I have friends who say they would fly to Santa Barbara if they could, and I know a few people who DO fly to Santa Barbara rather than drive, because they can.
 My dog Solomon loves his bed behind the front seat. From it, he can keep a close eye on his favorite person. I snapped this one on US 287, south of Childress, near Wichita Falls Texas. |
I often joke that I was born with a steering wheel in my hand. I enjoy road trips, particularly long ones. My current sojourn back east for the Christmas holiday with family has been enjoyable so far. I am always moved to tears by the beauty of the west, particularly New Mexico, which is always "The land of enchantment".
Today, while driving from Santa Fe New Mexico to Childress Texas, I was struck by something. One of the reason I enjoy the road is that it puts me closer to creation. In the vast expanse of land between the Pacific and "Tornado Alley", one encounters nature, raw and unchanged since the dawn of time. Winds howl, wildlife thrives, clouds gather and disperse, the mountains and hills form the roll of terrain that was left by the creator, and other than being dug out or filled in for the ribbons of asphalt, not much has changed in over a million years.
 Ed with his dear friends Momma and Sonia Hong in front of the Hong’s eatery, Irv’s Burgers while Ed was still hanging around WeHo. Courtesy Ed Garren. |
What some dismiss as "boring landscape" is to me, a magnificent temple, an ancient shrine, a testament to the power of God. It is impossible to pass over it and not contemplate those who came before, in vehicles less comfortable, or those who walked over it on foot. One speculates at the awe the first people who saw it must have felt. To the Native Americans of the southwest, the land is sacred. To me, I simply say, it is as if the earth itself is singing, a glorious high note that pierces the lowest states of existence.
I contrast the experience of my journey, to those who fly above it. And then it hits me, when one flies; one is always in a space that has been created by humans. We leave a city of concrete and steel, enter a building, that feeds us into an aluminum and titanium cylinder, the environment is totally fabricated, designed to minimize the reality of hurtling through air at 500 MPH. We land and are released into another building, in another city.
 One night I stayed at the Wal Mart Astoria in Childress Texas. RVers and truckers are welcome at all Wal-Marts to spend the night free. By parking under the parking lot lights, my solar panels kept the batteries charged all night long. |
One has no opportunity for reflection or contemplation. Traveling is reduced to the seat under us for a few hours, with an occasional trip to a restroom in the sky.
So then I wonder, where does one find time to encounter creation? How does one contemplate the millions of years that occurred before we got here?
For years I have marveled at the folks from Los Angeles I know who have flown all over the planet but have yet to see the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, Taos Pueblo, Bryce or Zion Canyons in Utah, Yosemite or Sequoia, and the list goes on and on.
One may ask, why is this so important? I can't answer that for anyone else, only for myself, but I'll try. The Jewish Sabbath was created as a day of rest and contemplation. Ideally, one not only takes time out from worldly cares, but also focuses on the contemplation of one's existence, and how one is to contribute to the larger task of creation. We are to be co-creators with God. But we need to listen first.
 Below is an example of the trailers that FEMA ordered for the handicapped who survived Katrina. You will notice the unit has an extra wide entrance door. It has no holding tanks, and connects directly to utilities. The front is the bedroom; the back is an extra sized bathroom to accommodate a wheel chair. I've seen at least a dozen of these on the road between eastern Oregon (where they are made) and Dallas. This one was in Cline's Corner's New Mexico, on I-40. The drivers are all contractors, who get paid per mile. |
For me, being on the road is that time to listen, to feel the natural way things flow and move, and re-connect so that I may be a part of creation, rather than at odds with it.
The Pulitzer Prize winning author, Marjorie Kina Rawlings said it very well in one of her letters to her publisher Maxwell Perkins (who also published F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemmingway); "If there can be such a thing as instinctual memory, the consciousness of land and water must lie deeper in the core of us than any knowledge of our fellow beings.
”We were bred of the earth before we were born of our mothers. Once born, we can live without our mothers or our fathers or any other kin or friend, or even human love. ”We cannot live without the earth or apart from it, and something is shriveled in man’s heart when he turns away from it and concerns himself only with the affairs of men.”
Ed Garren can be reached, even in the Red America’s wilds, at