Worland, Wyoming
Worland, Wyoming reminded her how deceptive the west could be. One moment dull and easily dismissed, the next moment impossible to ignore and impossible to measure. Miles were meaningless. They never really explained how far it was from Waitsburg, Washington to Peach...
Chaco Culture National Historical Park
Chaco Culture National Historical Park reminds us how much remains hidden from even the most knowledgeable eyes. Warm winds carry centuries of mystery curling through the pre-Columbian ruins. Archaeologists can only speculate. Their knowledge comes up short and they...
Harlem, Montana
Harlem, Montana didn’t matter anymore. The highway patrolman who pulled her over hadn’t put two and two together. She couldn’t blame him. The car’s title and her driver’s license checked out. He had no reason to search her. The collection of documents remained...
Taft, California
Taft, California took her back to her brother’s telescope. It was mid-morning. Her brother was napping in the field after an all-night outing staring up at the stars. When the pickup truck ran over him, his ribcage was crushed and his heart was punctured. The driver...
John Muir Died
John Muir died in downtown Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, 1914. He had been visiting his daughter Helen on the high desert in Daggett, California. She didn’t think it was simply a cold her father was suffering from and she was right. The illness quickly ballooned...
Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni
Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni is our new National Monument. The name has been drawn from two native languages, Havasupai and Hopi. The Havasupai Baaj Nwaavjo translates into “where tribes roam” and the Hopi I’tah Kukveni means “our footprints.” The 917,618 acres of land...
Morenci, Arizona
Morenci, Arizona stretched its tired arms and exhaled a century of sin. She was now weighing the pros and cons of vengeance. She was cottoning to the thrust of a vendetta, so gorgeously refined over the centuries in Corsica, a brittle land not unlike the American...
San Luis Obispo County
San Luis Obispo County and Santa Barbara County appear and disappear on the drive across California State Route 166. The road winds through the Cuyama Valley in serpentine coils. Most of the time San Luis Obispo County lies to the north and Santa Barbara County to...
Cokedale, Colorado
Cokedale, Colorado wasn’t far from where the Santa Fe Chief used to roll through. It was a good place to reflect on a different era and to size up the riches of unspoiled land. Not the riches sought by miners, drillers and developers, but resources not so easily...
Branch Creek
Branch Creek trickled with wavering determination from the La Panza Range down to the Estrella River. She asked her father if they could buy the land. He explained it was BLM land and not for sale. The Bureau of Land Management was responsible for looking after it....
Sloan, Nevada
Sloan, Nevada fluttered like the emerald frond of a sago palm. They put on music best suited for the middle of the night in the middle of the afternoon. This made the room, already quite small, feel even smaller. A dangerous alto sax shook the walls. Each note...
The BLM Land
The BLM land that swept away from their property stretched out for miles and slanted down the eastern slope of the Santa Lucia Mountains like a rippled roll of giftwrap. Imperceptible changes in elevation shaped two terrains into one. A palpable magnetism took hold...
Luning, Nevada
Luning, Nevada replayed its noisy spool of memories, rewound to when parades of dusty trucks rolled in. They were loaded down with magnesium from nearby mines. Ton after ton of the white silver mineral hauled in, loaded onto westbound trains and sent off for...
East of Santa Maria, California
East of Santa Maria, California, where the Santa Lucia Mountains fade into the Carrizo Plain, her parents had the little adobe ranch house built. Her father bought the plot from a rancher he played gin rummy with at the Lakeside Golf Club in Burbank. It wasn’t much...
Byers, Colorado
Byers, Colorado sealed his fate. The wind was more crafty than cruel. It threw a whipsaw flurry of unforeseen punches. He knew they were coming and when he looked up at the sky, he may as well have been looking into the eyes of a welterweight. He saw nothing but...
Rancho Cucamonga, California
Rancho Cucamonga, California slumped on the slightly poisoned fringe of the marine layer. The text instructed her to be at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at six thirty. She was to leave her phone in the car and wear a UCLA sweatshirt. She appreciated the caution. She...
The Creosote Bush
Creosote Bush, greasewood, chaparral, she considered the names more or less interchangeable. Chaparral rolled off a more romantic ring. Greasewood wasn’t a particularly antiseptic moniker. So as far as she was concerned, those nondescript plants she soared past...
Kane Springs Road
Kane Springs Road was where he wound up. Delamar Powerline Road turned out to be a boulevard of bellicose RVs so he circled back. That’s how he had come to perceive RV people, which he realized was unfair. But too often he found the fancier the RV, the more arrogant...
