the west
Pinto Basin Road, CA
Cathedral Basilica-St Francis, Santa Fe
New Mexico highway
two weeks ago my sister amy and i left on a road trip adventure across the western U.S. we met many people and saw many places. i fell in love with the desert.
now it is back to huddling over this computer. i am not sure what i am doing sitting here, what i am really trying to accomplish. perhaps it would be better living naked with coyotes and rattlesnakes. this is what i am thinking now although i know it won’t last.
here are some of the best pictures i took. we stayed in a different city every night for like two weeks. it was complete travel insanity but worth every moment. shows in LA and Phoenix went really well. met some old fans and sold some CD’s.
it is really hard to pick moments to describe. i suppose i could have been keeping a journal the whole time, but i felt like being behind a camera instead of a laptop or a book was the better way to soak everything in and process all that beauty. i am still in awe of the sheer amount of natural beauty in the western states.
i suppose the two big things are the grand canyon and joshua tree so that is what i will talk about.
in the part of the grand canyon we visited there were so many people around that it was hard to separate myself from the herd psychologically for too long. but the canyon itself was mind-blowing, by far the largest thing i’ve ever seen on earth. a photograph does not do justice the immensity of it.
it is like looking so far you feel like your eyes have separated from your consciousness. my brain at first was working with my eyes to make sense of the distance, it’s just not possible. we hiked for a little while down into its mouth and on the way up i was grateful we did not have time to go any further. a hang glider would be the better route down i think. large magic eagle ride for coming up. the air is thin and people are constantly passing out from over exertion. sometimes they fall in and die.
that night we camped in kaibab national forest, which has beautiful large pine trees. we never did learn how to pronounce this word. through trial and error i learned how to take pictures of stars using long exposures. 30 seconds, f/1.8, iso at 1600. something like that. we made a fire and roasted marshmallows and wrote half of a song about the trip so far. the trees are glowing orange from the fire.
but by far the most memorable experiences were in Joshua Tree national park, which lies on the mojave and colorado desert border in California. in stark contrast to the grand canyon, at this national park we saw five or ten people (verses hundreds and hundreds). at first there was some confusion and disbelief at the sheer lack of people, signs, roads, anything. it is just desert and mountains and sky, as far as the eye can see. then the solitude, the realness of nature and all that sets in and suddenly there is a feeling of freedom and the rest of the world evaporates.
the desert is like the ocean. they share the same endlessness and magic and mystery. except you can walk the desert and be connected to the earth, lie down on it. your senses are heightened. eyelids held open wide by some invisible force, and super hearing too.
we slept under the stars. oh the stars! i have never seen stars like this and i think i’ve seen a lot of stars. there were meteors, about one every two minutes, from all over in the sky.
early venus
at the campsite
the milky way and venus
we also saw a rattlesnake and a roadrunner. climbed some little mountains. heard coyotes in the night. everything you would expect from a desert i guess only better.
being forced to pay attention to your surroundings forces you into the present moment. this is a near surefire cure for stress. in nature there is no time or need to contemplate the past or the future, since it keeps no files nor holds grudges nor eagerly anticipates paychecks. it is fully formed fully functioning at every moment always
this is what i have learned from the desert.
the park’s namesake, the Joshua Tree
unfortunately i don’t have a lot of time to describe the rest of the trip in detail but here are some places we spent a little time in
Amarillo, TX
Tulsa, OK
Santa Fe, NM
Flagstaff, AZ
Kaibab National Forest, AZ
Sedona, AZ
Phoenix, AZ
Joshua Tree National Park, CA
Fallmouth, CA
Los Angles, CA
Venice, CA
Santa Monica, CA
Las Vegas, NV
Colorado Springs, CO
it was a blast!
and the rest of the pictures:
Venice Beach:
Santa Monica Pier:
Hand of Zoltar
El Matador Beach:
dressing room at The Mint:
swanky!
stopped in vegas and lost $20 on the roulette table at the Bellagio
Utah is not flat, it’s the opposite of flat.
the Colorado river in Colorado
thanks for reading! i hope you’re well
