Azz izz beeK!umming YoozYooUhl, bennawhile since the pree(dee)vee-ous post, here.  “Nothin’ much going on in Grand Junction” — so the daily nooze-paper headline should read.  “Related stories through-out.”  However, un-deterred (de-turd?) …

I went on a (okay: cannabis-aided) hike yesterday, wif da dorgz, uv coarse.  Intent was, to go ’30 minutes’ beyond the last indication of trash.  Off-road ATV tracks.  Campfire rings with broken glass and food-containers and lots of shot-gun shells and just, well, signs of brain-dead slobbification in general.  Doesn’t have to be specific.  You know what I mean.  And how drunk and/or how sub-human does a group have to be to do whatever it is (or isn’t), and LEAVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES AND BLANKETS AND GAWD-NOSE-WHUD-ELSE SCATTERED ABOUT?  (Wish I’d seen THAT sort of phenomenon much less than I have).

Thirty minutes “beyond”?  –> THAT was the tenuous and temporary standard I decided was, at some level or another, having truly ventured into “the wilderness.”

And so, we hiked.  Should have parked a mile or so further up (we’ll do that if there is a “next time”) and ambled along the Gunnison River rim on the west side heading south from Whitewater.  Got to a valley, almost a canyon, behind me were the signs, of course.  Decided to go straight down, then up the other side to the ridge-top to the south … and, no trash.  No discarded human artifacts.  No vehicle tracks!  We had gone “30 minutes” past the last indication of recent human (especially sub-human) activity.  Take a deep breath.  Somewhere inside of me … you … all of us … we NEED the wilderness.  To visit, and not remain.

Plainly Visible in the Dark (original post title) — (it was either that, or “hiding in plain sight” — a phrase which is inextricable amongst the lexicon).

Mickey either hides, unintentionally, or is somewhat visible in the gloominess lurking in this otherwise bright sun-shiny day.

A recent run con los perros above Cactus Park in the 9-Mile Hill MicroWave Tower area.  That location is a staple, for Betty and I.

Another time, a bike ride this outing, Ja-ja & RockSea peer intently below the Land’s End Road just past the pavement end.

The Book Cliffs to the north of the Grand Valley more-or-less alpenglowingly shimmer …

Below, Betty has been constructing her … uh, Day of the Dead?  the End-of-Times BoneYard Metaphor? an assemblage, none-the-less (or less-is-more) of various desert offerings we have encountered.  Perhaps this is a statement of either our collective mind-sets when sojourning in the high desert, or how we regard everything, or, at any rate, is her statement of How She Sees Things.  The Way Things Are.  The No Trespassing sign warns miscreants that passage beyond where that sign was posted, including theft of the sign itself, will result in a big and painful slap on the wrist of the offender.  Appropriate for this part of our yard!

A yucca circle in the North Fruita Desert.  Something ever-so-slightly less boring than the more-or-less boring landscape through which we ventured.

Betty points to the daily 12:00 from Salt Lake flight coming our way.  And, yes, the clouds seem a bit-more-weird than usual.  What is “usual” with respect to clouds anyway?

And just today I had a conversation about my soon-to-happen experience with “the Blue Light.”

I had just concluded an annual running race I put on, and was talking to two fellow (fellowess, actually) cancer patients afterwards.  I have recently been diagnosed with a form of skin cancer, which puts me in the “cancer patient club” — for the second time.  I told them that this variety will kill you in 20 years, instead of 5 or 2 or so, being a “mild” form.  Part of the treatment is to have one’s afflicted body parts (my lower legs, in this case) coated with some kind of plaster.  After waiting an hour or so for the ‘plaster’ to set, then one would go into a chamber where the plastered-parts would be exposed to some sort of “blue light.”  A few questions, inevitably, arose.  What kind of Doctor was I seeing?  I assured the questioners that there was an “M.D.” after his name — and not “witch doctor” or Naturopathic or Wiggy-Waggy-Healer extraordinaire.

Rhonda suggested I scrutinize the fine print of the treatment documents — to ensure that it was not the end-of-life Blue Light I would be ascending to.  Hadn’t occurred to me.  I’ll be wary of that.

To make matters worse, Sheryl (who was listening in and NOT a member of the cancer club) postulated that it could be that I’d end up in K-Mart, as the announcer of some sort of special(s).  Hmmm … even scarier than the other prospects.

Jake (being, as should be obvious, mostly canine in nature and aspect) is, most the time, concurrent with and enmeshed in the cosmological order.  Not being canine, nor (most the time) conveniently concurrent, (below) Rosco meditates (or, lacking the ability to truly ‘meditate’, conjectures and muses).  In the yucca patch.

So … Om, home, Vrindavan, the wilderness beckons.  Or, in this case, the Inuk north of and across the River from the Kannah Creek confluence with the Gunnison River.