This post has several (short) segments that include a road trip, the power of visualization, unlocking another secret of the universe, meditations on how raw open space can inspire us and a sample chapter from a past book.
In 2004 I published my book Rivers of Change – Trailing the Waterways of Lewis and Clark. Okay, so no bestseller, but I enjoyed putting it together.
Recently, the warehouse in the state of Ohio in the U.S. that has stored and shipped these books contacted me. They informed me that they were closing.
I needed to pick up the books and drive them in a rental truck to property I own in the state of New Mexico.

A forklift offloads books from an Ohio warehouse into a rental truck
The ensuing road trip was a dart through Heartland and Southwestern U.S.A.
This interior region of the U.S. has recently been maligned by a few East and West Coast media outlets (as well as a few prominent politicians) as lacking a cosmopolitan and progressive vibe. This is nonsense.
Here I ate Salmon and Goat Cheese Frittatas at a small diner in Kansas, drank excellent wines in Missouri made from Chardonel, Traminette and Norton grapes and made roadside stops at parks and monuments with histories of how the Zuni-Acoma trail superimposes over the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail. This is a land of quixotic diversity, unusual neighborliness and often stunning open spaces with gorgeous vistas.

Frittata? Never heard of it before.
However, and this applies to all of the U.S., it was bizarre to find that at an internationally renowned hotel chain, the morning breakfast buffet included all plastic cutlery and paper plates and bowls (the plates being printed with instructions on how to recycle them), all of which had to be tossed into a massive brown plastic trash bag after eating. Even the milk for coffee came in disposable plastic containers the size of thimbles. This, and the blasting widescreen televisions, lacked class or forward thinking. The age of considering a ‘landfill’ as the solution to massive consumerism should be well on its way out.
Breakfast buffets in this and other hotels strongly focused on carbohydrates—pastries, buns, pancakes, toast and cereal. Intriguingly, diners are then given a choice of using ‘non-dairy creamer,’ (think about that) or ‘sugar substitute,’—both obviously requisite for those wanting to counteract the relatively tasteless carb fest they just wolfed down. The paradigm appeared to be: here’s the problem, here’s the cure, and we’re vigorously marketing both your way. However, enough whining, because the coffee was virtually endless.

After breakfast, getting on the road was splendid.
This was also a time for reassessing and reflecting, a time for figuring out how the next phase of life shall unfold.
Driving across the southeast portion of the state of Kansas, I addressed uncertainties, and tried to figure out what comes next in life.
I considered various ‘usual suspect’ scenarios of possibilities for future work and living. I thought and thought and thought and finally realized: I had no idea. I had made Zero progress deciding what comes next—whether desired type of work or longer term living scenario. I seem to be have been spinning wheels in the same direction as two years ago.
Having secured no traction regarding the future, I relaxed, pleased to have fully accepted no progress was made, and decided to forget about self-evaluation and future planning for the moment.
Instead, at the wheel of 12 foot long rental truck on highway 400, I said a prayer to universal powers for assistance, then let it go.

Woodland along the Ninnescah River in southern Kansas
Within minutes my mind, devoid of the usual chatter of options and distractions, suddenly generated a yellow cartoon-like speech balloon. Into this I rapidly described mental images that suddenly appeared—bold, confident and forthright—regarding what will happen next in life. This all occurred effortlessly with blazing certainty. The solution zapped in when unexpected.
At that specific moment of crystallization, the Budget Rental truck heaved around a corner and I saw a patch of water ahead—as though appearing as confirmation, as a symbol of clarity.
Excited, I pulled over and identified this as the south branch of the Ninnescah River (a tributary of the Arkansas River) near Cunningham, Kansas. I later found out that ‘Ninnescah’ is an Osage (Dakota) word meaning ‘good spring water.’ That seemed appropriate—a spring of inspiration from what appeared to be an internally sound source occurred coincident with intersecting this natural flow.
Pleased, I moved on. During the next days I was beset by coincidences and good fortunes that heralded this trip as, overall, ringing positive. During the final days I found that a chunk of the costs of this trip were offset by a recent and unexpected consultancy contract that appeared days before departure.
Sometimes, do what you must and the universe will figure out the details.

Eventually, after driving through a segment of Oklahoma and Texas, I pulled over to a motel.
I told the story of finding an excellent hotel room on a recent Facebook post, so won’t repeat it.
However, a second part of that story concerns dinner.
I asked the receptionist in the motel (in the town of Dalhart, Texas) where to eat.
“Across the street,” she said. “Steakhouse.”
In blistering heat I walked across a massively wide Main Street and entered a charmless, vapid interior. A woman led me to a dull table and asked if I’d like a drink.
“What beers do you have?”
“We’re out.”
“Wine?”
“We’re out. Everything out. Group of about 50 ranchers showed up today. Drank everything. Sorry, honey. Coke, perhaps?”
After 10 hours on the road (and 7 hours the day before and 8 the day before that) some sort of ‘iced tea beverage’ or ‘cola’ was not going to cut it.
I said thanks and departed, ready to eat leftover pizza from lunch inside the hotel.
At the hotel, the receptionist was shocked to hear the news.
“Go down Main Street,” she told me. “Take a left at the light, pass the stadium and turn right. X10 Steak House.”
It took a while, but I found it.
The restaurant was lively and cheerful and packed with locals filled with laughter and energy. Score! The tablet menu, displayed by a zippy server, included several beers, of which I ordered a pint of Angry Orchard Rosé, followed by a Shiner beer (from Texas). Dinner was grilled salmon with asparagus and onion rings.
Brilliant!
Of both restaurants, this one rocked in comparison to the first. After a day on the road, I truly appreciated the enthusiastic energy, chilled drinks and excellent food.
Thank you, 50 thirsty ranchers, for drinking the alternative steakhouse dry, thereby forcing me here. Thank you again, universe. Your secrets are unfurling: the relationship between expectation and outcome; the pliability of reality, and the most timely delivery of chilled Angry Orchard Rosé (scrumptious) at some hidden tavern beyond an obscure stadium.
Perfect.
Next, onto New Mexico.

The road toward deep Catron County
With 6,929 square miles, Catron County in the southwest U.S. state of New Mexico has more land area than that belonging to any of four other individual U.S. states: Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut and Hawaii. With less than 4,000 residents, the state has a population density of less than one person per square mile.
In 1994, the Catron County Commission, after reluctantly abandoning efforts to make it a legal requirement, instead passed a resolution that recommended every household in the county possess a gun.
This is a land of cattle and elk and the odd, endangered Mexican gray wolf. It is an arid land, where wells often need to be drilled hundreds of feet deep to obtain water. Here are pinyon pines and junipers, jackrabbits and four wheel drive pickup trucks. This is a land where ranchers named Rufus or Chet wear Stetson hats, cowboy boots and belt buckles emblazoned with their names. Here are national monuments, reservations, and lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. The altitude of plains is high enough with commensurate clear skies that a massive array of telescopes (think the movie: Contact) was established in adjacent Socorro County, just east. Here are natural arches, remnants of lava flows and absurdly beautiful vistas of open space.
My own property sits at 7,700 feet above sea level. That altitude is high enough that, coming from sea level, when you drink a beer you cop a buzz slightly earlier than usual.

View from the cabin
This property, though remote, is a magically serene portion of the planet. Years ago I noticed that after I visited it while in the U.S., even for only a few hours, I would feel a sense of peace, calmness and confidence that lasted for months afterward.
The peaceful locale provides similar inspirations to what I feel when visiting, say, portions of County Wicklow in Ireland near the sea, or the Western slope of Colorado. In other words, the lure of the landscape transcends specific geography. I could be in Bellinzona in Switzerland, Nerja in Spain or the highlands of Panama. There is no sense of homesickness there, because all other possible homes appear somehow already there in spirit.
In the evening, dusky ruby light lit up the jagged peaks to the southeast. Wind whooshed across trees as evening bird calls rang out.
There I felt detached, but still connected. I pulled an old wood packing trunk out of the cabin, unfolded a wool blanket on top to make it a table and then looked at peaks in dusk light. The world turned ageless.
That strange magic, profoundly unfathomable, is welcoming. The location is a confluence of wind, light, clouds and roaming deer, a place where energies of earth are redolent with harmony.

Another view from the property
Being there gave a sense of having no boundaries, of being free and capable of accomplishing anything.
It can be a challenge to find the correct turnoff to this land. It’s along a sandy dirt trail that changes, depending on rainfall and local ranching activities.
When entering the land earlier that day, I made a right turn at the wrong place, realized the error after eight tenths of a mile and returned to seek the correct trail. Once there, I was pleased to see no track marks or evidence that the property had been visited in months, if not years (my last visit was two years ago). Driving south and slightly upward toward the ‘ridge,’ the location of a shed/cabin purchased years ago, I spotted the structure below a lone tree and magnificent vista. The looming beauty and powerful proximity of those jagged peaks was, again, shocking.
After pulling on a sweater I opened a bottle of California Cabernet Sauvignon, ate a cold supermarket burrito and enjoyed the unfettered silence.
A minute before midnight, a realization turned clear. I then understood the words of Henri Duboscq, owner of Château Haut-Marbuzet in Bordeaux. He spoke these words when we sampled wines together at his château months ago. His father had been dirt poor, purchased vines, and he and Henri worked hard to produce excellent wine. They eventually made a veritable fortune. But they had put life back into an unkempt patch of vines, tended them, treated them well. Dubosca moved his bedroom near the cellars because he wanted to be close to the wine he produced, always.
Duboscq told me something unusual. He said that he believed that he and his family did not choose those vines, but that the vines had somehow chosen them.
Now, his words made sense. I see the future of this land not as subdivided plots for vacation homes, and not solely as acres for cattle. The purpose of this land will eventually turn clear.

View from my property
The recent heat had been brutal, but at the moment when I began unloading 50 boxes of books that day, clouds assembled and a hailstorm hammered the land. The temperature plummeted, enabling me to work in coolness. Perfect!
Thanks again, universe.

It was then time for wine, and watching the vista.


Summer wildness

Edible? I’m not going to try to find out.
Just last week, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper in Missouri published an article about the Great Flood of 1993, an event that took place 25 years ago. This event, coincidentally, forms the opening to the book I wrote almost two decades ago, the one I just hauled over 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers) to the sacred acres described above.
The book is about how humans change rivers, and those rivers consequently change attitudes.
Here is Chapter One from Rivers of Change:
Chapter 1
FLOOD
In July and August of 1993 the Great Flood of the Midwest destroyed more than ten thousand homes, killed fifty people, inundated fifteen million acres of farmland, halted barges for two months, suspended the region’s rail traffic and wreaked $15 billion worth of damage. This most significant flood ever to hit the United States was also one of the country’s greatest ever natural disasters.
This flood that twitched through the Midwest that summer originated from the two largest river systems in the United States: the Missouri and Mississippi. From June through August precipitation on the northern plains and throughout the central U.S. leaped to three times its normal volume. Regions used to nine days of rain each July felt the sudden hammer of twenty wet afternoons. By mid summer soils were saturated, leaving rainwater with no other avenue than to shoot over land.
The Missouri and Mississippi river confluence sits fifteen miles upstream of St. Louis. When floodwaters crashed past this point, sandbags failed, residents fled, and levees burst like buttons popping off a snug shirt. Passengers evacuated the Spirit of St. Louis airport; jailers unlocked cells to whisk inmates to safety. The deluge closed down a water treatment plant and swamped a sewage facility serving seventy-five thousand homes. The surge blocked four major bridges spanning into the metro area. Rising waters swept fifty propane tanks from their moorings and police, fearing an explosion, evacuated hundreds of nearby residents. Engineers drilled holes in the Gravois Bridge to prevent its uprooting by the River Des Peres.
Every second more than a million cubic feet of water roared past the Gateway Arch of St. Louis, flooding over five hundred businesses and swamping Highway 40 under six feet of water. A concert to raise funds for victims from an earlier flood had to be cancelled. Meanwhile, con artists swooped in to reap a profit from calamity. When the waters subsided in St. Louis, police spotted an industrious pair pacing near Jefferson and Gravois avenues. They toted cans and collected cash from drivers. Their cans read: Flood Releif 93 / Salvation Army. Recalling that ‘i’ comes before ‘e,’ officers arrested the sloppy imposters.

Cover art by Chana Hauben

Panicked residents outside St. Louis bought water bottles by the dozen, homeowners prayed, and farmers cursed busted levees when river water dumped sand on their crops. As though to emphasize catastrophe, three tornados twirled above St. Charles during an afternoon of the deluge. In Hardin, Missouri, floodwaters plucked coffins and burial vaults from a cemetery, shoving hundreds like hockey pucks across corn and bean fields.
“They’d take off in all different directions,” one resident recalled. “Then you’d just watch them glide off into the sunset.”
At its peak, the ’93 floodwaters covered sixteen thousand square miles, more than the surface areas of lakes Ontario and Erie combined. Throughout the state of Missouri the disaster obliterated all previous flood records for stage, volume, peak discharge, duration and frequency. In Kansas City in July, the Missouri River rose more than two feet higher than its unprecedented crest of 1951.
In the flood’s aftermath the Salvation Army raised $6.5 million in aid, billionaire Ross Perot flew out to the Midwest to pledge another million dollars and the Anheuser Busch brewery shut down its St. Louis beer taps to fill six packs with fresh water for the city of St. Joseph. Already that year in the state of Missouri wet weather halted crop planting on three-quarters of a million acres. The floodwaters confiscated two million acres more. Astonished farmers sighed when they saw hundreds of their acres coated with sediment. By piling sand from inches to feet thick on sixty percent of its lower floodplain, the Missouri River ruined dozens of farms. For many, the cost to remove this petrified pollution was more than the value of land it covered, creating so significant an impact that the Soil Conservation Service labeled the flood a “geologic event.”
Close to a decade later I drove across the state of Missouri, hunting for anecdotes about how this flood stirred havoc along its sinuous trail. Rumors told how the event delivered not only devastation but elicited creative resilience from those affected. Surprisingly, I found a vast difference between my expectations and reality.
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