Before the end of the first week on my first cross-country camping trip, my bike tipped over twice. It took me 6000 miles and two windshields to learn how to pack.
Just as we were loading out, the llama went into his guard mode, stamping and making a sound that I can't describe (but which you can hear on the podcast -- just hit the button). Coyote alert!
Many of them resembled human figures, and although I had no idea of their significance, they gave me the sense that I was part of an infinite whole, transcending the limits of time.
I couldn’t get enough of the retired zookeeper's stories about spitting snakes and reluctant-to-mate primates; one of my childhood fantasies was zookeeping!
Imagine being in a forest of sewing needles soaring thousands of feet above your head. You'd feel like a “Who” in Dr. Seuss’s classic book "Horton Hears A Who," wouldn't you?
My grandparents loved Bluegrass music & "Hee Haw." The Blue Ridge Music Center taught me to appreciate the music that I thought was so unhip while growing up.
To my left, over the Postmaster’s door, was a mural that I somehow knew, even without an art history degree, had been hand painted in my grandparents’ time.
On the late June day we hit Oatman, the mercury hit 115?, so not even the reptiles were stirring. Why would we take a detour to see a tourist trap on such a hot day? To see the Oatman burros, of course.