Tepesquet Road
Tepesquet Road quietly slipped south off California State Route 166. The narrow road caught the radiance of the coastal range as it curled up into the Santa Lucia Mountains in gentle swerves. He drove too quickly. If he slowed down to question why he came here to...
Battle Mountain, Nevada
Battle Mountain, Nevada got her thinking. She wore a sweater of unknown odors from the past, woven in a gentle blur. They reminded her of days when she felt she was accomplishing something. But reminiscences only aggravated her. Memories of more productive times did...
Hollywood, California
Hollywood, California was once again home. A century gives a neighborhood enough time for history to pile up to into a marinade of gilded myths. That’s how it felt. It was good to be back tending bar. And it had been good working maintenance at the motel in Laguna...
Dillon, Montana
Dillon, Montana rolled over and returned to its dream. The Beaverhead Mountains were lost in the storm now. They’d known it was coming, another dry thunderstorm that turned the air inside out and made them all as if they were witnessing something for the last time....
Orovada, Nevada
Orovada, Nevada looked like a good place to stop for a drink. It was early afternoon. Out in front of the Rocky View Inn, Old Glory rippled hard on a tall flagpole. Hot wind first hit after lunchtime and hadn’t let up. Before she went in, she sat in the car, texted...
Deer Lodge, Montana
Deer Lodge, Montana shuddered, sliced up by sour wind. He would never tell anyone about the books he read because there wasn’t anyone to tell. Nobody he knew. Maybe the only people he could talk to about the three volumes of Principia Mathematica were sequestered on...
Costa Mesa, California
Costa Mesa, California kept scrubbing away at its uniformities. Like toxins they flew off the 55 freeway, penetrated the town’s skin and sank into what had once been the town’s soul. Numb uniformity dissolved orderliness. Driving north she saw the soul was gone,...
Carbonado, Washington
Carbonado, Washington began to doze off. Down below Mount Rainier in the foothills of the Cascades the river ran hard. He walked out onto the bridge and took deep breaths of the understated splendor. When he leaned over the rail, he saw how the history of the west...
St. George, Utah
St. George, Utah would work out fine with all the newcomers pouring in and plenty of boomtown distractions. Nobody would pay much attention to her. When she needed to steal a car she could easily run down to Vegas. She slipped back into thoughts she had been...
Kettleman City, California
Kettleman City, California had one of those towering gas station signs that loomed over the interstate and lit the place up like it actually meant something. Before dawn he pulled in for gas and a carwash. If he hadn’t lost his cellphone everything would be perfect. ...
Bristlecone Pines
Bristlecone pines shun coddling and eschew constant care. The wretched conditions they prefer, conditions which would serve as a death sentence for virtually any other living species, approach the unbearable. They prefer the harshness and prove difficult to...
Burbank, California
Burbank, California remained steadfast beneath the bustle, a town assured to arouse the fondest of memories. She settled into a sterile fifth floor room at the Marriott. The hotel wasn’t far from what she regarded as the unfortunately renamed Hollywood Burbank...
Meadow Valley Wash
Meadow Valley Wash, cradled in the Ash Meadows Herd Management Area, took what rain it could get. Two flavors fell. In the summer, tightly packed downbursts, dense drill bits pierced the hard earth. In the winter, rains over the Meadow Valley Wash opened up and spread...
The Broken Bit Steakhouse
The Broken Bit Steakhouse didn’t have a tomahawk steak on or off the menu. They each ordered a 24-ounce bone-in Cowboy Ribeye. She went for the Cajun Char rub and the snowboarder had his straight. She knew his burdens were too much for her. At first, she surrendered...
Ovid, Colorado
Ovid, Colorado has nothing for you. That’s what he told her but she wasn’t ready to leave. If all he could see was a cemetery lined with gravestones of dismantled dreams, if his view was limited to castoffs and collapses, tough luck. She saw the night blooms of...
Quartz Hill, California
Quartz Hill, California didn’t seem to want to draw attention to itself. You’d ask somebody where Quartz Hill was and chances are they’d swear it was up by Sacramento or outside San Jose. Rarely would anyone know. The snowboarder in the shotgun seat of the 1963...
Glasgow, Montana
Glasgow, Montana needed a name back then. In 1887 a railroad clerk, presumably a man of wisdom and whimsy, spun a globe, closed his eyes and put his finger on Glasgow, Scotland. This intrigued her to the point she could no longer stay away. So she made the trip north...
Lancaster, California
Lancaster, California appeared more quickly than she anticipated. Time turned into something fibrous. Hours tumbled into freewheeling freeway rhythms, mysterious and impossible for her to measure. She knew she needed to calm down. To ignore the whine and whoosh of...
