Same ol’ skies, but comfortably coolish for latish June, fortuitously

not only for work but also because L. was finally in residence following her Nebraska

[and other] adventures inspiring, despite mild dissuasion, me to remove the 2011 watercolors

from the north wall of the Repo and substitute two early Duferrena paintings, an inadvertent diptych originally painted right to left on Page Street in early 1978.

Ah, those were the days.

These below form a not-quite-inadvertent triptych, panning from right to left with the small

camera around

Storm Queen Sculpture Park of a

Lizard Summer, 2019.

The last Thursday here there were errands in town so I went from Wall [just above Parker Ranch on the Benchmark below] into Gerlach and then took the opportunity

for a diversion around the west side of Godey’s and, in sand and slowness,

over to Phil siding, beyond which one sees

Parker Ranch [left of post] and Wall Spring [right of post]…

or just the Buffs.

Or south along the Fox Range, hey.

After that it was over to the LADWP road to follow their DC lines SW

to a light lunch with a view to the southern reaches of the Black Rock

as electrical trickles crackled.  I followed the towers into the San Emidio as far as

Cottonwood Canyon, a place I’d never been on a road

that soon decided it would be better off persevering into the bushes but

eventually reached the cottonwoods

and, though both maps promised better, not much further.

Continuing afoot I found tamarisk,

water, willows,

and faint ATV tracks…

Supposedly there was a mine up in there somewhere

but I turned back,

back down to the truck to back out and

turn around at evidence of a former habitation where now

only a rudimentary hunting camp – firepit, table, shade – remained.

And Empire across the valley…but yet

Wall Spring was only an hour away up the powerline road, across the tracks to Godey’s

and, with a soundtrack** suspiciously

similar to the Alturas excursion’s,

back to Wall, 2:30.

A small adventure…

*with apologies to M.Sykes but, next time…

**thanks to Ms. Beth Regardz of Santa Cruz, California, for the most apt illumination of sounds and experiences