On Brand

I’ve been a fan of the Christos since Calvin Tompkins 2004 profile of the couple and their efforts to bring the Gates to Central Park. Actually seeing the Gates was one of those experiences where forming a new opinion was impossible. I had been looking forward to the project for a year. I loved it.

So when friends of Over the River emailed (I’m on their email list, of course I’m on their email list) to say that Christo was doing a signing two hours away, I didn’t really have a choice about going, and on Tuesday, I drove down to Cañon City, Colorado, one of the sights for Over the River. 

Minus the traffic getting out of Denver, the drive down reminded me of the Salt Lake City to Price, Utah leg of my cross-country journey. We did that stretch at night, and the road was unlit and winding. It was my turn to drive, and I was nervous the whole time. Still, even before we arrived at our motel, I knew I would make it, and I would look back on my time on US-6 as proof that I could get through things, or at least through long drives at night. 

The drive down to Cañon City wasn’t as hard as the one down to Price, perhaps because I use a car all the time now. The signing wasn’t crowded, but Christo looked halved without Jeanne-Claude by his side and was not as excited as I was for our exchange.

Afterward, we went to Di Rito’s, an Italian restaurant that will probably do quite well during Over the River. Normally, I wouldn’t eat at a restaurant whose name is so reminiscent of  a mass-produced corn chip, but eating there wasn’t entirely ironic. Having a meatball calzone in Cañon City, Colorado made sense in my life, just like visiting the Met to see the exhibit of Christo drawings had made sense in my life in 2004. 

However, when I overheard the owner describing his food as good, but not $75 a plate in New York good, I laughed, mostly because if you’re paying $75 a plate for Italian in New York, you’re getting ripped off. 

On Not Being in New York

So I’m on a farm north of Fort Collins for a few days, in what would be an amazing writer’s cabin except there are a ton of flies and I have to pee outside. 

A lot is going on back in New York. There was the earthquake and the hurricane, and the tenth anniversary of September 11 is coming up. My friend Jordan said there’s an energy in New York right now, a sense that everyone in the whole city is dealing with the same thing.

I can remember that feeling, and I can imagine what my life in New York would be like if I hadn’t moved. I probably would have felt the earthquake from my second floor apartment, while I was writing, or more likely, reading something frivolous online. I would have holed up with some friends in Clinton Hill and watched movies for the Hurricane. On the anniversary of September 11, I would have remembered my awkward and uncertain reaction during my first week of college, when I went to top floor of my dorm and could see smoke from the fallen Twin Towers.  

But as I write this, the farm’s border collie is playing with a dead mouse. With all the thinking that went into leaving New York, I had no idea that on August 31,^, I would be watching a dog who just licked my hand lick the inside of a rodent.

So there’s that.  Also, this is true every year.  

Car Crowding

“I don’t know if I want to be good at car camping,” Truman said on our tenth day on the road, and our fifth night in a tent.

And fair enough: car camping is neither luxurious nor outdoorsy. There are conveniences, like access to showers that take quarters and having bear-attracting odors locked safely in the car. But the fact is, you’re sleeping in a tent and cooking food on a glorified bunson burner. On our third night in Yellowstone, Truman said, “We haven’t had vegetables in four days.” We had even gone through the carrots we had brought as emergency roughage.

But after driving more than 4000 miles over three weeks, and camping in Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah and now Colorado, we know how to do it. Some tips: you can’t have too many reusable bags and bottles filled with water. Small treats, like chocolate and wine, go a long way. Buy firewood when the opportunity presents itself.

Yesterday was the last night we will spend out of a car. We knew where to stay: we found a site by a small tributary to the Colorado River. We knew how to be friendly: we ran out of fuel for our stove, but asked around and were able to borrow another camper’s spare. And we knew how to cook: we made brown rice with herring and avocado with a side of steamed broccoli.

But the pleasantness of last night was in part because we were in Rifle, CO, a small town 100 miles north of a national park I had never heard of. We’re here because Truman’s grandmother grew up here.

There isn’t much tourist industry in Rifle. The mountains aren’t too tall and the rivers aren’t too wide. But that’s what I like about modest beauty. It’s still beautiful, but there are no crowds.