3 days, 3 quotes: Day 1…Wild country

One of the things I really love about blogging is that chance to meet people from all over the world.  One of these is Kiwi Su Leslie at Zimmerbitch.  A mutual blogging acquaintance, Leanne (a Kiwi currently in Japan; see what I mean?), invited Su to talk part in the “3 days, 3 quotes” challenge, part of which includes nominating three more bloggers in each post. Su invited me and I’ve accepted the challenge.

The real challenge, though, is that there are “So many quotes, so little time”, or at least so little blogging space and time.  The internet has made it simple to find quotes on any topic you so desire and it’s lots of fun.   If you’re interested in quotes I like, I have a category for “Quotes” on the left side of my blog.  But for today, I’m starting my three days with two quotes that pertain to something I love: the wild openness of nature.

Every summer, with only two exceptions since I was in college, I, or we, have gone to the mountains of Wyoming for anywhere from one to four weeks in the summer.  It’s our time to relax, decompress, and simply enjoy the privilege of not having to do much of anything and being able to empty our minds of the business of everyday and allow thoughts to percolate.  Growing up, our daughters went there every summer of their lives and they still want to go whenever possible.

The way up into the mountains is via an unimproved road where, when you reach the end of the paved road coming from town, a sign warns that you should have four-wheel drive to continue.  We do not, but we’ve always bought our vans with an eye to whether or not they would travel this road well and so far, we haven’t been disappointed.  Every so often, there’s talk of paving this road, something I think and hope most of the people in the area are against.  To open this part of the wilderness to all and sundry vehicles going at whatever speed they could muster, would radically change both the nature of the wilderness itself and the feel a person gets when, after creeping along at 15 mph or so, avoiding washed-out areas, and four-wheelers barreling down the road, the top is finally achieved and civilization finally left behind.  The Edward Abbey quote speaks to what I’m trying to convey here.  We need wilderness.  We need wilderness that’s not accessible with ease.  We need the “wild” part of “wilderness.”

*********************************

We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.
~Wallace Stegner, Wilderness Letter

Most of the formerly primitive road from Blanding west has been improved beyond recognition. All of this, the engineers and politicians and bankers will tell you, makes the region easily accessible to everybody, no matter how fat, feeble or flaccid. That is a lie.

It is a lie. For those who go there now, smooth, comfortable, quick and easy, sliding through slick as grease will never be able to see what we saw. They will never feel what we felt. They will never know what we knew, or understand what we cannot forget.
~Edward Abbey, How It Was

Now come the difficult part:  nominating three bloggers.  I have the same hesitations as Su expressed.  I don’t want anyone to feel ignored and I don’t want anyone to feel pressured to participate if s/he chooses not to.  So I nominate the following three bloggers today with those caveats firmly in place.  My nominees are:

Charlie at Seattle Trekker, who’s always dropping in and making lovely comments on my blog,

Alleta, in Cape Town, South Africa, the queen of finding weird and wonderful sculptures, and

Judy, at New England Garden and Thread, who’s currently getting her garden, and herself, ready for winter.

If any or all of you choose to accept the challenge, here are the rules:   Share one quote each day for three consecutive days (although I don’t care if you don’t do consecutive days) and nominate three bloggers each day.  Most of all, have fun letting us know about a few quotes that hit you where you live.