[With thanks to my good friend jcwart for the inspire to delve deeper into details of the day-to-day, the riddle of Riddle being merely the beginning]

…the riddle of Riddle being understanding, even thirty years out, that area of the Owyhee where Dave and I once walked off the colorfully named “Dickshooter Ridge”, crossing canyons at unlikely points difficult to recreate, recreationally or otherwise, in retrospect. Twenty-five years later I went back, intending to retrace our tracks, but the Idaho side of the equation was fenced in, locked up and populous with the fractious cowboy minions of, mainly, the Simplot empire, all exactly spouting the language of some corporate-financed libertarian seminar [doubtless held in response to the unrelenting provocations of Jon Marvel’s heinously cynical “Western Watersheds Project”] about their Public Lands’ “property rights”, each and every, so I gave it up and labored around to south of the river, locating our crossing at least.  A year or so later I returned with Lefty to walk the canyon from the more hospitable “Nevada” side, locating a road into it no longer on my newer map but conspicuous, once seen, on the old, which dates back to when the USGS actually walked the country [I saw them, once, on the western edge of the desert, in the mid-seventies] to survey it.  Of late I have brought out the maps, some older than that September 1978 walkout, to puzzle over those peculiar territories yet again.

When not puzzling I might take a break to paint or even the occasional trip down First to harass  seagulls from the little truck…

Further details, the Aguilar puppy…and Specky’s memorial.  Plus various collections,

…a rubber taco found on the beach at Zuma in 1968, ten eventful years before the Dickshooter Walkout, a Nevada souvenir, future sculptures…

…scenes around the town, morning and afternoon, with details of patinas between

…and Auto Bios in available but not unlimited quantities.

Less minutiae/more landscrapes next episode;

M