Saturday, September 17, 2005

Rock It!!

Between Whitehorse and Watson Lake in the Yukon, there are over 100 miles of names, created in rock, on the side of the road. On every bank, on the little hillsides and any flat space that can accomodate a few rocks.

We wondered who started this fun little way to leave a mark in nature and decided on our way back through, we would add our name to the group. We wanted to leave our mark in the Yukon, too.

We chose a place high on the hillside to add our monikers - ED and SALENA. If you click on the picture, you'll be able to see it more clearly.

It was hard work climbing the hill and trying to stand there without sliding down as the incline is steeper than it looks. As you might have guessed, Ed did most of the work. I bitched about the climb up, the gnats, the dirt that got in my sneakers and the heavy rocks.

Thank God my man isn't afraid of a little hard work, because if it were left up to me, the hillside would have read...

ED and SA.

2 comments:

Rand said...

Liked your blog, that is until I saw this post.

If you saw a hundred crackheads light up a rock, would you rush to do the same? How about the proverbial hundred idiots leaping off a bridge? Not to put too fine a point on it, but vandalizing nature (carving your name into trees, scratching it onto rocks, etc) is extremely repulsive.

The Daily Rant said...

I responded to Rand on his blog, but I'd like to share it with you all too. Here is my comment back to him:

Dear Rand....

I see that you visited my blog today and commented on the Rock It! post.

Please let me put your mind at ease. I agree with you 100% regarding vandalizing nature. I would never do that.

In my travels, I have seen some SPECTACULAR scenery and in addition to the beauty of the United States, the pristine beauty in the Yukon is beyond what my words can describe. I am usually always in awe of the beauty of nature, but up there, in addition to nature, you have wildlife. Creatures that just roam free right before your eyes and it is spectacular.

So, I just want you to know that we did not carve our names into any trees and we did not scratch it into rocks.

It might be hard to see in the picture, but possibly if you enlarge it, you can see that the names are made up of other rocks in the area, placed on the ground to spell out your name. Some of them, you can tell, have been there for a very long time as they are soldily packed into the dirt - maybe they sunk in when the rains made the dirt softer. Some of them have flowers (or weeds) growing next to them. I thought it was a cool idea, the way someone first must have thought to do that. It's sort of like drawing your name in the sand with a stick, except this way, it stays with nature forever.

And as far as the signpost forest, it's got a great story to go along with it and they don't actually use any trees. You can read about it here: http://www.yukoninfo.com/watson/signpostforest.htm

In closing, I can see your concern and I would love to invite you back to the blog and read some more. I really do try to be entertaining (please...my family and friends are relying on me!!) and show people the places I've seen.

If you'd like to respond, you can do so on my blog or you can email me at TheDailyRanter@aol.com.

Looking forward to your return! And by the way...loved your "What can brown do for you?" post.

Sincerely,
The Daily Ranter
www.bellavenere.blogspot.com