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1. Diwas dulal

Abbey and Porter both proceeded with the trip “Down The River” with the desire to be around nature. In their journey, their main objective was to flee through that place in silence and find meaning for their same cycle of living life. While thinking, they created the idea of floating down the river on their boats for a couple of days avoiding everyone through the flow of the river. In the text, it states, ”A human shout reaches our ears from the west shore. A man is waving at us from the landing of old Hite’s ferry. A warning? A farewell? He shouts once more but his words are unintelligible. Cheerfully waving back, we drift past him and beyond his ken without the faintest intimation of regret”(Desert Solitaire, page 154). The feeling they had Down the River is something close to bloody murder. In the text, it states “The freedom, for example, to commit murder and get away with it scot-free, with no other burden than the jaunty halo of conscience. I look at my old comrade Newcomb in a new light and feel a wave of love for him; I am not going to kill him and he—I trust—is not going to kill me”(Desert Solitaire, page 155).

Many of their experiences were with their feelings towards the people encountered. They think of life as a set schedule for things to see their wives, job, and other life sources repeatedly even like a burden. In the text he says, “...what incredible shit we put up with most of our lives, the domestic routine same old wife every night, the stupid and useless and degrading jobs, the inseparable arrogance of elected officials, the crafty cheating in the slimy advertising of the businessman…”(Desert Solitaire, page 155). In their way of thinking, as the people on the shore, they are crossing and talking to them from far away, they are forcefully waving back knowing the fact that all of it does not matter and is giving their life no meaning. They say that “I’m thinking, at the same time that I’m waving goodby to that hollering idiot on the shore, what intolerable garbage and what utterly useless crap we bury ourselves in day by day, while patiently enduring at the same time the creeping strangulation of the clean white collar and the rich but modest four-in-hand garrote!)”(Desert Solitaire, page 155). Their goal adjusted to finding themselves and finding meaning through their experience.

2. Amanda quillen

Both authors are trying to bring awareness to this Glen Canyon wilderness area that they believe should be preserved. Just as John Muir and the Sierra Club advocated to save Hetch Hetchy. They both are trying to savor the last experience with this wilderness area before it is filled with water to benefit the barren desert regions of our country. "Before Glen Canyon was drowned. Abbey saw part of Glen Canyon but enough to realize that here was an Eden, a portion of the earth's original paradise." (Desert Solitaire p.152) I really appreciated the correlation Abbey made that man had become so civilized he would have to adjust to such a peaceful life in wilderness. "If necessary, we agree, a man could live out his life in this place, once he has adjusted his nervous system to the awful quietude, the fearful tranquility." (Desert Solitaire p.159) . One other point made within the reading; when a man goes so long in civilized society that he forgot he detests civilization, until once again he experiences the natural environment that civilization is slowly destroying. ..."racing against the time when the people of America might possible awake to discover something precious and irreplaceable about to be destroyed. (Desert Solitaire p.165) It was a large task bringing awareness to people that had never seen the canyon and all it had to offer. The wildlife, the water source and the natural beauty that would forever be drowned by a flood of water to create a dam for civilized areas and their convenience. The government never cared it would destroy much wildlife, organisms, and the entire food chain that supplies each creature with substance to survive in their wild environment. Glen Canyon is another American treasure lost to infrastructure and development.