Coming Home

At some point in a journey, you are no longer going out. You are coming home. All we can hope is that the territory feels new all the way to our driveway and doorstep. After two days of backpacking in Zion National Park, we are as far into the wilderness as we will get this trip. Tomorrow we hike back out of Kolob Canyons to return to the interstates of America, and in particular, Texas.

Enough of a breeze blows up the canyon to keep the flies away temporarily. As we prepare to head back east, I reflect on our trip west. There are lots of thinks I never did before, which I think is a sweet ingredient - like sugar or butter - to any journey, perhaps life in general. I learned all of the fancy settings on my new camera, held Adeline Bell Meyer, shook my booty at a Prince concert, traveled new trails, new roads, towns and cities. I saw Etan Medifar crawl for the first time. I talked shop with my borther about his mountain guiding business while helping him sort gear and clean out the "Guide Shack." The Guide Shack is an old miner's shack, maybe 100 years old, about 150 square feet, just off the main strip in Crested Butte. A lifelong bagel lover, he has a barter exchange set up with the bagel place, Izzy's, next door. He gets free bagels. When he racks up enough, a few times a year, he guides the owner of Izzy's out into the mountains. I need to make him a "will guide for bagels" or "fueled by bagels" bumper sticker. It was good to see my brother in his home. It had been nearly six years since I had visited him in Colorado. He is a business owner now and one of the best professional mountain guides around. Used to be, I could keep up with him, but 13 years of him living in the mountains and me in New Orleans has left me in the flatland dust. Despite the physical distance, we share a love for the mountains and outdoors, a laid back attitude and a Simons-Jones way of doing just about everything, as Annette has pointed out. I miss my borther and want a little more of the life he lives (and him along with it) in my life.

After Colorado, we continued west for an overnight stop in Vegas. Having spent only about 8 waking hours there, and all of them in the M Resort and Casino in Henderson, NV, my impression was something like this. Speedway, strip club, casino, resort, casino, resort, reminds me of Disney Land, who decided to build a city in the middle of the desert, topless pool Tuesdays, sex sells, so do all-you-can-eat buffets and people drive across the Mojave desert to get there. My Hyundai groaned at the drive, both directions. But Vegas had the nicest $95 hotel room I have ever stayed in and a nice long brunch with Tom Bailey and Jennifer Henderson that made it all worth it. We talked about Vegas - wherever we meet family and friends at home, we talk about the place where we live, just as people do when they visit New Orleans. We talked of work aspirations and travel. We had one of those conversations that just has you lose track of time. By the time we looked at a clock, it was 5 minutes to 1 in the afternoon and we were L.A. bound.