Nomad exploring life wherever I am
I was having a down day, which happens, even in a really amazing place like Death Valley. Everything was getting on my nerves: generators firing up at 7:01AM, noisy campers the night before, people walking through my site on the way to the bathroom… it was just one of those days. I decided to go for a drive and grabbed my Sony A7 on the way out the door. I thought maybe today was the day to hike Golden Canyon, but as I drove by it, I could see the parking lot was so full there was no way my…
The desert is one of those places you have to slow way down to experience. I pity the people just passing through, either on a day trip or a one-night camping stop on their way to somewhere else. You have to let the desert in to your soul slowly. Sit and listen to the silence and you’ll start to hear the faint birdsong, the buzz of insects in the bushes, the wind through the branches of the cottonwoods. One of the best ways to get to know the desert is to walk through it. So let’s go on a hike…
You’d think growing up in Southern California that I would have seen just about everything within a few hours of the place, but you’d be wrong about that. I didn’t know about Mojave Preserve until several years ago, when I convinced my roadtripping Jedi master, my Dad, that we should take backroads from Hemet to Vegas to visit my sister. One of those backroads ran through Mojave Preserve and we were both amazed and delighted to find some amazing geology as we drove from Amboy to Kelso to Baker.
It’s a new year (and a new decade, whee!) so time to look back at my Vagabond Life in 2019 and celebrate the stats! States Visited Only two new states this year: Montana (three nights in Missoula) and Ohio (a one-nighter at a KOA in transit from PA to CO, but it still counts). So my count is now up to 40 out of 48 states (because I’m never driving to Alaska and the Alto can’t swim to Hawaii). This year’s map includes Canada, since I hit up British Columbia (mostly Vancouver Island). Let’s be honest, though, and admit that…
At the end of each year, I look back at the photos I’ve taken and figure out what worked and what didn’t. I’m definitely learning; the more photos I take, the better I get. Practice does make one better at something, my piano teacher was right about that! I went all over the place in 2019, from Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina (above) to the Oregon coast. I camped near the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, using every lens in my arsenal to try and capture the beauty of those peaks. Here’s the rest of my favorite 10 photos…