Well marked

Sometimes, someone has marked the trail well. It is used and easy to follow.

January 2009
Stones River National Battlefield

Ghosts of Gettysburg

Through early morning mists they march
across the fields of green,
fields red-stained by their life blood
when they were young.
No long range kills,
no smart bombs then;
just frightened, courageous men
who,
for cause
country
comrades,
engaged each other
face to face
and
hand to hand,
performing acts of
unspeakable horror,
incredible valor,
absolute futility
until the arms of Mars
did embrace and claim them.

23 August 2002
The Shire, Louisville

An early start - at least in my world

I am not a morning person. On Koenig Standard Time, the hours for sleeping run from approximately 2:00 or 3:00 AM to 11:00 AM. Clearly this poses a challenge with the way days are currently structured. I do try to follow that schedule on weekends and vacations.

Today was an exception. I did stay up until 1:00 AM or so, but I also managed to awaken early. This was my day to spend in Rocky Mountain National Park. I decided to get an early start. I succeed. Even with spending time for breakfast and having to return to the hotel to pick up my National Parks Passport, I made it into the park by 8:30 AM (which probably isn't all that impressive for others).

For a couple of hours, the park was reasonable empty. I drove the Trail Ridge Road to the Alpine Visitor Center, stopping often for pictures and to do a bit of hiking. By the time I made my way back - around 10:30 or 11:00 AM - traffic had picked up considerably. But still it was an enjoyable day - short of wildlife - but an amazing diversity of eco-systems - incredible views. Not sure my photos do the park justice - not sure they show up here - but I took a bunch.

Walked the streets of Estes Park again in the late afternoon. Picked up Leavings by Wendell Berry. Very impressive. I had read some of the poems before, but there are some awesome ones.

Found Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on TV.  They were young. Clips from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II are being shown. It looks good. Will have to figure out how to see it before the Trail takes me back to Manhattan. Patience not being one of my strong suits.

Tomorrow back to Greeley for the memorial service for Steve Brown.

See you along the Trail.

"Not in front of the Klingons"

I heard one of my all time favorite questions again tonight and a cute line that I had forgotten.

The day began with dealing with some emails. Then a visit to the Centennial Village in Greeley, Colorado. An interesting place. The signage could be better. Or they could have folks stationed throughout the village to do interpretation. Of course, we could have gone on the tour, but we did not have a whole lot of time as we had picked up some additional responsibilities for the day. Still, even taking the village at our own, somewhat rapid pace, there was much to learn. And there were many great, great flowers.

Lunch followed. I was looking for something light like a turkey sub. We came across Cheba Sub Hut. Most excellent. A quirky environment; a manic person at the counter, and good food. I could get hooked.

A drive to the Denver airport followed. Tricia went to a retreat. I went to Estes Park. I did a bit of walking around - it was a cool, rainy evening so I neither walked as much as I had planned nor did I take as many pictures as I planned although there were a number taken for the pine cone collection. But I saw some of the city - amazing how much I remembered given that I had only been here once and that some ten years ago. I picked up a copy of Live Rhymin' by Paul Simon.

After wandering around Estes Park for a while, I returned to the Rocky Mountain Park Inn where I had received a good deal on Hotwire.

Channel surfing, I came across Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country playing on the SyFy Channel. It has some interesting moments. Shakespeare contributes the title and gets quoted fairly frequently.

It was followed by Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. It definitely is not one of my favorite movies in the franchise. But it does have one of my favorite questions of all time. The plot involves a search for God led by Spock's half-brother. He takes over the Enterprise and away they go. Adventures follow. There are some intriguing reflections on the pain we carry. I need to ponder that further. After additional adventures, they arrive at the planet where God supposedly lives. They encounter a being who claims divinity. However, Kirk and Spock and McCoy are surprised to learn that this being is overly interested in the Enterprise. The being suggests that the starship will be useful as he (at least he appears as a he) seeks to escape from the planet. Finally Kirk can take no more and poses the eternal question: "Why does God need a starship?" I will tell no more to avoid spoiling the film. But I love that question.

Of course the line, "Please Captain, not in front of the Klingons." isn't bad either.

Tomorrow: Rocky Mountain National Park.

See you along the Trail.

Fossils and a Peak

Started the day late - largely because I did too much work - and I remain way behind. But eventually I stopped, and vacation began.

We started with a journey to Florissant, CO and Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. This involved a drive over Ute Pass. We ate at the Swiss Chalet in Woodland Park - an interesting town - definitely worth checking out further should the Trail ever wend this way again.

Florrisant Fossil Beds was an interesting mix of pine forest (pictures added to the pine cone collection photo album), fossils large (petrified wood) and small (insects), and frontier history (the Adeline Hornbek homestead). The petrified wood is from redwood trees - 35 million years or so ago, volcanic eruptions (they must have been huge as the volcano in question was some distance away) buried the valley - it was apparently quite lush and feature major redwoods. The eruptions buried a significant part of the redwoods - the tops died and decayed over the years - the stumps petrified. The volcanic activity also created a lake in the valley; the bottom of the lake became the resting place for insects and plants which became fossilized. Adeline Hornbek, a single mother of four, claimed land under the Homestead Act. She pushed the boundaries on traditional gender roles and became a prosperous rancher and a community leader.


From pondering fossils, petrified wood, and homesteading, we returned to Manitou Springs and the Pikes Peak Cog Railway for a journey above the timberline. We observed changing environs as the train climbed some 6,000 feet. Two elk, viewed from a distance, highlighted the trip - first time I have ever seen elk in the wild. Several deer were viewed as were numerous marmets.

Tomorrow is a little unplanned - it involves travel to Greeley, CO where we will have dinner with Sue Brown. We will see what else the day brings.

See you along the Trail.

Taft, Underground Railroad, snow

I am back - at least back writing - after a hiatus that included not eating well, not getting to the gym, not making 10,000 steps.

The good news is that many of those days were spent in Cincinnati with Tricia. We met on Friday. Saturday we went to the William Howard Taft National Historic Site. That is not one of the national parks that had been on my "must-do" list, but it is here and it is one more off the list. My passport stamp total is now 96. It will be interesting to see what is the stamp 100. I have been to more parks than those for which I have stamps having visited a number before I started using the passport. Some of the larger parks also have more than one stamp so the park count is not the same as the passport stamp count. Taft appears to have been an interesting dude. Besides being the only person to serve as President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he was also the first President to throw out the opening pitch at a baseball game.

We returned to the Homewood Suites (it's a really good place with nice folks so it gets a product placement) in Milford to watch Duke basketball. We followed that by going to see Avatar. Still processing that one. I have heard a great number of comparisons to the Pocahontas story. One parallel that occurred to me that I have not heard (which does not mean it has not been repeatedly made): as the clans gathered, I thought of the efforts of Tecumseh (Tecumtha) and Tenskwatawa to create a confederacy of the indigenous peoples in the early 1800s in what was then known as the Northwest Territory. An episode of the PBS series American Experience: We Shall Remain tells that story. I need to check it out.

Yesterday saw a trip to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. It is a haunting, wrenching, and painful experience. The human capacity for brutality and inhumanity - on an individual and corporate level is staggering. Even when one is aware of that capacity, it is staggering to see it revealed. At the same time, the stories told by the Center are affirming and inspiring. The human capacity to endure and persevere - the human capacity for courage and cooperation are even more impressive. What the people who were enslaved endured, touched me deeply. Processing this experience will continue for some time.

This morning we woke to damp streets - now two hours later those streets are snow-covered. Our decision to stay put and not try to get back to Cleveland and Louisville respectively makes sense. There is a fitness center here which I will soon visit.

Stones

Nashville, TN

I am not attending the meeting of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators. I am hanging out with Tricia - doing some minimal work around the edges - but actually kind of vacating to some extent.

I slept in until 10:30 or so. Then went to the fitness center at the Renaissance Hotel. I did 2.39 miles on the treadmill.

The afternoon saw the continuation of the quest to visit National Parks. I drove to Murfreesboro to visit Stones River National Battlefield. On December 31, 1862 and January 2, 1863, forces under the command of Gen. Bragg (CSA) and Gen. Rosecrans (USA) clashed along Stones River. The battle was fought on cotton fields and among cedar timbers and in places remembered after as The Slaughter Pen and Hell's Half Acre. 3,000 men died; killed, wounded, and missing totaled over 23,000.

I go to and come away from such places with mixed emotions: horror, sorrow, pain, pride and more intermingle. The place seems hallowed in ways I can never describe. Walking alone on the boundary trail, every rustling leaf and every squirrel moving on the ground made me feel surrounded by ghosts.

Some particularly poignant moments:

The area has been struck by tornadoes in the not too distant past. Trees are torn apart, knocked over, strewn across the parts of the park. I wondered what it looked like when the trees were torn apart, knocked over, and strewn across the ground by cannon and rifle fire.

The park contains the nation's oldest intact Civil War monument. A square column, erected by the survivors of Colonel William B. Hazen's brigade, stands surrounded by a stone block fence. The dead lie with the comrades of their respective regiments.

Outside the fence is the grave are two additional graves - those of Sgt. William Holland and William Harlan. Sgt. Holland served in the U.S. Colored Infantry, not in Hazen's brigade during the Civil War. He lived until 1909. At that time, the U.S. military was segregated. He was not buried with the others, either around Hazen's monument or in the National Cemetery across the road. This apparently was by his choice, not a continuation of segregation. The story told by the National Park Service and in an article in the Murfreesboro Post, is that Holland picked his own burial plot - on a small farm he owned next to Hazen's Monument. William Harlan was his grandson.

The Stone River National Cemetery is directly across the road from the battlefield. Looking at the rows of white crosses and recalling the number of charges made by Confederates and Federals alike, I imagined the cemetery as the place where the last charge at Stones River took place. It was also striking how many stones bore only initials.

Lots to mull. That's part of the appeal of national parks.

Step count: 16, 284.