I don’t usually make concrete New Years’ resolutions. I do,
however, find some meaning in that moment when the calendar rolls over to the
next year. It’s a time to reflect on the past year, put away its baggage, turn
the page, and look forward. With all that in mind, while I wanted to add a
final chapter to the story of Steve
and the Magical Boat, after the new year it just felt strange to cross that
line in the other direction. So I was ready to be done with this trip, for
blogging purposes at least.
But just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
We’ve discussed this before, but let’s take a moment to
revisit one of the purposes of this whole operation I’ve got going on here. As
all 3 of my longtime readers know (actually, now that I think about it, there
may be more like 6), I’ve always tried to use this space to capture my
impressions of an activity, a place, or a time, and to preserve them. That’s why I
often stay up far too late just to be able to write an entry on the day its events
occur (protip: you can tell how late I stay up by the quality of the writing,
which is inversely proportional to the number of hours since I last saw the
sun). Even when my computer self-destructed in Kanab, I made sure to write out the
day’s entry longhand on a legal pad (why I thought to bring a legal pad on that
road trip is still a mystery).
That’s why, when I got home from the Land of the Midnight Derricks and was too tired
to write anything coherent, I resigned myself to the fact that the moment had
passed and that the last day would just have to remain a mystery, much like the
last day at Yosemite (when, by the way, I climbed up 1,000 feet in a mile and a
half. There. Now it’s in the blog.).
But apparently my mid-sized sedan full of followers is a
vocal bunch. So, since today’s New England
sowgasm has left me with an unplanned day at home, I figured I’d give it a
shot.
Where did we leave off?
