Wanting Versus Having

It is strange how a person can skip visiting certain areas, year after after, despite being close to them and saying that they really want to get there "next time."  I have said that when camping in northern Utah on the edge of a plateau 3000 feet above town.  A couple miles from my usual campsite, a small copse of aspen seems to hang near the edge of the plateau.  Something about it is so alluring. 

There is a small, fine rectangle around that copse in the top middle of this photo:

The copse has always seemed so desirable, so noble and pure, and yet so unapproachable. I have yearned for it like a knight in the Middle Ages romanticizing getting to Jerusalem or meeting a beautiful damsel, unapproachable behind the high walls of her castle.  

The scalloped walls of the intervening canyon can be seen as dragon's teeth that make the approach impossible.  But the copse was approachable on another road.  Somebody said the road was rough but in fact it was an easy road.  I was disappointed -- I had hoped to struggle through an hour or two of noble suffering to get to the mysterious copse.

The strange thing is that I am now camping near and bicycling around the noble copse, but can barely recognize it!  Never have I had to dodge so much cow crap.  Ah well, that is the difference between yearning and getting.

There was a great repartee from Mr. Spock in the original Star Trek series (season 2, the episode "Amok Time.")  He lost "The Girl" to a rival, but was quite a good sport about it.  He told the winner, "She is yours.  After a time, you may find that 'having' is not so pleasing a thing after all as 'wanting'.  It is not logical, but it is often true."  

But as these photos show, I really have no complaint about 'having' that lovely copse on the edge of the plateau, after all these years.

(At this point I could easily break into my standard stump speech about the importance of preserving the romance of travel versus 'spilling the beans' to newbies.  But the long-suffering reader has already sniffed that one out.)