Sure Vance, I look forward to your company!
As the truck carried me further into the West Texas barren landscape, the vehicles on the road became fewer and fewer. The air became dry as popcorn and the air burned with heat. I stopped to kick the tires just as I left the pavement and the civilized world behind. My thoughts hung heavy with apprehension. I would now begin the 35 miles of unmaintained dirt road and the final leg of my journey toward the much sought after pot of gold at the end of anything but a rainbow. During the next hours drive across the parched earth I thought often of the condition of my tires and kept constant watch on my fuel guage. There is no one out here and it could be weeks before another traveler would venture across this landscape. I had my bow and I had two full ice chests of now melting ice. I would survive if the unthinkable were to happen. I continued on......
Through the maze of grasshopper trails I pushed the big diesel forward into the mid day sun. Somehow I'd located the oasis I was seeking in this sea of torture and dispair. The landscape had changed 500% in the last few miles. I'd entered into the rimrock that runs along the upper reaches of the Pecos River. This was Judge Roys country after the Indians were slain. This is indeed the land which time forgot. It stands today just as it stood a thousand years ago. The Indian carvings in the rocks remain and each time I turned around quickly I thought I could breifly see them still here. It is an erie feeling to stand in their caves just as they were hundreds of years ago.
I thought I could hear Indian flutes in the distance and a shiver ran through me as I touched the carvings and the holes left by my ansestors from so long ago. They are still here although now in memory etched deeply in the pages of time.
There is a magic to this region that I could never convey even in my most intricate of writings. The smells and sounds of my surroundings were jumping from the pages of an old western movie. Screetches of the overhead eagle rung across the canyons, answered by a mountain goat braaaa from a mountain somewhere out there. As I looked around I could see no life on the sides of the steep cliffs.
But as I raise my optics I can easily see that the mountains around me are alive with movment.
I found this place spiritually moving for unknow reasons. It seems to be holding magic around ever turn, under ever rock, and along ever ridge. I would rest this evening along the rivers edge and refresh myself in the cool of the spring fed Pecos River. Tomorrow would bring a new day and adventure I'd been longing for.
CK
Topic: My Incredible Journey West(pics) (Read 4955 times)
