h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Monday, 5 May 2008
Bluff, Utah to Mexican Hat, Utah

At 4:32 AM this morning the International Space Station became visible in Bluff, Utah. It wasn't as bright as I expected it would be. You would think anything with a $190 million dollar toilet would be dazzling.

The raft trip departs near Bluff at 8 am and ends up in Mexican Hat, 26 miles downstream, around 5 pm. Our guide, for some reason, wears a striped blue necktie with his straw hat and tennis shoes.

The first stop is a sandstone wall with 150 yards of petroglyphs. The earliest of these may date back 10,000 years to Clovis Man. More elaborate designs are about 1,000 years old by the basketweaver culture. I suspect that the ones that say "BLM Sucks" are fairly recent additions. One recurring enigmatic design appears to be Kenny from South Park. A petroglyph is carved into rock. A pictograph is painted onto the rock.

We see Indian ruins, after a 1/2 mile hike, a little later in the morning. These were homes of the Anasazi, ancestors to the local Zuni, Hopi and Ute tribes. The cliff shelter forms a natural amphitheatre. I can clearly hear the group conversations from 100 yards away. You can imagine voices from the inhabitants on a warm summer day.

We run into some mountain goats about halfway though the float.

It's interesting to watch the layers of sandstone along the river. One yellow layer traps petroleum. Sometimes it dives into the earth, sometimes it reappears. Mrs. Phred claims she can smell oil. The red layer is Navajo sandstone, petrified ancient sand dunes. There is one very old layer called Paradox. It is believed to have originated near the equator, in a shallow sea, back before the continents drifted apart.

The thing about the yellow layer of rock is that it's fairly impermeable. If you can find a place where it folds up into an anticline, the low density oil and gas bubbles up and accumulates at the top of the dome or fold. It's the kind of structure that gets oil geologists really hot.

Here are somepictures I liked. My favorite is the desert bee wallowing drunkenly in a prickly pear cactus flower.
http://thefirecloudreport.blogspot.com/2008/05/san-juan-river-raft-trip.html

Still nomadic?

$190 million dollar toilet... I tell ya, astronauts get everything.

Yah...still roaming...

Skankyrich told me he might put some of my journals in , so I'm in the process of boring those poor souls, such as yourself, who were foolish enough to put me on their friends list.

We spent yesterday in the deep Nevada desert with my bother. We found a pond on the margins of the great salt lake desert. The mosquitoes were really bad. I think I have West Nile Virus.

Today we looked at some of the Mormon buildings in Salt Lake City and watched a two-hour movie about Joseph Smith (who found a loose leaf binder book of new revelations etched on gold leaf under a rock in a language that only he could read)...cool stuff. I have been talking to Mrs. Phred about converting.

A couple Mormon missionaries visited the house Saturday. They looked at me and asked me if I knew anyone in the neighborhood they could preach to.

I think I was too polite. The four that came to my house spent an hour. It was like what you call a "Mexican Standoff"...They were not convinced that mankind currently lacked the brainpower to fathom the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything...nor was I won over by their positon....however. I did get a new bible out of the deal...They left with the number 42.

I was sorta surprised that my visitors relented so quickly. Of course, it helped matters that I was [legally] minimally dressed at the time, and under the influence...the poor folks have a problem with nature, that's a sure warning sign right there.

The fellas left me with "Well, enjoy your evening", and it didn't really sound as snippy as it might.

I get a kick out of driving to the sun camp Sunday mornings, watching as the churchies scurry to their sabbath barns, while I, on the other hand, wend my cheerful way to the Park of the Sun...Sun-day, right?

Ave Deus Solis Invicti! [sp?]

But anyway, in a faceoff with the IFBs, LDS or J-Dubs, I present myself as Gnostic, which is kinda accurate, as Christian philosophy goes...a gnostic animist zen pagan Solarian. Yeah.

As I recall from my research on mythical things, every river has its associated spirit, a minor goddess or nereid. I met one on the left bank of the Cosumnes a few weeks back, but have not seen her since... I don't think too much of her taste in beer, but I'm sure she could enjoy something more noble... that is, if she accepts my invitation...

In post three you think about converting to Mormonism, in five you try to convert Mormons to hootooism...

Was browsing the library and stumbled across Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Since you kept mentioning it, I brought it home. Hope it's good.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance....I've given away more copies of that than the Mormons have distibuted bibles...

It's about the nature and meaning of academic quality...the bulldozer of the scientific method...how to tighten a bolt without stripping it...how to enjoy travel...insanity...

My favorite book, next to Catch-22... Hope you like it...let me know...

heheheheheh ..

ZMM ... my talisman ... my lodestar ...

the book of books ....



H

lodestar .. good word .. if it means a guiding star .. a direction finder ... which I think it does ....

Sun-Day! yay bro .. you got it ..

one day, on a naked Sunday ... I received a visit ..

(pause for mystery) ...



river spirits .. .. hope your good lady returns ...

I felt the presence of a Thames river spirit once ... I think .. but it could have been the effect of having had to immerse myself in its not too pure waters ...and ingesting various unidentified floating objects .. whilst at Womad Festival in Reading .. in a heatwave ...

Yes it's good!

I read it once, to me it's like Siddhartha meets the Dharma Bums meet Alice in Wonderland, no put-down intended, not at all. A wrench-bending madman myself, I can certainly relate.

I read it at a vulnerable moment in time. I had picked up a hitchhiker with a backpack while driving out of Tallahassee on the way to Tampa. My ten-year old son was in the car and there were four innertubes in the back of the station wagon. I asked the hiker if her would mind driving 50 miles out of the way to do a 2-hour float down the crystal-clear Itchentucknee River...He said "Wow Man!" and gave me a dog-eared copy of ZATAOMM....I read it...and again...then I underlined every pertinent and important thought...almost every sentence was underlined...then I started buying extra copies to give away...I'm a believer...

My belief is mainly relected in the joy of a properly cleaned, tightened and lubricated motorcycle chain...I hate Kelvar chains...they're maintenance free.

The Chain Ouroboros eats the spinning sprocket and transforms into a shimmering loop of torque.