Route 200

Many Americans love their cars. I'm not one of them, but I do love what I can do with one. Since my life of leisure began in 2004, I've visited dozens of National Parks and Monuments, hiked hundreds of miles of trails, and seen thousands of stars in the night sky over a campground. Getting out into what passes for wilderness in our time and place is a balm for the soul. But the truth is, thepart I love most about these trips is the driving.

I am a great aficionado for an empty highway, especially one that leads to distant mountains, or winds through the badlands, or traces the course of a small river. I'll often follow such a road for mile after mile, going far out my way--if I even had a "way" to begin with. As much as I am a slave to my wanderlust, my great driving fantasies always involve following a multistate highway across its entire length, something I've accomplished just once--Route 200.

Like its more famous (and well-traveled) brethren US 2 and Interstates 90 and 94, Route 200 crosses the so-called northern tier of states. As highway numbers go, it is a rarity: a state highway that maintains its number across three state boundaries. (Why this is so, I've not been able to determine.) Along its approximately 1,343 mile course, it takes its enraptured passenger through, along, or over everything a blue highway enthusiast could ask for. It starts as a Scenic Byway around Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho, follows the Clark Fork River between the Cabinet and Coeur d'Alene Mountains, crosses the Continental Divide at Rogers Pass, takes in the sweeping plains of eastern Montana and the Badlands of the Upper Missouri River, and ends amidst Minnesota's Ten Thousand Lakes. You can take Route 200 to Missoula or Great Falls, or if you prefer, to Ah-Gwah-Ching (MN) or to Zap (ND). It's the front yard of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, and the welcome mat for Lake Itasca State Park in Minnesota, where the Mississippi River begins its journey to the sea. For most of its length, it's an unassuming little two-lane highway, unaware of its own grandeur, and it carries comparatively little traffic, which is best for a scenery-appreciating slow driver like me.

I had intended to tackle the more ambitious US 50 crossing this year, a three thousand mile ribbon of asphalt connecting Ocean City to Sacramento, but my financial situation will not permit this boondoggle. But it still makes a wonderful dream, and it costs very little to dream.

Water

Water is never far from my thoughts. I find it fascinating and beautiful, and always have. Water is the essential ingredient in everything we find awe-inspiring or beautiful--from waterfalls to glaciers, canyons to beaches. Nothing makes the heart sing quite like a daylong hike to a secluded alpine lake. California's majestic redwood forests are only possible because of fog. Flowing water, taking the form of a vigorous mountain freshet, a lazy lily pond, or the rolling surf of the Jersey Shore, is nature's antidepressant. The snowfields of the Sierra Nevada, the geysers of Yellowstone, the waterfalls of the Upper Peninsula--all of them water.

We all know that fresh water makes life possible, and that it is scarce: less than three percent of the planet's water is fresh, and over 99% of that is locked in icecaps, glaciers, or aquifers. Where you find fresh surface water, you find life in abundance. Only those flora and fauna that are specially adapted for arid conditions are to be found far from the local watering hold. The singular exception to this natural law is humans, whose only natural advantage in dryland conditions is the ability to engineer. For millenia, humans have tried to find ways to survive in the desert, and for millenia they have failed. Modern-day humans have technological solutions to the problem of aridity that their thirsty ancestors could only dream of. Without the ability to reroute the flows of the Feather, Owens, and Colorado Rivers hundreds and thousands of miles from their natural courses, Los Angeles as we know it could not exist. The Great Plains, once one of the world's great grasslands, is now the world's breadbasket, solely because we now have the means to pump vast amounts of water from the Ogalalla Aquifer.

But, just as our desert-dwelling ancestors found, these are not solutions so much as stopgaps. The Ogalalla is being drained far faster than it can be recharged, with the result that a massive second Dust Bowl, probably in our lifetimes, is inevitable. The damming, draining, and delivery of river water far from its natural course is having a lethal effect on western ecosystems, impacting our balance of life in ways we don't yet clearly understand. It seems that humans will try anything to find a way to live where we oughtn't.

And this is another reason why water is never far from my thoughts. I still consider my current living situation to be temporary, and constantly weigh alternative locations for settling down permanently. Many if not most of the places that attract me the most are these "oughtn't" lands. Can I justify living, or even vacationing, in places where human civilization is unsupportable, even if it is in other ways the best place for me? If I want to work on water issues, isn't it hypocritical of me to live in a place where I'm part of the problem?

'Bad' Weather

We're in the midst of a run of cold, snowy weather, as is much of the United States. There's about four inches of crusty snow blanketing the ravine behind the house, turning what often seems like a chaotic wasteland into a well-planned work of art. The trees, each having found its own preferred angle to the sloping ground, provide a lattice-like framework for the fields beyond. The neighbor's barn, usually a preposterous orange blight, now looks as if Currier and Ives themselves had placed it there. The squirrels and winter birds take to the stage on downed logs that, in the spareness of late autumn, suggested only death and decay. Set against a backdrop of white, the wandering deer appear somehow more majestic, almost like elk seen at a distance. While snow in the front of the house is a nuisance that interferes with modern, civilized life, snow behind the house only enhances and beautifies the natural life.

Learning from the Amish

I live in the midst of the world's largest Amish community, and I used to think I knew all about them. The truth is, however, that I don't understand them any better than I understand anyone else, or myself for that matter. I know that the Amish don't like to be treated as if they are an alien species; they're just people who pursue a certain lifestyle that makes them stand out from the rest of us. Perhaps that's why I've never tried too hard to probe into their beliefs and reasons for how they live, or maybe I'm just lazy. But I think there's a certain amount that we can learn from observing the Amish from a distance, even if the conclusions drawn from such observations are groundless.


To be Amish, one must be patient. Horse-drawn buggies travel slowly, especially uphill. Clothes take their sweet time to dry on the line. Non-mechanized farming is practically zen-like. Impatience is a form of stress, and while Amish life is far from stress-free, they are professionals at patience.

Eschewing most modern conveniences, the Amish also do without the headaches such conveniences bring with them. Their computers never crash, they seldom worry about the price of gasoline, and power outages mean little to them. They never have to figure out how to hook up a stereo or download a digital camera, and the switch to all-digital television broadcasting will come and go unnoticed. I don't know many people who know much about auto mechanics or internet technology, myself included, but we rely on such technologies to make our modern lives possible. The Amish rarely employ a technology they don't thoroughly understand (cellular phones being the principle exception), and thus forgo the worries that such blind reliance brings.

The Amish are exceptionally good neighbors. There are countless stories of Amishmen coming unbidden to the aid of their 'English' neighbors. I have an elderly friend who lives alone in a small house amidst an Amish neighborhood. Her neighbors keep a close eye on her, charitably providing such services as snow-shoveling while always being aware of any changes in her routine that may suggest trouble. The Amish lifestyle itself is neighborly in a passive way. They're relatively quiet, reasonably tidy people with happy, playful children. They don't keep late hours and don't generate a lot of traffic on the roads.

The Amish lifestyle is difficult, filled with hard work and relatively little leisure. There is little hope for amassing great wealth, and those that do (chiefly through oil and gas found beneath their land) have few ways to spend it. They must endure being treated as a tourist attraction or even a circus sideshow, and they do so with equanimity. I wouldn't want to live the life of an Amishman. But maybe that's because I haven't learned enough yet.