1) National park artist residency programs are great. I've done nothing for the past week except hike, climb, read, and write music. You should really consider applying for one of these tasty things. Here is a list of parks that have programs--they're all a bit different and have their own emphases, seasons, app deadlines, and so on.
2) I become more of a desert rat all the time. First it was the bizarre geology of Southern Utah, then the bizarre people and powerful landscapes of West Texas, and now the strange and wonderful Mojave, with these whimsical Joshua trees everywhere and mountains poking up all over the place. It's never felt like home, in the same way as the dark, lush forests of the Rockies up in Colorado, because that's where I spent time as a youngster, and I've always derived so much energy from those places. But the desert is powerfully peaceful, rugged and quiet, and when I'm out here I can't help but chill out and focus on the moment. I'm not much into meditation, but when you're sitting on a rock out here you find yourself in that state. It's wonderful for creativity. The questions and challenges seem to fall away.
3) Coronado National Forest, in SE Arizona, specifically the unit just S of Chiricahua, is so fantastic, especially after a mind-numbing day of I-10. I was all alone there and it was a cool, perfect day. I couldn't believe I was in the woods again after all that desert driving. Shortly after driving past the NF borders I encountered a sign that said "smuggling and illegal immigration may be encountered in this area." Whoa.
4) Balmorhea State Park is the gateway to the West. It's amazing the way a swim in those waters regenerates my enthusiasm for everything. West Texas is full of surprises. This time it was the town of Ozona. You drive in on another nondescript ranch road, and then suddenly you're on a wide, beautiful, shady block that looks like something out of a Midwestern university town. I shouldn't have been shocked to find another perfect little town out there, I suppose, but my mouth was hanging open nonetheless.
5) It's strange to be in cities in the desert Southwest. Tucson in particular freaked me out this time. When you're from the Midwest and every city is plucked down in the middle of an endless plane of perfect farmland and you're accustomed to the land being used, supporting the communities around it, desert cities seem so illogical, the gas stations and chain restaurants so naturally at odds with the environment surrounding them. They're not wrong, it's just different. By that point in the trip I was also frankly losing my mind from solitude and insane amounts of interstate driving, and I found that sitting at Starbucks reading a book for a few minutes kept me restrained. There's nothing like a good chain coffee shop to make you feel sensible. Someone over there listening to music, looking angsty; a guy reading Madame Bovary; the new Avett Brothers record on the stereo. Phew. Despite Southern California's implicit arguments to the contrary, the world is not ending. Perhaps it already has, but it isn't in the process of doing so right at the moment, and I guess we can hang our hats on that.
6) Related note: when will America stop trying to make every place look just like every other place? I don't want to see Barnes & Noble in El Paso or Denny's in Twentynine Palms. This is an incredibly diverse country, geographically. Why aren't we okay with that? Is the spread of our commercial icons a response to these disparities? I wish different places were still allowed to be different. It's still a joy to focus in on the subtle things, the way everyone in California calls every highway "the 10" or "the 177," the way people in Milwaukee call ATMs "time machines" (actually it's "Tyme," after a major local bank, but you can't hear that in speech).
7) I don't have pictures or music to show for myself yet, but I will. I'm writing a truckload and playing a lot of guitar (this partially since my cabin's solar power system might not be able to support my keyboard--information on this front was scanty).
8) Car-trip analysis of favorite pop music to follow.
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