In a Funk and No Time for It

3funk
noun: a depressed state of mind.

I have been in a particular state of mind I like to call a “funk.” It’s not a deep depression, or an anxiety, or even just tedium, although I think that’s a factor. Since I have returned from my vacation, I can’t stop dreaming about Green River Utah. This little oasis in such a vast expanse of some of nature’s most glorious vistas and natural formations sits like an emerald in a craftsman’s setting. I dream of living there.

In reality, I would need to win the lottery to move to Green River. Green River has a population of about 900 people. The only work, for the most part, is service jobs that support passers-by and tourist on I-70. In my dream of living in Green River, I don’t worry about money, and each day, I head out to Arches National Park to explore.

When Ben, our friendly host at the Best Western River Terrace, pointed us to Arches National Park, he emphasized that we may want to take a look at a particular stone structure as it was doomed to the same fate as our “Old Man of the Mountain” in New Hampshire. We nodded obediently, our eyes wide as he described the wonders we were in store for that day. We fully intended to view and photograph Wall Arch.

If you have followed this blog, you know that Canyonlands National Park took a larger chuck of our time than we anticipated. When we reached Arches we didn’t have the time to ride the 40 or 50 miles into the park to view the Wall. We settled on some other well known formations closer, with the intention of visiting one more park before the days end. In Ben’s description of the crumbling wall, I envisioned that a few more years were all it had. How wrong I was. In last night’s news broadcast Andy and I saw this:

Stone arch collapses in southern Utah park.
Wall Arch fell sometime last week, though no one reported seeing it fall. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26123410/

Somehow this small news segment has impacted and given validation to the thought patterns that have plagued me for a few years now. There is not enough time left to do all I need to do. I am not alone in this thinking. I was reading a rider friend’s blog the other day and in the words he wrote I felt as if he were in my head. Here is his quote “Maybe it is my age, where I feel like I don’t have enough time to do all the things I want to do. Funny thing is I don’t know what those things are, but I am sure they will come to me.”

Well, spending a few years in Green River has “come to me.” I can’t shake it. It plagues my waking hours as intently as it plagues my dreams. Lee asks me to imagine that those who commute through Spotted Wolf Canyon on their way to work from Green River ever see it anymore. He is trying to tell me that the novelty wears off and it will all too soon become routine. I’m sure this is possibly so, however, until I have witnessed the canyons under every possible weather condition, the slant of the sun and its effects during every hour of daylight, or the 365 days of the year loop, then it will be routine. This one thing I do know for sure, it is evident that none of us have as much time as we think we do.