> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://blog.novaugust.net/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Have You Ever Listened To Ray Charles - URL: https://blog.novaugust.net/have-you-ever-listened-to-ray-charles/ - Published: 2017-04-13T22:42:42.000Z - Updated: 2017-04-15T20:15:40.000Z - Author: Matt Enlow - Tags: Laramie, @jennopolis55, post, cameron pass, @maciejpikebiegunski, skiing, @gondalia, backcountry, @ken_hilton307, backcountry skiing, @nathankutcher, canada, @rebecca.lewis.climbing, Roger's Pass, Existentialism on prom night, Nokhu Crags, british colombia, #Import 2026-06-21 14:43 There's a sharp bend on the highway between Dubois and Jackson where, in the winter, I like to stop and take a pee. It's to commemorate the first occasion when I did so: with snow plowed flat on the top of the road and dancing like a snake in the wind, driving to Togwotee pass behind a large SUV piloted by a [small Swedish man](http://smaertin.com/?ref=blog.novaugust.net) \- or was it a [tall Swedish woman](http://hungryhen.wordpress.com/?ref=blog.novaugust.net)? ### Canada The first day I skied this year was a night. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3390665-Edit.jpg) I lived in my van, slept in my queen sized bed, with another man for a week or two. > "You guys are going to hate each other." them they'd say to us. But some people know how to be alone together. ![red pack](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3400199-1.jpg) ![sundog slopes](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3400136-Edit.jpg) ![smile](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3400043-Edit.jpg) ![mountains](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3390968.jpg) ![skin](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3390994.jpg) ![lookouts](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3400241-Edit-2.jpg) ### Colorado Colorado was warm; Colorado was cold. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3400366.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3400374.jpg) > "I don't like talkin' to people, but if you don't talk to people, good things never happen to you." R. Joyce ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3400819.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3400953.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3410074.jpg) > And I'll be far away, havin' so much fun Ray Charles ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3410168.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3410175.jpg) ### Wyoming A bottle of red wine; a friend with his eyes on a line. Maciej and I made the most out of four days of skiing together. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3410588-Edit.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3410666-Edit.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3410715-Edit.jpg) Sun gonna shine again. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3430545.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3410702.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3430881.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3430858-Edit.jpg) Maciej and Jenn gave me a book for Christmas. It's an old sci-fi book, my favorite sort of read, from an epoch where we still believed in us, even while acknowledging ourselves as being rotten as we were (are). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3430765-Edit.jpg) ![hump1](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3410565.jpg) > "To have knowledge of things, not to have things. If he loves and has knowledge, all is well." James Blish's "They Shall Have Stars", attributed to Weston La Barre ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3430847.jpg) --- By the time my progenitor was my age, his trust in a woman had made him a father. > "She told me she couldn't get pregnant", he says. > "That's what I thought", Mom explains. He turns to me, his right eye twinkling with mischief or tears from a clogged gland: > "Remember son. The touch of a god is *always* fertile." ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3440150-Edit.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3440173.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3440165.jpg) --- Some nights I got lost in Laramie ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3440329.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3440351.jpg) > Sometimes we get lost in abstraction > Exhale diaphanous dreams and breathe them back in Deca ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3440393.jpg) And wake up to the explosion ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3450291.jpg) of a train in the dark of the morning ### It's More Of A Paradox That We Manage ... than a problem that we solve. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3450489.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3450478.jpg) > I don't know that I love being on the road, but I know that I love it more than anything else. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/95/9b955960-2312-4b04-8b46-7e66317cd0ed/content/images/2017/04/P3450471.jpg)