Choices

Tracks of the StoneBear  RT BNF = Banff, BC/ Alberta journey

ROF = Ring of Fire journey

RT British Columbia/ Alberta, Canada

August 2014  BNF 14  

I thin this pretty well sums it up.

 *****

While tracking through the back roads of these journeys the paths come across many and varied things; some spectacles of wonder like the previous RTs on the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton... or on this RT- Road Trip - Jasper, Alberta, Canada via Icefields Parkway,... some the most plain, non - eventful places.  There is an amazement in both places.  It's simple to say - you just have to look for them.  True enough; easily said. So simple. or is it?

I wondered at times why there was no one else-- very few-- at these places. Most places were off the beaten path / the road less traveled. Saw people in the big RV bus thing sitting inside watching CNN & thought WTF! ; saw a lot of people in a hurry going nowhere. Each to his own...

What I observed was most people don't know what to look for. Some do.  It also seems that most don't even care.... could care less. ... there just seems to be a hollow spot where curiosity could live; maybe it's strangled out of their psyche.  Maybe it's the anchor pulling the rope around their neck into the depths of indifference. Most don't know how to look at places and things,.... to see places and things,... because they don't know how to look.  How to be curious.... ?How to find a fossil,... simply for the sake of knowing that something took place.... maybe something significant... right there in the place you are seeing / experiencing/ standing.

Primitive man hunted, tracked, stalked, and killed their game using every sensory / curiosity skill for their survival. Our modern day zip into Hardees at noon for a burger seems to have muted if not erased those natural inborn survivor instinct skills.

The most overlooked, everyday , interesting things / places are often right in front of you; you have to discover the knowledge in them. When you experience the parts of the puzzle,... the history, geography, archaeology biology, economics, culture, ect... ... the picture of some of the most mundane and ordinary places become alive,... and unique.  Don't worry about the hordes driving by without a thought. Let them go by in their SUV; they wouldn't get it anyway.  

You never drink twice from the same stream.