Finding Home

Thoughts from the Better Half; Caitlin's post about her experience in the West.


Yesterday I did a 6 mile run in my neighborhood, tickling the feet of Mt. LeConte, a mountain that holds a piece of my soul...a piece that I will never get back without going to retrieve it. This morning I drove through a sleepy Gatlinburg on my way to work, along the West Prong to Sugarlands to return to work after a week in the great American West.

Enjoying some cocoa on Mt. LeConte

With each passing day it is becoming more and more difficult to recall, not the memories of the places themselves but the feelings these places evoked in me. Some of the things, though, are still very real and raw. I can only hope that these moments will not fade into obscure memories. It is a true fear that I will eventually forget...but my hope is that some of the feelings will be impossible to forget, because the places we visited while on our trip evoked feelings deep in my being that I have truly never felt.

Top of the Old Falls River Road in Rocky Mountain NP

I have never visited a park where I was entirely certain I could be happy living there within the first hour of visiting. I have been accused of falling in love with places too quickly, but now that I am older, I take my time of assessment more seriously. One day put Rocky Mountain National Park on my “life list”of parks in which I would like to work. That being said, this made us both nervous, we still had more parks to visit on our itinerary and a life in the park service is only so long.

The desert is a hard place to describe. I find it especially difficult the more distant the memory becomes. We arrived in Moab, UT after 7 + hours of driving from Denver. We were tired of being in the car, but really wanted to see all of the amazing things Arches had to offer. This first glimpse of the park, I will never forget. We popped into the park for about 30 minutes at sunset, going just far enough to appease our curiosity. I will never forget how the rocks of Park Avenue made me feel on this first desert night. Watching the sun warm these monuments of earth with colors unfamiliar in our Smoky Mountain home was unparalleled.

Park Avenue just after sunset.

In Arches we hiked both days of our trip, visiting what were considered to be the most iconic places in the park. Landscape Arch, longest rock archway in the world... Delicate Arch, which has become the symbol of Arches National Park over the years. Although these amazing feats of erosion were impressive, I found that it was the times spent travelling to and from these things that I enjoyed most. Midday is no time to be exploring the desert in August. The light is harsh, the park is incredibly busy and the little French/(insert any European nationality here) girls are whining, which in turn makes me whine.

Dave on his way to Double "O" Arch

Arches was a place best enjoyed about an hour after sunrise and the hour surrounding sunset...and perhaps most surprising to me...during the night itself. I have never been a night person, but sitting on a rock in the desert twilight was the closest I came to true, soul filling, vacation affirming, nirvana...albeit brief.

Me at the Windows before sunset.

Although I would love to go back to Arches in a time of year when I had my choice of rocks to sit upon, this one trip was enough to prove that we couldn’t make a life for ourselves here in this barren wash of a landscape. I would miss the trees and flowers, rain and shade, rivers flowing over our mountain home....and this revelation I will say, was a relief. For a park service career is only so long, and we have already added one park to the life list. Some places just aren’t home...and that is ok...because they are home to someone.

Edward Abbey once said of this place, “This is the most beautiful place on earth. There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary. A houseboat in Kashmir, a view down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, a gray gothic farmhouse two stories high at the end of a red dog road in the Allegheny Mountains, a cabin on the shore of a blue lake in spruce and fir country, a greasy alley near the Hoboken waterfront, or even, possibly, for those of a less demanding sensibility, the world to be seen from a comfortable apartment high in the tender, velvety smog of Manhattan, Chicago, Paris, Tokyo, Rio, or Rome — there's no limit to the human capacity for the homing sentiment.”

... It might be a tiny cabin on top of Mt. LeConte with a sunrise view of LeConte Lodge, or maybe a two bedroom house on a ridge in Gatlinburg, where you are just close enough to take a run and tickle the toes of your favorite mountain...or maybe sometime in the future, it is a home with a view of Longs Peak just outside Rocky Mountain National Park...but regardless of where, everyone should have one because a home is an important thing to have...
~~~~ Caitlin~~~~