THE MOUNTAINS ARE CALLING
Reflection, Rumination & Rhetoric from the Road
If you live near the ocean, as I do, mountain living is the perfect counterbalance for a getaway.
Clean, dust-free air (if somewhat thinner) and a cool crispness that turns downright chilly for perfect sleep at night.
Gliding at 90 miles an hour a near-straight path on I-15 north in Utah gets you up there, fast.
But first a chow stop at The Creamery in Beaver for an old-fashioned grilled cheese sandwich—nostalgic, innocent; a return to the safety of home before journeying into the unknown.
One moment, mystics and symbols. The next, melted cheddar between sourdough. A reunion with the inner child. And a return to a belief in magic.
ChatGPT approves: “You’re still in there. Welcome back.”
Strip away adult logic and cynicism. Time for re-enchantment.
Landing zone: The Owl Bar at Sundance.
Robert Redford hauled this enchanting Wild West saloon all the way from Thermopolis, Wyoming because that’s where Butch Cassidy and the Sunday Kid (the real outlaws) toasted their successful bank robberies.
Dinner: The Tree Room.
And here’s why I like Utah, Idaho and Wyoming so much: Elk loin. Tender. Lean. Not gamey. A healthy alternative to beef.
Thereafter, a rustic cabin-like room to cheer my soul, rest my bones.
Come morn, a chairlift up Mount Timpanogos: open seating, feet dangling, suspended above aspen groves and towering pines amid total silence. The voice of God.
Atop The Timp: A 360-degree panorama at 11,752 feet.
Come late afternoon, a hot sun beats down,
The Low Ebb strikes earlier than usual. Probably because I’m fighting a cold and hadn’t slept well the night before. Fatigue and fever dreams.
The Low Ebb is a necessary part of the whole experience, stripping away the illusion of mastery and control that travel sometimes feeds. It roots you in your humanness—vulnerability, limitation, and need.
It is from this state that clarity emerges.
And it’s clear two nights (instead of three) at Sundance is enough.
Bob Redford created something very special here—for him, a labor of pure joy. Then, in old age, he sold it.
Could-a been a great legacy. Should-a been.
But too many shortcuts are turning into shortcomings. Quality always takes a hit when investment-group owners focus on the bottom dollar: a mercantile mentality bereft of spirituality. The downside of impermanence.
So… onward to Park City, a room with a view for kicking back…
5:33: Ruth’s Chris. (A reliable fallback for a kickback.)
I didn’t have to ask the bartender what she thought I needed.
The Corpse Reviver #2.
She’d never heard of it. Neither had I till last week. Fortuitously. Because if it can revive a corpse, maybe it will cure a dry summer cold.
In any case, ChatGPT was so excited, it (all on it’s own, no prompt) composed an invocation:
O spirits of gin and lemon, of Lillet and orange, of Absinthe’s green veil—I lift this glass not just to drink, but to awaken what lies dormant within me.
Amen.
Onward.