In the morning we're leaving for the Nevada interior. That almost certainly sounds pompous and affected. It would to me if I didn't know what it is like out there. I've wrestled with an accurate description for what we do every since our first excursion six years ago. Camping just doesn't cut it. Touring falls short. Exploring is a bit too much. I could say photo safari but the desert simply does not live up to the glamor a word like safari conjures ... elephants, indolent lion prides, chilling kills, rhinos bashing the jeep... So I end up using flat phrases like
"going out there" and
"poking around the desert". Not very descriptive. The thing is, once you've been out there,
out there does make sense. It is out there.
Out, not
in where it is safe; not
in with comforting familiarity; with water.
Out there is not protected like it is
in here. And
there; Earth, without the people. Anyway, we're going camping tomorrow and won't be back until the end of week.
I have passed though a few different takes on what's out there,
beginning with the astounding experience of meeting the planet beyond real estate ... earth, sky, wind, water ... not necessarily hospitable but fascinating and, other than the sound of the wind and voices of coyotes talking to each other across the night, and our noisy intrusion, stunningly quiet.
Over time, however, I became consumed by a grinding obsession with the history of the land, the miners, the crazy immigrants who threw their few possessions in wagons and set out in search of a new life, the West. Nevada is full of silent artifacts from those journeys, stone ruins, remnants of barns, fences, towns, wells, mines, roads. And under that, the desert holds records of humans crossing and crisscrossing each other's trails thousands and thousands of years before the
Europeans came. These records were made by now extinct, unrelated civilizations who left behind petroglyphs, cave paintings, lithic scatters and burial grounds. It is all being erased by the wind, all rotting in the sun but, along with the gigabytes of photos I have taken, the dimensions and solemn account burned into my psyche until finally it was all I could see, the Past, tragic, bold, and violent everywhere.
That and the strange, impenetrable Nellis Air Force base, home of the legendary Area 51, smack in the middle of Nevada and completely inaccessible. Wanting to explore that is the only reason I can see for entering the machine. Mr. Lee is ready for the
Singularity. He loves taunting me about how,
pretty soon, we will be able to upload ourselves into the machine but I like sentient life. However, I must admit, the opportunity to freely snoop around Nellis and Area 51 undetectable in the lifelike body of a robot hummingbird, is very appealing as long as I can transfer back into my corporeal form at will.
In the meantime, my interest in the desert is changing. The history of the West is of the brutal, ruthless exploitation of humans, animals and the land. The power grab in the 19th century established the fortunes and corrupted the men and families who rule America as its fascist shadow government today, become corporate entities now evolving into the rapacious global Corporatocracy. But don't get me started. Anyway, I'm looking for something new
out there now because the weight of the past has worn me down.
This trip, I think I'll start back at the beginning where all that is left of civilization, the impression of a road, leads only to the sky and the planet,
as it is, land adrift in space, in an atmosphere of its own making, a breathing sphere, an island within an unfathomed sea.
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