Mountain Roads

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IMG_3449I’ve driven on mountain roads in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and New Mexico, but I’d never before seen roads like the ones I’m encountering in the Sierra Nevada mountains. These roads have so many twists, turns, curves, and switchbacks. For the first few weeks, driving these roads made me carsick. I’d never gotten carsick while driving before.

My body must have adjusted because I’m not getting carsick while driving these roads anymore. However, I know the curves are on my mind because I dreamed of one on a recent night.

In the dream, I was driving my van. In the dream, I was driving my van too fast. I was also fiddling with something (my MP3 player, I suspect), not paying proper attention to the road. I was on a curve sooner than I expected, and I took it too fast. Next thing I knew, I was off the road, barreling through the grass. I don’t remember trying to stop the van. I do remember crashing through the wall of a barn. I felt the forward motion clearly. I felt the resistance of the wall clearly too.

At that point, in that weird way of dreams, I was in the back of my van, lying in the bed. The van was still moving fast, and I knew the outcome was not going to be good.

Then I woke up, relieved to realize I had not actually crashed my van through the wall of a barn. I was lying in my bed in the first feeble light of dawn, waiting for my heart rate to slow so I could try to get back to sleep. That’s when I heard the hooting of an owl.

Owls, in Western tradition, are harbingers of doom and death. According to http://www.owlpages.com/articles.php?section=Owl+Mythology&title=Myth+and+Culture, “in early Rome…to hear the hoot of an Owl [sic] presaged imminent death…In English literature the Barn Owl [sic] had a sinister reputation probably because it was a bird of darkness, and darkness was always associated with death. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the poets Robert Blair and William Wordsworth used the Barn Owl [sic] as their favourite [sic] “bird of doom.”

I hadn’t heard an owl hoot since I arrived in the Sierras in May. But here was one hooting long and loud moments after I’d dreamed of taking a curve too fast and wrecking my van.

You can bet the next time I drove those twisty mountain roads, I took the curves nice and slow.

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I took these photos of curvy mountain roads.

About Blaize Sun

My name is Blaize Sun. Maybe that's the name my family gave me; maybe it's not. In any case, that's the name I'm using here and now. I've been a rubber tramp for nearly a decade.I like to see places I've never seen before, and I like to visit the places I love again and again. For most of my years on the road, my primary residence was my van. For almost half of the time I was a van dweller, I was going it alone. Now I have a little travel trailer parked in a small RV park in a small desert town. I also have a minivan to travel in. When it gets too hot for me in my desert, I get in my minivan and move up in elevation to find cooler temperatures or I house sit in town in a place with air conditioning I was a work camper in a remote National Forest recreation area on a mountain for four seasons. I was a camp host and parking lot attendant for two seasons and wrote a book about my experiences called Confessions of a Work Camper: Tales from the Woods. During the last two seasons as a work camper on that mountain, I was a clerk in a campground store. I'm also a house and pet sitter, and I pick up odd jobs when I can. I'm primarily a writer, but I also create beautiful little collages; hand make hemp jewelry and warm, colorful winter hats; and use my creative and artistic skills to decorate my life and brighten the lives of others. My goal (for my writing and my life) is to be real. I don't like fake, and I don't want to share fake. I want to share my authentic thoughts and feelings. I want to give others space and permission to share their authentic selves. Sometimes I think the best way to support others is to leave them alone and allow them to be. I am more than just a rubber tramp artist. I'm fat. I'm funny. I'm flawed. I try to be kind. I'm often grouchy. I am awed by the stars in the dark desert night. I hope my writing moves people. If my writing makes someone laugh or cry or feel angry or happy or troubled or comforted, I have done my job. If my writing makes someone think and question and try a little harder, I've done my job. If my writing opens a door for someone, changes a life, I have done my job well. I hope you enjoy my blog posts, my word and pictures, the work I've done to express myself in a way others will understand. I hope you appreciate the time and energy I put into each post. I hope you will click the like button each time you like what you have read. I hope you will share posts with the people in your life. I hope you'll leave a comment and share your authentic self with me and this blog's other readers. Thank you for reading.  A writer without readers is very sad indeed.

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