We Took the Trip

Sansaku: We Took the Trip

4/25/24

I dreamed of sea captains and good food.  Each of them cooked a special meal.  The dream was a series.  Garon and Jane the two captains.  I felt more like a mate.  On a voyage to find the Big Crane petroglyph, we took the long way, two times.  I slept well last night.

We missed the turn to Butler Wash and stopped at the cut on Comb Ridge.  A view to die for.  Then back-tracked to the unmarked road.  A long drive over slickrock and sand.  Also unmarked, the turn to the trail.

The floor of the wash is smooth, sculpted sandstone.  Deep furls and waves of slippery rock.  Hard to walk on.  We climbed a sandy bank and began a long ascent.  Chunks of jasper and polished stones.  Bands of slickrock.  Ancient juniper, flowering cactus and blood red paintbrush.

Not more than a mile for crows, the trip took four hours and nine-thousand steps.  We ascended and descended.  Knew we were close, but couldn’t find the panel.  Then Jane with her eye for pattern pointed.

Higher on the ridge than we expected.  The approach a long slope of slickrock and scree.  We stayed for a timeless time.  The design the artist pecked in the cliff was simple and profound.  Next to the crane a globe that was circled.  Maybe the sun, maybe an egg, who knows.

With satisfied souls we stumbled down the slope and found the car.  Someone was there.  Almost immediately he said: “I’ve recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer, but treatment hasn’t begun.”  I wasn’t surprised and let him know, me too.  He wanted to talk.

The drive down the wash into Bluff didn’t take very long.  Soon we were back to our home in the cedars. Garon documented the trip with photos that he crafted into a slide show. We took the trip repeatedly. (I don’t know why it underlined or how to correct.)