Coyote Crossing

Lost and Ancient Archives

In May 2008, as long-time readers of this blog know, I left the San Francisco Bay Area where I had lived for a quarter century and moved to the Mojave Desert.  I remember the next month through a bit of a veil. There was a lot of work hauling

Stars

I’m up in my writers’ group this week, and I’m cranking out Chapter 11* of the Joshua tree book, writing about the night I took this photo. So here it is.

*No bankruptcy jokes please. Too close to home what with working 10 hours a … (continues)

On Teutonia

The verges of Cima Road are lined with penstemon flowers just past their peak, with desert milkweed and evening primrose, datura full open despite it being midday. The Teutonia Peak trail winds past mainly spent desert bloom. Mojave mound and

Sunrise Rock without the Mojave Cross

It looks better this … (continues)

Saturday night on Cima Dome

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The Mojave Cross

The boxed-up cross on Sunrise Rock, Mojave National Preserve. Photo by Florian Boyd.

As far as I can determine from reading the decision [PDF], and contrary to what’s being widely reported today in the case of the Mojave Cross on Cima Dome, the

Desert rain

This is a first draft of chapter three of the J Tree book, to be read tonight at the Writers Group. Again, like previous chapters, it won’t be here forever, but I thought I’d maximize the feedback possibilities in this new age of open-source

Keillor Crosses Chris

It’s not all that often you see your favorite desert campsite being discussed by the Supreme Court and the nation’s media. But mine is, this week, if for reasons not directly related to desert conservation.

In other words, the case of the

Cima Dome Sunset V

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Cima Dome Sunset II

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Collapse

A quarter of my life I’ve lain here in these rocks and thorns, watching Orion’s cold shoulder wheel through the late autumn sky, or waking a few hours into a summer night to watch the bleary Pleiades ascend.

The great bear circles warily in the

7:55 pm Saturday July 25 2009, Cima Dome

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On Cima Dome

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Spermophilus

Here is a fine, very well-fed individual of the species Spermophilus variegatus, also known as the rock squirrel. This one happened to be working the crowd outside the El Tovar on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, but the species ranges throughout

Gray

The first storm of winter will come a day from now, or two. At noon today the clouds arrived, a cirrus haze thin as a knife’s edge. Over Nevada the sky was still pale turquoise, but gray lowered in the west.

By two the sky was wrapped in

Beauty

It is raining, a little. The wind off the little storm front brings the temperature down to a positively comfortable level. It’s almost cool. Not even 80°, and the scent of wet juniper and rock hangs in the air.

How long has it been since I’d