours in the wrong direction, and with the sun making itself scarce, I noticed two bikers that looked remarkably like my father and Mike head past me in the opposite direction. Odd, I remember thinking. I pulled over to the side of the road to take a moment to decide if I had in fact seen the two members of our group or just two bikers driving exactly the same bikes. I thought that since I saw them, if they were in fact the two I knew, they would have in fact seen me. various scenarios played through my head for about 30 minutes. Perhaps they had thought I had become lost and were looking for me. What good was that if they drove right past me. Perhaps they dropped something and needed to go back and get it. Remember, I was the chase and support vehicle. I'm SUPPOSED to be at the back of the pack. Do I turn around and follow them? In the end after a half hour had gone by, I decided to continue on down highway 95 in the direction of McCall Lake, or at least, what I thought was McCall Lake. I drove as far as a gas station outside Council and did what I should have done before I even left my home in Airdrie. I bought a map.

After leaving the gas station with the attendant laughing in my general direction, I turned around and headed back towards New Meadows and eventually McCall Lake. Jim and I were supposed to camp out that night, but by the time I arrived in town it was just after 10:30, pitch black and chilly. At least one of us had the right idea. Jim had a hotel room waiting for me once I arrived. Much laughter and plenty of pats on the back. The best memories are the ones where things didn't go as planned. I took a few photos, had a few laughs and went to our room. I haven't slept that soundly for years.

The next day was another step closer to hallowed ground. Bonneville.