It was just an ordinary brown highway sign along Interstate 8. “Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument – 75 miles” I had passed through the town of Gila Bend countless times on my way to Yuma, but today my travels took this exit instead, and next thing I knew I was four miles from…
Tag: camping
Trumpocolypse
The radio crackled, but the message came through with undeniable reality. “Dead. They are all dead. Run as far as you can before it gets you too…..” I figure to have only three minutes to gather what I can before it would be too late. Nuclear radiation will move quickly, and the undead corpses will…
my love for the Swell
He knew it, but didn’t want to face the ugly truth. This would be his last time for awhile in The Swell. He searched high and low to find a good final resting spot to be alone with his love. Through the dust cloud created by the car, he sees an old horse corral, and…
Mexican Mountain
It’s the morning golden hour in the San Rafael Swell, but I rise not to capture the sunrise, but to get my blood pumping, my heart racing, my juices flowing along the newly discovered Mexican Mountain trail. Hues of purple melt into orange bands of fire along the tips of the mountain peaks. Hawks circle…
alone in The Swell
The long, dusty road finally ends as I pull into the valley known as The Swell. Silence is all I hear when the engine dies. A murder of crows flutter about as I set up camp, re-hydrate, eat a morsel or two. The sun is quickly setting. I find myself the only soul in this…
Moose in the morning
6am seems to come earlier and earlier for me as the years pass by. Yet 6am it was as I unzipped my tent and shivered at the frosty air outside. There is nothing more refreshing than waking up outside Yellowstone. As I stretch and start quietly packing up my gear for the day, large rocks…
Time in Losee
Time. We can lose track of it, never have enough of it, even have too much of it on our hands. Really, it is all there is, never ending raindrops on a windshield. I use my time to head out into the wilderness, to a place I first saw two years ago. My how time…
City of Rocks
When my Uncle passed away earlier this month, I drove to Boise, Idaho for the funeral. On the way I passed a sign pointing to the City of Rocks. It has been twenty five, maybe thirty years since I’d been there last. Back when Uncle George was full of vigor, and I a child with…
the Salt Flats
After almost a month outside my country, the return has been a difficult adjustment. I need time to re-evaluate priorities, with no distractions. The Salt seemed the ideal place for some perspective. The Bonneville Salt Flats are so flat you seem to see the curvature of the planet, so barren not…
Myself again
Fat thunderclouds roll across clouded visions of a breast I once held dear.where are you now woman?Old skin wrinkles my mind. Sitting in the dirt of Mother Earth next to her serpentI worship the almighty sun, giver of life. Take the time for sunrises and sunsetsthe peaceful wind gently whispering melancholy.I see hope in the…
in The Swell
I first heard “licensed to ill” when I was around 14, listening to it on my friend’s walkman in the back of a van heading to the mountains to ski. The memorable times of youth. When I heard on the radio that one of the co-founders of the Beastie Boys, Adam Youch (aka “MCA”), passed…
Little Sahara
The day comes when the fulcrum of life starts tipping, slowly, toward days gone by being more than days ahead. The awareness of the limits of time, as well as the nagging suspicion that the Mayans were right, has me moving like a shark. Get busy moving or get busy dying. With Spring temperatures soaring…