Normal
This isn’t Normal. Blue shadows, orange light A sun like an eclipsed moon The rays dim, yet on one’s back, The warmth as of fire at camp All that you can smell, is smoke, And it fills your nose and sinuses It is in your lungs and occupies
Zamp Solar
There is a feature of the Escapod Topo 2 that is shortchanging you in terms of solar capacity. Ever since I got my Escapod I would look at the solar charge controller and see it display 13.3 volts and maybe up to 5 Amps at best on a sunny
Swallows
Never learn For the bored traveler Up went a sign About the old settlers And then a roof From rain and the sun It was proof Fly-in, the swallows Mouthful by mouthful, Mud Dabbed and packed from bovine wallows Thankful for the shelter Grateful for the roof Then it
Ignorance
It is best to be still The armies of the ignorant are on the march They have seized the ramparts of knowledge They mock with their knowing ignorance An ink-black foul water It flows from the hinterlands It gathers the regrets and anger Latent in untended souls It wets
Coyote and Elk
It all started as I noticed some movement on the great flat meadow below us. I had watched the elk herd yesterday and walked to within a half mile or so of it. We were camped along a high road in western Montana on an open slope with copses of
Jefferson River
Moon haunted Owl hunted Iron-horse contoured Limestone heighted Sleet hissed Sun seared Elk hallowed Wolf howled Land waiting For bison wallow
A Place of Lesser Notice
Wells Nevada is one of those many interstate towns that did not survive the Interstate. A dilapidated downtown with plenty of boarded up old hotels. Everything new moved closer to the interstate and left whatever soul it had in the old part of town. Wells is located, spectacularly, at the
Nowhere in Particular
Here in northern Nevada the space is so boundless that it seems the cartographers have given up on names. Never reluctant to have a Rock Creek every few hundred miles I find myself in Nineteeen Mile Canyon for a couple of nights. Why? Primarily because I was tired of driving
Looking for Nowhere
We are heading deep into Mormon country; southern Idaho. The first prescience happened as we descended from the green eden of the Henry’s Fork river into the fetid Snake river plains (flat, but potatoes!), Mollie woke from the passenger seat, sat up, and started sniffing the air vents. She
A Creation Myth
Preface: All cultures have creation myths. Their ambition is to set a people into the world and help explain their place in it. I have read many from the Native American tradition. They are a kind of verbal folk art to my mind. They do not set about being great
Bird Fight
When the local crows raise a ruckus around my house in town, I grab the camera and race outside. The dog barks as she is left inside and wants to join whatever I am up to. For a moment in the air hangs impending chaos and curiosity. The neighborhood crows
Plas-y Ial
Owain Glyndŵr hero of Wales was said to have rested here and hid to avoid a party of English soldiers during his fight with Baron Grey de Ruthyn that eventually led to the Welsh revolt from 1400 to 1415. The Ials or as we would say today the Yales descended