9/28/14
Salt Lake City International Airport, Utah (SLC)
With my trip now complete, I have found myself in an airport smoking
lounge with two hours to reflect before my flight starts to board. The Harry Potter saga was primarily about
love and death, the potency of love and the finality of death. The love that Harry feels for Hermione or
Sirius or Ron is no less real nor potent than the love he feels for Ginny. As I drove through Idaho today, I realized
that that was where I went wrong. Love
is an emotion, an emotion that cannot always be explained, Rand’s rejection of
causeless emotions be damned. There are
21 people in the world whom I love, some because of blood, some because of
shared values and mutual respect, some because of a long history, other for
reasons that I cannot fully explain. I
do not want to try to explain it. The
Greeks identified four types of love familial love, friendship, romance, and
worship of the gods. I will ignore the
last one. Every one of the 21 people on
that list fall into one of those categories, so long as I stretch the definition
of friendship to include what I call “fondness.” However, I cannot explain why I include one
cousin on that list but not another, one grandparent but not another, one
friend but not another, one coworker but not another.
I have spent enough time philosophizing on
love, and it seems like I have a new definition every months. However, my philosophy is not a philosophy of
love. My philosophy is a philosophy of
happiness. Sure, love causes happiness,
but it is not the only cause of happiness.
My philosophy seeks to maximize the sum total of happiness of the course
of the entire life. Today, as I drove
through Idaho, which has become one of my favorite places in the country, I was
happy. Over the past two years and two
months and two weeks and two days (since 7/12/14, the day I began my series of
long road trips), I have spent more time driving through the heartland of our
country than most New Yorkers do in their entire lives, exploring mamash every
corner of the map, and pretty much every point in between. I will not say that I have loved every minute
of it, but I do love our country. It
truly is America the Beautiful. The
mountains are my favorite, from the Sierra Mountains in California to the
Cascades in Washington and Oregon to the Aleutian Range in Alaska and the
Yukon, to the Rockies in Colorado, Utah, and Idaho, I love the mountains. I just don’t like driving through them at
night, as I have learned the hard way.
Nothing is lonelier than driving through empty mountain roads in
complete darkness, and that causes tiredness, which can be deadly on those
roads. However, as scary as those roads
are night, they are just as beautiful by day.
I drove 1283 miles this trip, over the course of 48 hours, and though
the view didn’t change much, it never lost its beauty, even in the rain. However, I was not able to fully appreciate
it until the sun came out, which it finally did today. As I drove today, I worked on developing the
theory I had come up with yesterday. In
the end, I made little progress, other than coming up with a few thoughts. The first thought was the Harry Potter
theory, as I will call it. Romantic love
is a very small aspect of this thing we call love. Other kinds of love can be just as potent,
just as important, just as meaningful.
To try and pigeonhole such a broad emotion into such narrow terms is an
exercise in futility. Further, the
desire/compatibility dichotomy I mentioned last night is not about love. I’m sure each of my readers knows the
difference between lust (desire) and love and knows people in loveless but
compatible marriages.
After deciding to
stop philosophizing about love, I was struck by a metaphor. That desire/compatibility dichotomy is like a
candle. Desire is the wick,
compatibility the wax. I suppose in
this metaphor, passion would be the match that lights the wick. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Passion is the wick, desire the match. However, compatibility is the wax, the thing
that keeps on burning. Maybe a better
example would be a fireplace, where you have the kindle that burns very hot and
quickly and then the larger logs that burn for a much longer time. Try lighting those larger logs without
kindle, and you will have no success.
That is compatibility without passion.
I think I’m liking the analogy of desire being the match, since you can
have desire devoid of passion. Without
passion, mere compatibility leads to friendship. You can love someone because of compatibility,
and compatibility in a friend and romantic partner is very similar, though
there are major differences. Now,
imagine those larger logs are there. The
kindle burns very quickly but goes out because there is nothing left once the
kindle is gone. That is lust. I was able to get no further on that topic
and further discussion will be relegated to my personal journal.
When I got cell service back, I saw that I
had gotten email from my father. He had
offered pretty much the same explanation, no doubt founded upon empirical
evidence from his own relationships rather than my rationalist explanation, but
the idea was the same. He also added
something where I disagreed about Rand claiming any man of unbreached
self-esteem who was her intellectual equal should be sexually attracted to her. Just because he was not sexually attracted to
Rand does not mean he should be so quick to dismiss that line of thought. There was a lot of merit to it, and, if I
started to wonder if it was me at those lectures 50 years ago if I would have
been attracted to Rand. I know with
absolute certainty that I would have been.
Why? Because to do otherwise is
to dismiss her entire philosophy, and, if I were dismissing her philosophy, why
would I have been at those lectures?
While I understand why Branden made the decisions he did, I do not agree
with them. He made the wrong
decision. From what I understand, Rand
and Branden had a once in a lifetime type of love, ignoring for the moment that
they were both cheating on their spouses, and he threw it away over a pretty
face. The only two people who took his
side were my father and someone who has become as an uncle to me. It didn’t help that Rand never explained
situation and that people were blindly following her, but how many of the men
at those lectures were in love with Rand?
How did I get so far off-topic?
Back to the topic at hand, my journey through Idaho. I slept pretty well out on the balcony, and I was cracking up from the prank that I would pull. I left a generous tip for the made, along with a note that said “Sorry about the bed.” Her first thought would be that I yakked or took and unofficial U in the bed. She would then walk into the bedroom and see that the mattress was missing. The note would take on new meaning, and she’d have no idea what happened to the mattress. The tip was nowhere near generous enough to buy a new mattress. Eventually, she’d go out to the balcony, or try to, since she’d have trouble getting the door fully opened, as the mattress was outside, partially blocking the door. Then she’d see it. A fully made bed outside, sitting on the balcony. I managed to get the mattress outside, so she should be able to get it back inside, and I assume that she did, since I didn’t get an angry phone call or email from the hotel today.
I got dressed and headed the State
Capitol. After that, I went for my first
Official breakfast in Idaho, though I had lost my appetite again, something
that seems to have been a common theme for me over the past month and
change. I really wanted some hash browns
though, and they were very disappointing, but the bacon was excellent. I lit up a Romeo y Julieta and was soon on
the road. I stopped for gas along the
way, and there was a grocery store at the gas station. Perfect.
I bought 10 pounds of potatoes.
For the price of one keychain, I got enough Idaho potatoes to give to
everyone I knew.
I smoked a Tattoo en
route and soon arrived at the first NPS of the day, Craters of the Moon
NM&Pres, which was two units in one.
I was unsure where the border between the monument and the preserve was,
but I found out at the VC. All the areas
that were readily accessible were in the NM, but I could just walk off the side
of the road to get to the NPres. It was
one of the units that had a driving loop, and was a short loop with short
trails, nothing that would allow me to really make it official. The first stop was a paved trail, no dice,
but I lit up my Partagas and walked in the rain. The real trail was a little off the loop, and
it was one mile there and another mile back.
I was well ahead of schedule, so I had time to do it. It even stopped raining by the time I got
there. It was a beautiful hike, but I
was too exhausted to make it to the end.
I found a perfect spot for that Official U and collected a bunch of
rocks to give out as gifts. It looked like
I was on another planet, something from a Star Wars movie or Star Trek
episode. I would later realize that it
seemed alien because the color pallet was so markedly different from any place
I had ever seen.
I left the NM and
parked at a scenic viewpoint. There was
even an unofficial trail that led into the preserve. I still had some cigar left and found a deep
enough spot hidden from the road to make it Official. That was that, I managed to Officially hit
both units. There were only two unit
left in the trip before I would begin the Journey Home, and they both shared a
VC. That VC would be my next stop, but I
was hungry, or so I thought. My appetite
had disappeared once I got to the restaurant.
For what I figured would probably be the last Official meal I ever have
in Idaho, unless I take my kids there one day, I chose chicken fried steak and
tots. Today was an Atkins cheat day to
be sure.
After my meal, I lit up a My Father
Bijou and headed to the VC. The site was
called Hagerman Fossil Beds NM. The
Fossils were in the VC, but that was not Officially in the NM. I did my business at the VC and drove to the
NM, stopping at the first pullout where you could see the fossil beds. After I Officially checked off the unit, my
212th NPS unit, I headed to Minidoka NHS. I found it with no trouble, and I was now
over an hour ahead of schedule, which was great.
There was not much to see, just some stone
structures still standing, but it made for decent pictures. I lit up a Davidoff Special R to make it Official
and announced, “Idaho Complete!” adding, “Who woulda thunk it?” Okay, so technically I have not visited Nez
Perce NHP, but that is not entirely in Idaho.
Yes, I will be getting the stamp for it in Idaho next I got Oregon, so
maybe it was not technically Complete complete, but I said it anyway.
From there, it was a straight shot to the
airport, just stopping for gas and an unofficial meal. I got to the airport 4 hours before my
flight, and there was no line at security.
I was at the smoking lounge, adjacent to the gate, ready to write this
entry three hours before my flight would depart. It was so nice to have a smoking lounge in
the airport, the first time I had utilized one in a domestic airport that I can
recall. I was also surprised by the
number of young and pretty women that walked in and out as I smoked my
Gurkha. I uploaded my photos and
proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close.
Next Stop: The nearest WHS I have yet to visit, Miguasha NP, along
with stops in Albany, Maine, and New Brunswick.
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