I can’t miss this, I thought. A number like this only happens once in a car’s lifetime. These miles were all my miles. All in my 2013 Toyota Rav4 work car. I did the math in my head. If I went to Death Valley once a month for five years, that would be sixty months. […]
Continue reading →Perched on a rectangular wall sign above gate eighteen, a bird stared out the floor to ceiling bay windows onto the tarmac. Whitewash covered the number eight on the placard and was the only signal that the bird occupied the vast space that was terminal one at the Kansas City airport. Easily, several tennis matches […]
Continue reading →From the point of view of our cat, Boo. Putting my nose to the thin sheet of vinyl, I sniffed at the cool air beyond then pushed my way through the door and out onto the deck. The deck was cold and old, like me, I thought with a smirk. I sat and licked my […]
Continue reading →I held my rod high over my head and leaned forward pushing through mats of bowed tules, whip willows, and rose bush. After the five-minute battle, I arrived on a sand-filled beach where a long run ran into a deeper pool. A single trout rose on what looked like white mayflies. I looked at my […]
Continue reading →Ticks lay in wait, questing, Patient Buddhas all. Begging bowls amongst the deer herd.
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Large granite boulders dotted the hillside everywhere I looked, and chips of obsidian sprinkled the ground between the sage underfoot. Indeed, the energy of the place was like a grandmother whose deep-rooted awareness surrounded me, both urging me further and finger pointing as I went as if each move through the sand proved me guiltier […]
Continue reading →The steak smelled delicious. Picking up the fork and knife, the diner sliced a piece of meat and shoved the beef into his mouth. He never tasted anything more savory. There were the usual saltiness and acid from some sort of briny wash but then underlying, or perhaps overlying, was a flavor entirely different and […]
Continue reading →I walked out of Campmor in Paramus, NJ with a blaze orange, fifty-meter, Bluewater rope over my shoulder and drove the hour home wide-eyed and grinning from ear to ear. That night, I slept as restless as a youngster on Christmas eve and dreamed not of sugarplums, but of the rope and I on our […]
Continue reading →The hill ahead was loose and steep, and as I moved alone through brush and cactus, the jagged scrub pulled at my pant legs. My mind wandered. Tiny creatures tore at the cotton hems and threw their little spears into my calves. They heaved rocks at my ankles where the granite boulders settled beneath my […]
Continue reading →I stepped out of the truck into the soft dirt and gravel of the frontage road. We parked perpendicular, and we were the first to put a car in P. “There’s a lot more people here than I remember,” I said. “Yeah, it get pretty packed these days,” said Joe. “It used just to get […]
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