Bound for the Promised Land

Forced to go where work calls, I wake at 4:00am. Ahead of me is a 2000 mile journey across the United States. Today I will drive 19 hours to reach Oklahoma and from there the mountains of New Mexico.

As I set out on my journey the sun rises, its flames chasing me away from the east, my home no longer. The hours become meaningless as the landscape around me measures my progress; the hills turn into mountains, the mountains slope down into the grasslands, the grasslands grow sparse and are replaced by rock and gravel, the rocks eventually growing back into mountains.

Finally I reach my destination; at an elevation of 8500 feet the air is thinner here than I am used to. It whistles in my lungs as I struggle to catch my breath. Staggering weakly from my vehicle I take my first step into the Caldera, a valley carved out by an eruption from an enormous, ancient volcano millennia ago.

As I begin to survey the landscape my steps feels lighter. The old trails and paths of my old home had begun to feel a bit familiar. Here now is a new world, unexplored, untamed, promising a new adventures…

-2012-
sleepwalking
new chapter

-2011-
like sedona?
torn in two
blink
bridge to nowhere
door
hitting the wall
elusive 2
elusive 1
ascenders
voyage
hole
icarus

-2010-
revisited 2
revisited 1
which way?
the pit
treasure
narrow
snowfall
chute
false floor
monolith
crack
freeze
slice
bunker
beckon
treasure
resolution

-2009-
goodbyes
undercurrents
casting the bones
mountain thief
the deer hunter
strange temple
sanctuary
burial pt. 3
burial pt. 2
burial pt. 1
scarlet fever
rebirth from hell
forsaken
the lower depths
underground lake
stretch sewer
crypt
still waters
shadow movements
meager rations
sw pt.8: geothermal + ending
sw pt.7: lost gold mines
sw pt.6: big tube caves
sw pt.5: gold!
sw pt.4: el calderon caves
sw pt.3: redondo
sw pt.2: ghosts
southwest adventure pt.1
the river
dark salvation
reflections
dreams
the underdark
night odyssey
beginnings