ATV tracks on lava sands near, but outside, the boundary of Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument
I'm taking today off. In the five days since I left SLC, I drove 1,600 miles, including three trips from Phoenix to Tucson (one of them all the way to Nogales) and made the essential pictures I had targeted for the U.S. Hwy 89 project. There's still more I want to do now that I'm here, including some urban skyline stuff in Phoenix, after I restock the well. In the Artist Way, Julia Cameron prescribes the Artist Date (a weekly excursion to do something completely non-productive and fun) as a way to sustain creative energy. The concept works for me when I allow it. So today, Mom and I ate breakfast out, went to a great used bookstore, and saw a 3D IMAX film about whales and dolphins. I am teaching her dog to roll over. I'll be back at the task tomorrow, with refreshed vision and more gas in the tank.
Today I offer a photo from my last trip to Arizona, when I came to make photos of Sunset Crater itself. We flew south from the monument, where we found an area devoted to ATV trails; even at sunrise, the riders were burning $4 per gallon gasoline. I find the patterns of the tracks attractive, even beautiful, in their own way, even if little else of the sport appeals to me. Think about the word recreation: to re-create oneself. How people go about restoring and reinventing themselves fascinates me, especially when it involves noise and destruction. I hope those riders found what they were looking for in their ATV dust. I'll look for mine elsewhere.
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.
- Henry David Thoreau
Comments (3)
Stunning landscape despite what is causing the tracks. Sunset Crater is a great place.
I just discovered your blog and am really digging it.
Posted by Richard Wong | August 21, 2008 3:36 PM
Posted on August 21, 2008 15:36
Your photo elevates these common tracks into something as sublime as the lines at Cuzco.
As to your rumination: ...whether a man dispassionately sees to the core of life, or passionately sees the surface, the core and the surface are essentially the same;...wonder names them both...from wonder, existence opens...Lao Tzu
Thank you for wandering (with the D70)and wondering!
Posted by Drew O'Brien | August 21, 2008 11:08 PM
Posted on August 21, 2008 23:08
Wondrous.
While I appreciate Thoreau's sentiment in spirit, he was trapped in flatland and I'm sure he could not conceive the more-than-Olympian vista that flight would bring; could not imagine the imagery the hands and eyes of Ann Torrence would bring us.
The scene evokes the raked gravel of a Japanese garden.
Even ATVs, however unintentional, have their moment of shibui.
Posted by Robert Marc | August 22, 2008 9:41 PM
Posted on August 22, 2008 21:41