here in this dreamy Colorado location again after five years. an impromptu crossing of paths. long drive from Prescott yesterday, passing through some brewing monsoon storm systems. the first in Gallup, New Mexico, rinsing the Interstate of the red dust that had accumulated for the dry months previous, and a second wave in Durango, Colorado, where the rain was falling heavily on the Missionary Ridge fire area, near Richard’s house. the air was saturated with a sour wet camp-fire smell, and on Route 250, I passed through a corner of the fire area, houses reduced to stone foundations, cars to half-melted piles of steel. forest turned to a sepia and black caricature. over/through the San Juans to Ouray and Silverton, down through Montrose, on by the Black Canyon to Gunnison. the day before Independence Day, when the President declares that there will be Fighter planes protecting all Amurikans on this special day of the celebration of freedom. bleah. I park in Gunnison, off of Main Street to wait for Chris and family to arrive from Boulder. waiting, I manage not to attract the attention of the circulating police patrol cars. at 2300 the traffic signals shift to the blinking yellow or red mode, signaling that this is still one of those towns where night time is the time to be in bed.
Chris tells the story of his flight with Jan von Richthofen, a glider pilot and the great-grand-nephew of the Baron von Richthofen, and doctoral student at the Forschung Zentrum Jülich where Chris was working on a post-doc research position.
well, we flew from the Aachen airport and he wanted to glide over Jülich where I was living, we had to put parachutes on, which I thought was strange. Jan said that we won’t need them unless we have to, and then he would tell me what to do. we apparently flew too far, however, and were beginning to head back, neither talking, while we lost altitude. a high-tension tower came and passed, followed by an audible relaxation in the cockpit, and then the Baron’s great-grand-nephew said we wouldn’t make it back to the airport. we landed in a wheat field, all I could see were stalks of wheat blurring by the cockpit, hoping there wasn’t a tractor or other implement in the field.
we finally stopped, Jan said I should wait there with the glider, while he went for help, catching a ride on a horse cart, telling me to tell any farmer who came that we had insurance for this. I read the insurance papers.
some lady came out walking her dog, a friend of the farmer, then the farmer came out, he recognized that I was an American, but then the farmer’s brother came, and wanted 100 marks because it would take him time to fill out the paperwork and wait for the insurance money. this was not the first time this had happened. we went back to the airport where Jan had to buy everybody a beer.
a hike up Mill Creek to a cirque of brecciated cliffs and hoodoos towering a thousand feet up above the aspen, spruce, and fir. barefoot in the creek, relishing the sensations that seem as strange and enlivening as any impingement to body wall during time passed here, now. drenching rain falling on us on the way back to the car, wet there and the dryness only a few hundred meters further, where the rain did not fall. water and the West.