Fish Canyon is open, and the waterfalls are flowing.      I want to write that first line in all BOLD CAPS.      Because that hasn’t been said in 30 years.      Fish Canyon, in the San Gabriel Mountains above Azusa and Duarte, used to be humming with people. Cabins were scattered along the trail […]

      There are three ways to hike to the abandoned Dawn Mine above Altadena: the first is closed, the second is over-grown, but the third, in a metaphorical bear sense, is just right.       John W. Robinson, in his book “Trails of the Angeles: 100 Hikes in the San Gabriels,” says that Dawn Mine is […]

Epilogue: Northern Lights       It was Monday night, Kieara’s birthday. A group of us went out, listened to a poetry reading, drank heavily at a few bars and spent some time dancing. I arrived home in the darkness of two thirty in the morning, and still being wide awake, drank some red wine and played […]

Down to Size       It didn’t take very long to settle down in Alaska, through my bartending job at the Captain Cook Hotel, I instantly made some wonderful friends. There was Matt, who had worked as a bartender, but who now ran a used bookstore down the street. There was Paula, who also became a […]

The Motorcycle       When my motorcycle coughed, sputtered, coughed again, juddered, coughed a few more times, and finally rolled to a stop by the side of the road –half way up the AlCan- I thought it was because my motorcycle was jealous. Jealous of the cute little Yamaha 100 I had rented in Nepal the […]

A Week Early       One afternoon I stopped at a gas station that was definitely in the middle of nowhere. My bike was at 75 miles from the last fill-up, 75 miles from the last gas station and I was beginning to wonder if another gas station would ever arrive.       The gas station sat […]

The AlCan: Middle of Nowhere       The phrase –The Middle of Nowhere- is thrown about with consummate ease. To some people New Jersey is the middle of nowhere, while to others it is the middle of the Gobi desert. To me, it’s where there are no people around, or on a straight open road.       […]

Alaskan Humor and Wildlife      Classic Alaskan joke:       What is the state bird of Alaska?       The Mosquito.       When the people in the bar found out I was new, they almost fell over each other to tell me this joke. I didn’t get it at first, so they had to explain. “You know, ‘cause […]

Romance      Alaska is the last place in the United States I wanted to live.      No, wait, read that the other way around.       I had lived in the four corners of this country; I grew up in Southern California, summered in Manhattan and Portland and spent over a year in New Orleans. I felt that […]

That Sensation      I left San Francisco on May 3rd, 2001, heading north. A familiar feeling arose in my gut, a simple and powerful sensation. The feeling of movement, freedom. As the bridge opened up, and the tarmac sped past under the wheels of my motorcycle, I looked up –north- toward somewhere new.      The first time […]

The Meat Rack      In the third bar of the evening, a young man dropped his pants for us.      On the right cheek was a red welt, about the size of a half dollar. Rod said he got it from God. Now, for the rest of his life, he got his drinks half off.      It seemed […]

After riding north through the center of Mexico, I crossed the border at Douglass Arizona, and headed west, keeping south of the 10 freeway. Here are some of the photographs. Riding along route 80 I happened across the leftovers from an industrial city, which I found to be called Bisbee.  There is something wonderful about […]