Big Trip - 2001 - Page 12
Labyrinth and Stillwater

We kept ourselves entertained during the shaded hours by playing 50's and 60's Songburst and by reading Sunk Without a Sound/The Tragic Honeymoon Story of Glen and Bessie Hyde.  Glen and Bessie decided that they would run an Idaho Scow type boat down the Green through the Grand Canyon from Green River, Utah.  This type of boat is kind of like a horse trough, flat bottomed and not covered over.  It's a questionable boat to be using on this river due to its requirements for a fairly steep and constant river gradient.  Well they made it down to Phantom Ranch and spoke Emory Kolb who recommended that they wear lifejackets which up to this point they had not.  They refused his advice and kept going.  When they didn't come out of the Grand Canyon on schedule a major search was mounted for them.  Their boat was quickly found but their bodies never were.  There are quite a few legends that have sprung up around the story - like Bessie killed Glen and hiked out.  My take is that they were both knocked from the boat and drowned.  Having taken a swim or two in the Grand Canyon with a 25 lbs buoyant lifejacket on I could see how easy it would be to drown without a lifejacket.  Well, you might think that it was not a good idea to read about a couple that died doing some of the trip we were doing - but there are two major differences between us and them - our raft and our life jackets.

Despite the heat, we still were in very good spirits.  To us it was so much better to be on the river then it was to be at work.  Everyday your mind was busy and filled - remembering songs, watching and identifying birds, looking for inscriptions, looking for shade, reading the river and the geology exposed all around us.  Since coming back, I have the distinct (though not novel) idea that our homes and office buildings keep us separated from the natural world.  And that separation causes boredom which we compensate for with books, music, and TV and movies.  See the thing is when you are outside, your brain is kept active - what kind of cloud is that? Is that wind foretelling a storm? Are those bushes prickly?  Do they hide a snake?  By moving indoors, we isolate ourselves from that and we need to keep our brain going.  So contrary to what you might think, we weren't bored being outside day after day.