A Crap Shoot Life... For Whom The Dice Tolls

It's one thing when thunder rumbles overhead, quite another when it reverberates in your bowels. I felt my insides liquify as I grasped onto a puny Limber Pine and leaned out to snap this photo. It was a memorable five sense moment. When a massive river gets squeezed into a slit of a canyon, something has to give. Fortunate for me that both pine and bowels were up to the test.   

Road Trip Window Shots

Dillion Pinnacles, Blue Mesa Lake

A little road trip landed us in Golden, Colorado, home to a piss-water brewery named Coors. What can I say... I'm a beer snob.  

Going Into The Light... Wobbly Knees and All

I was thinking about the Psychology behind the fear of dying... from my "armchair," of course. Various and sundry phobias are thought to be rooted in a fear of dying, but they are often a ruse... a diversion designed to deflect attention away from the true source of fear, which is loss of control.

Parting Shots From Sedona... The Movie

Say what you will about the spoils of Pink Jeeps and too many people, on a slow day Sedona can still pluck heartstrings.

Miller, Eliot and Me... Making "Lemonade"

"Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

The Retreat of Dirty Snow

 Out of water, out of food, low on propane and feeling desiccated as the red sand dustbowls we've been exploring, it felt good to pack up and roll home. We are now rehydrating and recovering in the blessed coolness of Lovely Ouray. Gazing into the numbers on my Box Canyon Calendar, grinning ear to ear like a circus clown, I propose a toast: Tis April eighteen, the back of Old Man Winter is broke! May he melt like a snowball in July Phoenix.  

Mine Eyes Have A Sweet Tooth

We made a decision to hold on to our boondock camp here amongst the mind blowing monuments in Valley of the Gods and commute to and from "the action" over in Butler Wash. 
Mine eyes have a "sweet tooth," and ne'er tire of this "candy." 

Sipapu

If one is willing stumble around in the side canyons off Butler Wash long enough... tolerate pesky No-see-ums buzzing eyes and ears... carry enough water to stave off dehydration... risk rattle snakes Gila Monsters and Lyme Disease... Ruin-ation will eventually come out of hiding. We had the good fortune to come across a sizable cliff dwelling... and it had a Kiva!

Touching The Past

"Cerulean skies and deep vinaceous bands of sandstone become places of power. Pit houses dug in the earth and cliff dwellings hanging on ledges still house the Anasazi spirit. Listen. You may hear music inside their ancient earth architecture. I have - I think."

 Pieces of White Shell, Terry Tempest Williams

"Masonic" Lodges In High Places

It's impossible to wander the red-rocked canyons and mesas of eastern Utah without stumbling across artifactual evidence of those who came before... from rusted beer cans with dated triangular "church key" openings, discarded in the 50's by Willy's Jeeping desert rats, to projectile points of arrows, slung by the atlatls of hunter/gatherers in 6,500 B.C.. Yes, "B. C.," back when the entire world's population equaled today's Denver metro and pottery was a new invention half a world away in the "cradle of civilization." Take a minute and let that sink in.

Cosmic Accident or Divine Experiment? Feeling Small in Valley Of The Gods

Sometimes it takes a dark and lonely night to illuminate perspective. I can't recall a previous boondock so totally absent from pollutants of light and people (yes, people!) as this mind-altering place called Valley of the Gods.

Deceiving Appearances

A kindly looking, impeccably groomed sixty something man sat quietly in the corner of a Sedona Laundromat, waiting on clothes to dry.

Epicurean Delights of Wonder and Wander

Arizona skies are famous for their brilliant sunrises and sunsets. But sometimes midday clouds soften light and mood. The Artist pulled out His (or is it "Her") brush and painted some interesting clouds over our boondock camp the other day. Wow!  Now for a little complementary red rock... just to make your eyes bleed and heart flutter. 

Kitty Quail Coincidence

I took these shots of a pretty male Quail on the fly... out Petroleous Rex's passenger window. I didn't think they would be very good because I hardly stopped and the subject was nearly a hundred feet away.

A Flutterbye Of Butterflies

Plodding along in a creek bottom up a distant red rock canyon, Bobbie and I had the blessing to stumble across a rabble of butterflies. They were flitting everywhere... thick as flies... attacking bush blossoms as if it was their "Last Supper." The little pretties were so intoxicated on nectar that I could practically touch them with my lens. It's just one of those neat, serendipitous things that happens when you disembark a living room based life and get "out there." 

Pen Pals Meet

When Pen Pal Claudia and Marc's Freightliner rolled into our boondock camp a couple days ago I was impressed with what a serious RV tot'en machine it was, a veritable workshop on wheels complete with hoist, tools, air compressor, cab sleeper, huge generator and more gears than a mountain bike. In getting to know them I realized that they have RV traveled more extensively than Bobbie and I, and thus have a few more tales of adventure... and misadventure. Yes, the mobile lifestyle can be a rocky road.