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

It was a bone-jarring ride in the jeep over 50 miles of sandstone desert bedrock. It took eight hours to bump and grind up the narrow four-wheel drive road. On the way we found some very unusual rock formations, an old movie set, ancient Indian petroglyphs of horned devils and lots of spring wildflowers.

Out here you need to watch for human witches (also known as skinwalkers or shape-shifters). The Yeenaaldlooshii (it goes on all fours) shapeshifter has the power to assume the form of any animal they choose, depending on what kind of abilities they need. Most commonly they appear as coyotes or owls. You can tell a Yeenaaldlooshii in human form because its eyes glow in the dark. Never look a Yeenaaldlooshii directly in the eyes because that allows them to take over your body.

The other problem is chindi. These are spirits released from people at the moment of their death. The good parts of people end at death, but troubled parts continue to wander as chindi. Usually these are malignant forces or entities that manifest themselves as whirlwinds. The clockwise whirlwinds are benign and the counter-clockwise ones are evil..

We spent some time at Thelma and Louise Point. "Thelma and Louise" was the movie that ended when Thelma and Louise, persecuted for their armed robberies and for blowing up a gasoline tanker truck, drove their convertible off a spectacular cliff.

At first, because the scenery is so impressive and varied, I was disappointed, even depressed, with the pictures. When you blow up the pictures into the full 2 gigabyte format and look at them, they begin to hint at what your eye might have seen. However, when you try to shrink the whole thing down to a 2" x 3" picture, it doesn't translate very well.

So it's not my fault, but you can look anyway, if you want to see the pictures.
http://thefirecloudreport.blogspot.com/2008/05/canyonlands-by-jeep.html

Some of the roads are wide enough for one vehicle and run for several miles on the edge of a thousand foot cliff with a rock wall on the other side. You get a major pucker factor when you meet even a dirt bike. We were lucky not to meet any larger oncoming traffic. You feel the presence of the creatures-that-throw-people-off-cliffs when you stand or drive close to the edge.

There is a climb out on a long series of switchbacks to the top of the mesa. Meeting traffic on the climb would require you to hang two wheels over the cliff. This time I screwed up my courage and did the whole drive myself instead of turning the wheel over to Mrs. Phred.

Canyonlands has some great vistas that you can reach in the family station wagon. However, the back country has enough four-wheel, high-clearance vehicle trails that it takes four or five days to do a complete circuit of the backcountry on the rims and valleys of the canyons.

>>The other problem is chindi. These are spirits released from people at the moment of their death. The good parts of people end at death, but troubled parts continue to wander as chindi. Usually these are malignant forces or entities that manifest themselves as whirlwinds. The clockwise whirlwinds are benign and the counter-clockwise ones are evil..<<

What state are you in?

In a previous version of the Oregon Trail game, when you hit a certain point west and went hunting, there was a strange twisty whirl that would whorl across the landscape sometimes. It didn't die if you shot it, and I couldn't figure out if it was a graphics glitch or intentional.
Maybe it was a chindi.

I like to think that I'm in a state of grace...but maybe it's just Utah again.

The petroglyphs here are really freaky...horned devils and shamans levitating..

All the Indians for 500 miles in every direction abandoned their homes in the year 1276 exactly and moved away. You have to wonder what kind of dark secret or nightmare they all shared.

"...Dark secret or nightmare..."

1. natural disaster
2. invasion by Borg
3. rapture
4. the Year of the Peculiar Winds *



ghiblis
canyons
howling moaning
bendy
twisty
jug bands
bagpipes
bullroarers
breaking crashing
farting laughing
banshees
zombies
we all
out of here
head down yonder
to the river
better voices
river



5. or then again, their wells might just have dried up.

* 2008 in the Central Valley

Hmmm! I was running down I-70 yesterday and they had put up a yellow diamond-shsped caution sign...."Eagles on Highway" it said...So many caution signs with pictures of deer, moose, elk, coyotes, bison, bear...no pictures of eagles...it wouldn't compute.

Like they say, eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines or end up smashed on your windshield...

Nice poem...A Xantief original?

Thank you, it kinda oozed through. Saturday mornings are like that.

credit to e e cummings for style points