Deserted: ???? Hours in this valley

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Today is last night. Now is tomorrow. Seconds ago will be coming soon. Each day has the same differences. Somewhere over 90 degrees, ground temperatures much higher than that, the sun hanging heavily in the sky with its dense rays completely unobstructed. Displaced clouds occasionally wander though. The mountains no longer merely smile, but rather laugh: spitting, drooling , fracture-toothed cackles.

At night it gets dark. This doesn't happen anywhere else but here. Don't delude yourself. There are stars and such things standing out in all that black, but nothing more. Without the wind there is no noise, only the usual inner diatribe, a continual public radio fundraising campaign, repeating, "you are not worthy..."

The desert is hot. It is also dry. When I survey by myself I feel sub atomic, weak, my heart beats louder and screams to me that one day it will stop. But more than all else, I feel stupid. I drive a Dodge Durango hours into nowhere. Equipped with a Park Service radio, satellite phone, GPS unit, rulers, measuring tape, clinometer, compass, papers, plant books, and lots of water, I walk off into the rocks and dirt to assess the life clinging where it can. I wear a stupid hat that keeps the cancer a little further away. I think I look like Sir Jepson, carrying a plant press, wearing a similarly stupid hat, smiling insanely, but I feel more like Sir Jepson whose intellect was recently reduced dramatically due to a full frontal lobotomy.

There are 3.3 million acres of unexplored desolation at my disposal. This has made me realize but one valuable thing:

I am pathetic.



steve

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