Night comes on the landscape long before the sky notices. The road noise in your ears has stilled, the rattle of breath in lungs has stilled, the sanguinary thrum itself has stilled and all is quiet. All is quiet, save a sage sparrow or two off in the yuccas. You can hear the shadow of the mountain travel across the valley floor.
No one in miles, no one knows where you are, and yet you are never so alone here as you are in the city. Here are the flickers and the cottontails, the orioles, the night lizards. Each one regards you frankly, threat or source of food, or source of shade. There is guile here, but not yet. The ones with guile will sing later.
Shadows deepen on the land. Your cup in gloved hands: a sip of tea, and the warmth runs down.
This is life, then, all the scurry between visits mere dreamtime. Or is it the other way around? Either way the stillness enters, an adiabatic cooling of your city mind diffusing into the violet valley air. This is what matters, this is what matters. Concern peeled off like layers of barnacle, littered the Barstow roadside, the skin beneath clean and raw. This is the whole point, is it not? To be here unencumbered. To be unencumbered here. A long life with a few such moments is well-lived, and the sky the color of longing.
The first coyote of the night, a mile away and sounding close.
The second, right behind you.
Mmm. I was basking in the quiet, listening to the shadow on the mountain - and then that frisson at the end. Thanks.
(Here, it is never that still.)
Chris, you do so much desert photography, I’d be interesting in seeing what you make of HDR—High Dynamic Range—photography.
I don’t understand it completely yet, but I’m starting to read about it, planning on trying it. Apparently, you take three (or up to 7 or more) shots of the exact same scene, bracketing exposures, and then use special software to compose them all together, picking the strengths of each image to appear in the final pic.
Wikipedia has this on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging
Flickr has a showing of HDR pics, some of which are eye-popping good: http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/pool/
I used a shareware program call Photomatix, and some of my first efforts are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/hankfox .
Yeah, they look too saturated in the greens (gotta work on that), but I love the way the sky came out in this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hankfox/502790404/
My Canon digital does the +2 0 -2 bracketing for me, and I just download the three pics into the program, do a couple of clicks, and it’s done.
I definitely need to learn more about it, so I can control it better, but so far, I’m loving the possibilities.
The Mojave has its share of interesting placenames (incuding of course the “purposefully named” Zzyzx.)
Essex may be part of an alphabetic run that the Southern Pacific invented from Amboy through Goffs (and possibly extended via Homer, Ibex and Klinefelter.)
Essex is at the right place for the “E”, but per this interesting old map of the ambitiously named Tonopah and Tidewater RR (it never got to Tonopah .. much less Tidewater) the town appears as Edson. [dial-up alert map is 6.5 Mb]
JP: thanks for that cool old map! I could waste some serious time with that thing…I didn’t see a year on it, but Owens Lake is depicted as full of water…
According to Wikipedia, Essex = Edson.
I didn’t see a year on it,
There was an accompanying entry from the library which had the date listed as “1907?”
If you look at the town of Mojave on the map, you’ll see the alignment of the LA Aqueduct portrayed. The aqueduct was finished in 1913. Immediately adjacent to the aqueduct is the right-of-way of the Nevada & California Railroad, which railroad was renamed to Nevada-California-Oregon Railway in 1893.
The obvious conclusion is that the map does not actually exist.
I’m also intrigued by the map’s reference to a railroad from Halloran to Ivanpah by way of Kessler, which would necessitate either about a 70 percent grade over Kessler Peak or a big ol’ tunnel right next to my usual Cima Dome campsite.
I suspect this map was not groundtruthed in a particularly painstaking manner.
about a 70 percent grade over Kessler Peak
I think I can, I think I can ...
Actually, I think that is a road (dual thin lines - although they merge at times.) Railroads seem to be single lines.
The aqueduct was finished in 1913. Immediately adjacent to the aqueduct is the right-of-way of the Nevada & California Railroad, which railroad was renamed to Nevada-California-Oregon Railway in 1893.
Per this Owens Valley history site, that line (originally the Carson & Colorado) was known as the Nevada & California (another one) from 1905 to 1912. LA Aqueduct under construction from 1908 - 1913. So it probably works.
I saw that road too…I think some of it is more or less where Morning Star Mine Rd. is today. Don’t forget the Ivanpah on the old map is the original Ivanpah…the crossing known today as “Ivanpah” is called “Leastalk” on the map.
p.s. Why is Pacific Palisades labeled “Port of Los Angeles”?
p.s. Why is Pacific Palisades labeled “Port of Los Angeles�?
Probably a holdover from this: (from Wikipedia)
The Southern Pacific Railroad and Collis P. Huntington wanted to create Port Los Angeles at Santa Monica, and built the Long Wharf there in 1893.
And unless I am missing something, what a poor choice it would have been.
Another interesting thing on the map that I had never heard of was the Mount Whitney Military Reservation.
Turns out that the site was set aside in 1883 for use as an observation site. (probably based on a recommendation from Samuel Langley- who wrote it would surpass the Italian’s observatory on Etna.) In 1904 it was turned over to the Dept of the Interior, although in 1903 there was another proposal for an observatory made by the Weather Service.
Despite plausible explanations for how they got there, the map is certainly ... well, all over the map with regards to the timeliness of the features it includes.
<u>Aqueduct</u> - construction from 1908, completed 1913
<u>Nevada & California</u> 1905 -1912 - but Mojave branch it shows was only completed in 1910.
<u>Mt. Whitney Military Res</u> - gone in 1904.
<u>Port Los Angeles</u> - basically not going to happen after 1897 (but then here is a 1905 postcard of the Long Wharf still labelled Port Los Angeles. (and the Long Wharf is indeed looooong.)
For the map <strike>nerds</strike> lovers - I highly recommend this great blog, Stange Maps. (He does often have margin and font lossage, but the maps and commentary are always quite interesting.)