US Route 93 shoots north out of Vegas as if it can’t stand the place, ditching the noise and nonsense of the casinos and the tedium of urban sprawl for the lean beauty of the high desert. Thirty years ago this week I peddled a grossly overloaded bicycle up this highway, intending a marathon trip west across central Nevada. Along the way I planned to...
Read More
Oh the water Oh the water Oh the water Let it run all over me… — Van Morrison, “And It Stoned Me” A shining ribbon of water flowed through my childhood. On family picnics during the early sixties in Camden, NY, I toddled along the grassy banks of Fish Creek, enchanted as only a child can be. While my mother grilled...
Read More
The dying palo verde is poor shade but will have to do. At noon the sky is cloudless, the temperature pushing 100. The tire is a puddle of useless rubber, a dime-sized hole gaping through what’s left of the tread. Pavement lies 15 miles to the north. I stretch out in the gravel wash and stare up at squadrons of bees weaving through the spiky, tangled...
Read More
Help Wanted: New midtown Italian bistro hiring seasoned hospitality professionals. New York City experience a must. Trattoria Dell’Arte, 900 Seventh Avenue. My inability to pronounce the name should have scared me off. During three years in Manhattan I’d never set foot in a place like Trattoria Dell’Arte. I couldn’t afford to. But...
Read More
When you start looking, you see the potsherds everywhere–bits and pieces of the long-ago, scattered throughout the pinyon-juniper forest, standing out in the black volcanic sand like coins on a city street. At the edge of this dry mesa north of Flagstaff you can find pottery fragments in a wild array of colors and styles: Brick-red, slate-grey,...
Read More