Did You? 01997 Did you ever dance with the Devil in the pale moon light? Two and a half weeks ago, I sat in my apartment, if you can call the four walls that define my space an apartment, and I looked at my laptop, and I asked myself, "why am i here?" Not in the metaphorical sense -- literally, "why am i sitting in Chicago right now?" If you work the web, and you have a laptop, a cell phone and solar panel, your office is wherever you plunk yourself down. You should see where i am right now -- but i get ahead of myself. So, in the span of literally 45 minutes, I collected my electronic gear, and I collected my camping gear, and precious little else (besides of course my faithful Finnegan, a boy and his dog, natch). And I got in my car, bought some groceries in a hasty nod at planning, and set out westward like a bat out of hell. In a scant 30 hours I arrived in Jackson Wyoming, where I have spent most of the past two weeks. Hiking, camping, and working. Yes working. Not to spoil my trip, no no. People would see me tapping away outside my tent (yes, I stayed in a tent all but two nights) and with genuine concern, ask, "you're not *working* are you?" I had such a lovely time explaining that this, these mountains, this is my office at the moment. Because I want it to be. I went on several hikes away from the machine, and I spent many days in a cyber cafe of sorts jacked in to nothing but the machine, but mostly, I looked at and walked on the mountains, which was the point. Because I had the dog, I actually couldn't go into Teton National Park, so I spent my time in the national forest - in the Bridger-Teton Forest, and further south, in the Wind-River area near Green River and Clear Lake, for those who know the area. It's quite amazing to spend as much as four days without seeing a single soul, any another sign of a human being, not a light, not a power pole... in short, nothing. Nothing that is except the glorious earth on which we all sit. I could describe the various scenes, the mountains I saw, but it all blurs - it's hard without pictures, isn't it? So I will describe just one, this final scene for you: It's 3:41 am. There are bugs on my screen, and I'm being bitten by mosquitos in my office. I am sitting in a collapsible camping chair, my whisper-light stove humming away making coffee for me. An elk moans on and off in the distance. I am at the base of Devil's Tower, under the light of a nearly full moon, and it is truly awesome. The wind is or was whistling through the pines that surround the tower, sometimes merrily, sometimes eerily. Rising up I know not how high are the columns of rock that form Devil's Tower. It sits starkly against the sky, a sky filled with stars and ever oh ever so big. If you've spent too much time in the city (and god knows i have), it's hard to remember just how big a sky can be, how wide a road the Milky Way cuts across the stars. In the background, growing ever more distant, lighting flickers flickers flickers snaps, lighting up the sky soundlessly -- it is far away now. The crickets chirrup merrily, and Finnegan has oomphed down beside me. My coffee is hot and ready now, I think I'll knock off early, drink my brew, and go. Go and dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight. neil