We jump from the launch to the landing. Motion arrested, I stand on the concrete slab and try to imagine how Aghtamar, the island stronghold of King Gagik, would have appeared to a tenth century visitor.
Bow in the Sky
The afternoon passes in High Camp. We observe, lethargically, as the scattered clouds race past. One energetic system arrives overhead, threatens, and releases its moisture. It is not a heavy rain and is over nearly as soon as it begins. Afterwards, the sun reappears and peeks through the western sky.
One of the guys shouts, “Look, a rainbow!”
Excursus: Patterson's Climb 1
I return to my office to contemplate the document, “An Ascent of Ararat,” by Ward Patterson. Ward spent a decade between the late 1950s and late 1960s traveling Asia. In that decade, he logged some 65,000 miles on the road, visited 40 countries and exhausted at least three motorcycles. Later, he served as a campus minister at Indiana University and professor at Cincinnati Christian University.