Detox.. San Juan River 2014 Spring Break

 I am in the tired restless phase of being home from yet another grand adventure. There is a never ending mountain of filthy, sandy stuff to be washed dried and put away. Everything from clothes, sleeping bags to toilets (the Gruver) and coolers.  My unwilling body and wistful mind does not want to get working on this. Thus stuff is in piles around the house.  I have time, one bag, one box a day until the next trip.
 

A week on the sunny San Juan River in Southern Utah, away from the man made schedule of time, away from the winter cold of Laramie, a week away from worry over adult children and elderly mother-in-laws, a week away from the daily grind of work. I am reluctant to come home.  I am struggling with putting away gear as it means this adventure is over.
 

 It is a week directed by the flow of the river.  How fast and high is the flow rate? When will we make camp?  Do we have time to stop and explore native ruins?
       
It is a week driven by the wind, filling tents and sleeping bags with fine river sand.  The sand covers our bodies with a fine layer of dust.  It invades every crack and crevice, filling bras and panties creating unpleasant rubs for the next few days. It makes a sticky hair net in my hair, stiffening it to the form of my hat.  No need for a comb the rest of the trip, I just wear a buff or hat.  Will my hair remember what it feels like clean?

   

                                                     Time is told by the sun. When will it hit the tent
and warm us frozen occupants up, making me brave to  get out of my sleeping bag and greet the morning? We loose the sun too fast at night. We try to soak just as much up as possible spreading our needy bodies over rocks and beaches, then it is gone and it is cold.  The race is on                                                         to make dinner before the night goes black.


 
I wonder about the Native people who once lived by this river. The ones who left the drawings on the wall, who built the cities in the caves.  Who were they? Did they live with a covering of sand on their bodies like I am this week? Did they live just to survive or did they have time for celebrations, for laughing, for lounging in the sun? Were their lives directed by the ebbs and flows of the river, by the sun, by the wind, just as my week has been? Did they stay in this canyon all their lives? Never traveling but a few miles up and down river. Where did they go?  Why                                                         did they leave?
   

 Thru my eyes I saw their drawings as a news line left for the outside world.  Clan symbols, maps to drinkable water, stories of beheading, animals to eat etc.  My trip mate Alison saw them from an artist eye,

she saw them as beautiful art..  Someone took the time to chip, paint and scratch these figures thousands of years ago.  They are still there for us to see.  Their story is still being read.  Two people looking at the same thing thru very different eyes.
 

 

 I am jealous of the native canyon sheep.  He gets to stay in this canyon. He spends his time jumping from rock to rock or posing for rafters floating by.  His worry is food and shelter.  He either lives or dies, no other worldly matters to try to figure out. Mr. Sheep how hard is  your winter?What is your joy in finding the green newness of spring?
   








 I finally am beginning to see Lime Creek. This is a second visit.  Walking back just a few yards from the river and I find cool clear pools of water, they seep out from somewhere.  They are filled with green vibrant algae, the rocks and sand have a layer of white dried limestone.  It is so different from the muddy water of the San Juan.
   




 As I was peeing where the water of the river meets the bank, I watched the stream from my body cut a line through the fine river sand and silt to the river.  It was pretty in its own perverted way. I had made my own side channel.  When the river rises with its natural cycle, it will all be washed away. My mark on this land will be gone.  Nobody will know I was there.  Just as it should be.