When I was almost ten years old my parents started letting me roam at will and I spent a lot of time hiking countryside surrounding the small town we lived in then. I began finding some nice spots with stock tanks where reptile hunting opportunities were ideal, frequently spotting some nice specimens of all sizes. It was always thrilling to almost step on a huge black racer or hear it rattling its tail in dry vegetation after hearing me approaching its spot. I eventually talk

Driving from the office to visit my parents one spring night shortly after graduating from college I came upon a Bell 47 helicopter parked beside the side of the road just west of downtown Fort Worth. An illuminated sign declared the pilot was selling flights over the city. No thought about it was necessary. I had never flown in a helicopter and a night flight over the well-lit city seemed as fine an opportunity as may ever come along. I pulled over, parked my truck and greet

At age twenty I had a motorcycle accident here. My own stupidity caused the accident. It was the sloped walls of the underpass that saved me. Airborne after the collision, if the wall had been vertical instead of sloped when I struck it I most likely would be long dead now. I clearly remember hitting it, rolling upslope a little then downslope to the guardrail where a lot of grass burrs had collected. That worried me a little then, rolling into those grass burs. Knocked the w

Sometimes a place can enhance ability to find and clearly see a new direction to take in life's convoluted, unpredictable journey. Nothing magical or metaphysical, just attitude shifting. I've never intentionally gone on a "vision quest" and have never had any "visions" of clarity to speak of, but thought patterns have definitely shifted while trekking about without plan or purpose, experiencing sensations unexpected and delightful beyond the wildest of dreams. Found this sma

This is where I first saw oceananic bioluminescence in action. After dark I decided to wander alone over to this cove before going to bed. As I approached the edge of the water I noticed it was pulsing with light as each gentle wave rolled in. Like any kid would do, I squatted and began touching the water and marveled at how rings of light appeared around each fingertip penetrating the surface and then vanished when withdrawn. I was still wearing water shoes which had just dr

Waiting fifteen months after graduating from high school before starting college, I rented a one bedroom apartment within walking distance to campus of the first of four different universities I eventually attended as I slowly but surely switched back and forth between full time employment and full time schooling to graduate twelve years later. It was a tiny redbrick, single-story unit built in the 1960s but not as tiny as efficiency apartments are these days. The pipe-smokin

~ In Memory of Ralph Conkey - High Country Hunter & Wilderness Guide Extraordinaire ~ A couple of decades ago I trekked into the...

~ Hey canyon crow ~ wing-tipping the rim! ~ Riding the flow ~ of warm updrafts thin. ~ Where do you go ~ on a soaring whim? ~ What do you...

My youngest brother took this photo while visiting here this summer. He came upon it walking near the aspen grove growing along the south...

As soon as school let us loose the summer of 1969, my mother sent my sister and I away to camp. Not some screwy religious indoctrination...

In summer 2000, I chased the dot com bubble to the Front Range. That winter, I was rewarded with my first snow of the 21st century there....

Half a decade before the turn of the century, alone and wandering along northern curves and oxbows of the Rio Grande, I found this spot...

~ A True Tale About Seeking Orca ~ As the final decade of the 20th Century was coming to a close, I was beginning to get fed up with...

Spotting this during an early-summer hike along the rim of Gascon Point, a fielded guess at its common name–Alpine Thistle (sometimes...

~one leg raven ~regarding my churn ~steaming and black mud splattered ~saying nothing that mattered ~we chatted in turn ~not so craven~...