The Author (9,800 feet above sea level at a mountain lake in Colorado
 VENTURING WESTWARD...

    I've always had a deep and abiding fascination for the West and the Rocky Mountains.  All of my life, I've loved looking at frontier pictures and browsing through books and encyclopedias about its history and topography.   I would always be filled with rustic images and romantic feelings about living in a log cabin next to a cold, pure gurgling spring amidst towering snow capped mountains, the quiet hillsides populated with innocent elk, the rushing streams splashing with rainbow trout, the fresh air full with the pleasing smell of fragrant pines and the awesome slopes intensely colored with magnificent, bright yellow aspens.

Montage of western images.
    Not only the history and the geography of the west but also the mythic metaphors greatly have  appealed to me.  The idea of going to undiscovered country and refashioning a life amidst the natural splendors and rough landscapes, leaving the old cultural cocoon, escaping the corrupt and disingenuous politics, and rejecting the decadent aspects of  society and its amour propre mentality; but instead, creating a way of being firmly anchored in natural beauty and the earthly cycles of life:   simple, sincere, fresh and real.   It's a Rousseauian return to solitary revelry, innocence and natural relationship.  It's a buddhist paradigm shift from a false, overly-complicated head with its bad seductions to an eternal simple heart, warmly beating to its own rhythms and a focused mind crisply attentive to the fullness of its given perceptions.  And it's the natural high and simple joys of the fly fisherman and the kayaker as opposed to the stress and the caffeine of the indoors, self-striving, over-serious city professional.

    Very soon my modest belongings will be packed into the moving truck and my journey towards the west will begin.   Much like the New England travel site I put together when I traveled around the northeast last fall, I will create a web update, showing photos and some commentary to give you a glimpse of my experience as each day passes.  My laptop and digital camera will be with me to record the trek as I drive across the country, stopping in places I've never been before to see the charm of america (as well as its tackiness!) and feel the immensity of the countryside, as the long miles of land and space give witness to a huge country full of diversity, energy and beauty.   Gone will be the usual suffocating and  narrow confines of the predictable daily commute,  office building cubby hole, city traffic bottlenecks and Boolean symbolic thinking.

Mount Meeker (elevation: 13,700 feet)    But soon enough after arrival, I'll have to dive into the urban economic life of Denver to make my keep.  And so, the traffic, the city thinking, the corporate realm and technical details will be a part of my world again.  But all of it tempered with the fact that I'm "finally here!," near those majestic mountains and the incredible southwestern desert landscapes which have been magnificently sculpted through eons of wind, rain and sand.  I look forward to exploring this part of the country in detail:  learning its history, breathing in its fragrance, marveling at its grandeur, enjoying its natural resources as well as making good friends and community.    And, oh yeah, lots of new brew pubs to visit and research over and over again!

    Actually, I plan to take the month of September off to allow myself to settle and also have plenty of time to discover this wonderful state of Colorado as well as its beautiful neighboring western states.   On the itinerary are visits to old ghost towns, national parks, the Telluride "Blues n Brews" festival as well as enjoying the charms of Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and other cool cities and natural splendors.   This web site will include as much of all that as possible.

    Bookmark this site and stay tuned!  This all begins on September 6, 2000.  It should be a lot of fun.


 

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