I slip into the streets, then into the desert, then Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. But not before I rip apart my itinerary, the beginning, the middle and the end.
Too much structure in travel is dangerous - because it creates expectations. Tourists seek structure - maybe they only have two weeks a year to get it right, so why not? But I don't have a timeline; I don't need to create the perfect experience. The perfect experience is a myth anyway, because most of travel is sweat and lost luggage.
To define my route would be to seek something; to quest for what I knew before I left. To leave things open is to allow myself open to discovery.
Sometimes people like to add novelty to their travel; finding GPS waypoints, carrying with them a can of beans and photographing by national monuments, claiming themselves proponents of 'anti-travel' and doing everything they can to do things differently.
I see travel as experimental enough in itself to not need any novelty. Those novelties, anyway, are the kinds of things the traveler carries with him. Travel should shed as much as home as possible. Let what may happen, happen.
The Loneliest Road A journey across the Nevada's Great Basin and the Loneliest Road in America. We follow the struggle between off-roaders, Great Basin Indians and conservationists over the fate of a blue butterfly.
Summer Lake Part II of a conversation about travel writing, this episode continues into the southern Oregon Desert.
Rachel, Nevada and Area 51
Area 51 is a dusty set of hangars at the bottom of a dry lake bed.
The Owyhee River Part I of the Oregon Testament.Follow us to Leslie Gulch, where we stumble upon a yet undiscovered Native American site.
The Alvord Desert Part II of the Oregon Testament. Fishing under the Steens Mountains, and wandering the alkali flats of Alvord Lake.
Mono Lake They are twisted, trollish, ungodly, like a woman turned to stone
Bryce Canyon NP, Utah
