I have never visited Cosmos Mystery Area, a goofy “believe-it-or-not”-style tourist trap outside of Rapid City, South Dakota.
That’s not for lack of desire, nor lack of awareness, nor even lack of opportunity.
The relevant, ineffable lack was far more fundamental, interpersonal, and ultimately illuminating than anything else.
… Boy, that highfalutin beginning better have a decent payoff!
Continue reading “The One that Got Away & Started It All – or, Cosmos Mystery Area”
“Andersen’s Pea Soup Capital of the World,” I read out loud, staring out the passenger side window at an approaching sign. “Buellton, California – 105 miles.”
“What?” my then-spouse asked, eyes on the road.
“I keep seeing these signs for this famous split pea soup,” I said, gesturing out the window. “It’s quite a claim. I mean, pea soup’s good and all, but—?”
“Yeah, famous?”
“Kinda wish we had time to stop,” I mused. “I’d like to see if it’s worth the hype.” I paused. “It’s even on the way.”
Continue reading “What Strange Luck May Come – Or, The Pea Soup Capital of the World”
My car holds just enough gasoline to get me from Las Vegas, Nevada to Beaver, Utah.
I first learned this when driving from my sister’s place in Vegas to Madison, Wisconsin in 2015. I was almost done with the journey’s I-15 leg, and, as one does, I pulled into the gas station that presented itself at the moment when my gas tank was empty and my bladder full.
And came face-to-face with this:
For my ninth birthday, just weeks before my family left Bangkok, my best friend gave me a sheer pink sash screen-printed with cranes in flight.
This friend was Japanese, but, like me, she’d spent her entire childhood in Thailand. When you’re small, you understand too little of the world to comprehend cultural provenance. You simply absorb. You exist where you exist. You believe you belong until given reason to believe you do not. Continue reading “The Cranes Were Not the Strangers Here”
In the life of a melodramatic lover of roadside attractions, there’s no preparing for a massive orange moose. One moment, you’re living your life the best you know how. Suddenly the world has a massive orange moose in it, and it’s right outside your window. There’s an emotional reckoning to be had. Nothing will ever be the same. Continue reading “Unexpected Memento Mori – Or, The Massive Orange Moose”
On August 21st, 2017, Andrew and I sat beside a ruined French fortress in the middle of Illinois farmland, waiting for the sun to disappear.
We’d found Fort de Chartres by accident. A couple days prior to the Great American Eclipse, we had driven from Madison to St. Louis to spend the weekend with family. This put us barely outside the path of totality. I was content to view the historic eclipse from St. Louis; I have a self-defeating habit of accepting things as they are, even when minor one-time expenditures of effort stand to significantly multiply my enjoyment. Sometimes serene acceptance is a virtue, but I haven’t yet found the wisdom to know the difference.
Thankfully Andrew was having none of it. “We drove all the way down here to see the eclipse,” he said. “We’re seeing the eclipse.” Continue reading “The Clouds Must Be Bewildered – Or, The Great American Eclipse”
Prairie-land and I don’t go well together. I ascribe this to my pioneer ancestry. My DNA remembers too many meals cooked over buffalo-chip campfires, and so no matter how expansive the arched cerulean sky, I can’t help feeling trapped in the endlessness rather than freed by it. Too many heirlooms left on the side of the trail. Too many shallow graves.
I am ready for mountains. Continue reading “Welcome to Colorful Colorado!”
Crystal Witnesses Wonders 