I don’t know where I’m a gonna go Part Deux

The volcano keeps erupting and finally the ash came this way. Found it on the car when I left work last night and snow along the way home had turned a mild gray. Along one stretch of road close to the mountainside, it looked in the headlights almost like the scene from one of those apocalyptic movies in which you see a desolate gray landscape with only a burned out tree still standing here and there. The trees were all intact but they were definitely gray. Oddly while the ash was heavy there, five miles farther along at the house, there was very little evidence of ash, just a slight burned sulphury odor in the air and maybe a little gray dust.

This has been a time of random thoughts, one about friendships. During the last trip to the East Pole I ran into a couple of friends along the trail. I have known this couple for more than 20 years, yet we have never done anything together except meet while passing on the trail. No coffee, no shared dinners, no games of charades, just an occasional visit as we pass moving about our business in the woods. They have lived there much longer than I have been around. When I first met them they had been trying to live very purely, eschewing things like snowmachines and traveled in winter hauling their supplies using a dog team. I always admired them for that. In recent years they purchased a couple of snowmachines. They even now have an internet connection.

The thing is though we actually have very little contact, when we meet on the trail it is like greeting dear friends I see all the time. There are smiles, handshakes, a true joy that at least I feel in seeing them. We exchange personal news, hash over some of the world’s problems, discuss futures and enjoy each other’s company for that few minutes. Then we head off in our own directions maybe not to see each other for another year or two.

 But that parting is like the warm feeling you enjoy after a pleasant visit with dear friends. A friend in Chicago once said he was glad Rush Street was there. He never went to the clubs but it was nice to know they were there and he could. It is kind of like mountains here. I will never climb any of them but it is nice to know they are there. And, it is like that with these friends, we have never done anything together except meet on the trail, but it is very comforting to know they are there.

This is a very cool time-lapse photo series of one of the Redoubt eruptions.