Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25234
subscribe to blue today ~ NIGHT PASSES ... WILL YOU? continued from page 36 Individuality blossoms when you leave conformity behind, now I'm nearest allied to red rock and sagebrush (that sentence a testimony to solar delirium). Reading and writing in the shade, I make compelling, light-headed forays out into sun for liquid- gold expulsions-always near handy-wiping sagebrush. I repeople my imagination with clones of dudes like me, all manufacturing solid stools. Seeing the first person, post-Solo, was supernatural. The guy I saw looked animal, bearing an expression indicating that he had intelligence with some remote horizon- a different, unblinking look in his eyes. He thought I looked weird too. The group gathered in a cave, consumed divine soybean hominy, then patiently shared experiences. Prior to Solo, Breck had us pick names from a hat, to identify a person you'd create a gift for during your Solo. The post-Solo exchange of gifts-ranging from whittled wood jewelry to a poem to a bone fishhook- was sappy, but real. The guy from Philly gave me a cloth pouch full of raw potato, thinly sliced and sun-dried into chips (sort of). Day follows night, and night follows day, again and again. The calendar is irrelevant. Ambivalent about retapping modern life, I leave the sheep jerky behind. TEAM EXPEDITION. We're now split into two groups of four with a mission to travel 30 miles in two days without a guide. Before heading into the river canyon with three other guys, one of them began stretching to prepare for exertion. I wonder: Do wild animals stretch-out before going for a run? Grazing as we go, our wayward posse has plenty of cuts and scrapes, some contending with infection. We alternate the leader and the sweeper, who also runs the lost and found . We traverse a chest-high river, Deer Creek, fifty times, splashing and stumbling. Several times the canyon walls pinch the river to a depth of ten feet or more. Our waterproof string- bound poncho backpacks double as flotation devices. We cling to the packs with both hands and kick our way downriver. This is more fun than playing hooky from school. A thunderstorm and close lightning strikes send us up to camp on a choice canyon shelf where I'm finally at one with Mother Nature. Nobody knows where we are. The difference between wearing the same T-shirt and shorts for 14 consecutive days in the Utah desert, and doing the same in an urban setting, is that in Utah your ensemble is periodically dunked in a crystal-clear river. You need to be athletic to handle this; prehistoric street smarts will find you later. Though I didn't learn to load a pistol blindfolded, I was becoming a new man. The mission complete, we meet the others and the guides by the muddy Escalante River for dinner- best lentils on record. Our pushed-to-the-edge buttons are reinstalled, but...it's not over yet. Our final challenge is a 20-mile, overnight walk on a deserted, paved road back to base camp. Rrrr. It's like that fight-to-the- death scene in a scary movie where the good guy thinks he's killed the intruder, and he's leaning over the supposedly dead body. The audience releases it's collective breath, and then suddenly dead man's eyes fly open and his hand comes up and grabs the good guy by the throat. Looking back, this was one of the best hikes-one more night with the desert. Finally at base camp, clock time restarts with a warp-I assume it's 11PM, is actually 5AM. I finally feel like I am one of them. When I see Cathy again I nearly blurt, "Nice ball bag," hoping to curry conclusive favor. RE-ENTRY A van ride back from Escalante to Salt Lake City starts to bring us back to so-called modern civilization-but we still smell like cavemen. The next morning it took me a minute to realize that I wasn't actually in another handmade shelter of my own making. My mirror image was weird, bearded and 15 pounds thinner-who is that I thought? Flying back to New York, I began a voracious food binge of trip le servings, extra salt and unlimited confection: wilderness detox. I looked out the window into a desert canyon with respect, and wondered: Do ants like sheep jerky? EPILOGUE Ancient cultures provided rites of passage that graduated their citizens into new levels of awareness. Today, Native Americans still practice vision quests, and Holy Communions and Bar Mitzvahs endure (though some would argue their primary benefactors are the catering companies). Getting your! driver's license, getting laid at the prom, enterinll the military, or graduating college aside, our contemporary society provides few inspiring benchmarks on the road of life. Getting in touch with th is desert did. Learning to survive, I rea lized my mind is the strongest muscle in my body. Redefine yourself by getting familiar with your limits. Manipulating the big levers of chance need not be exiled to an eighth-grade summer. After all, the earth is melted dust and we're here for a very short time. The manufacturer of my failed sneakerboots claimed they were from a defective batch, refunded my money and sent me a fearless replacement that are still performing, with soul. I ate back 5 pounds before the flight landed. And, I survived that week with my parents. D BRUCE NORTHAM'S GLOBETROTTER DOGMA COMES OUT IN MARCH 2002. IT IS AN ODE TO WANDERING. HIS BOOKS INCLUDE THE FRUGAL GLOBETROTTER AND IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURE. HIS MULTIMEDIA TRAVEL PRESENTATIONS-HELD AT UNIVERSITIES AND SEMINAR CENTERS NATIONWIDE-CELEBRATE THE SPIRIT OF CIRCLING THE GLOBE MANY TIMES, FREESTYLE. HIS MUSINGS AND DETAILS ON TRAVEL PRESENTATION ARE ON AMERICANDETOUR.COM