Outtakes from “Go West Old Man” tour
When you are from the soggy, humid southeastern US coast, and spend a few days in the arid desert, you start seeing things, imagining things….
For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index
Serendipity is a beautiful thing.
We were looking for something to do on our last full day in Mexico City, in addition to making a return visit to a market for some completely frivolous shopping. We had visited the Frida Kahlo home earlier so going to the Diego Rivera Mural Museum seemed appropriate. When we got there it was closed, construction as best we could tell, but definitely closed.
From there, the aforementioned market was a reasonable walk away, and an easy navigation, but as we walked along, checking the GPS map periodically, the Museo de Arte Popular popped up, showing a half block off our route. Why not?
It was fabulous. And because we are over 60, it was free. There was a lot of death type representation; it is Mexico, but the several floors of galleries were full of challenging and beautiful pieces. The thing that struck me the most was the level of detail, and lush coloring, in the carvings, ranging from very large altar pieces to smaller items like the Purgatory Mask shown here with a detail section.
For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index
In a post a few weeks ago I mentioned a time in my life when I felt “blown about randomly like a tumbleweed.” The truth is, at that point in my life I had no personal experience with tumbleweeds.
I “knew” them through the lens of movie and TV westerns, a lonely, and sometimes ominous, quiet moment where the desiccated, rootless vegetation is blown down the single, dusty street of a few unpainted clapboard buildings, in a town inexorably turning into ghost status; maybe just a camera style to move the viewers’ eyes to a different location. It never occurred to me there might be more than one or two at a time.
My friend and colleague Nick Didlick and I were teaching a Nikon School in San Diego and added a few days onto the trip to do some four-wheeling. We had been following a road of sorts, a slightly rutted track that was a little smoother than the rest, and at some point the sides of the road starting rising, as we moved into a slowly deepening gully. We kept going, assuming since there was still a track in, there would be some route up and out eventually.
And that’s when I lost my tumbleweed virginity, and in a pretty spectacular way. We discovered the great, lost Tumbleweed Graveyard.
Apparently, as the weed is blown along the surface it falls over into the gully, gets trapped, and accumulates. I’m using Nick’s photograph here because I’m driving, while he tries to push them away enough to drive through. The rental car company never did say anything about the scratches.
For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index
Timing is everything, no less true for being a cliche.
In January of 2004 I was driving from Phoenix to Denver, trying to hit what natural high points I could along the way, in the 5 days I had to make the trip. I had just finished making some sunrise photographs of the Mittens and was headed north, just crossing into Utah on US 163, when I saw the top scene in my rear view mirror, looking south, back toward Monument Valley.
The road had very recently been resurfaced, with new lane markings, and there was no traffic. I could easily lay down in the middle of the road to take this and not worry about how much time I might need to get back up. If you could see the pavement a couple of feet below the bottom of the photograph, it would be the normal, sun-bleached grayness of so many western roads, like in the bottom image.
Twenty years later, on our “Go West Old Man” tour last year, my friends and I came back through, to find that this rise is now on maps as the Forrest Gump Point. I particularly like the two blue highway signs along the right side of the road. The first says “Scenic View 1000 Feet.” The second says “Scenic View” with an arrow, in case you weren’t sure.
For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index
Outtakes from “Go West Old Man” tour
(Silence seems like the best response to a moment like this.)
For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index
“Lord, I was born a ramblin’ man
Tryin’ to make a livin’ and doin’ the best I can
And when it’s time for leavin’, I hope you’ll understand
That I was born a ramblin’ man” The Allman Brothers Band
Memories are the refuge of an old man (I’m 78 today), but they are an incomplete, biased, and untrustworthy record of a life, so some skepticism is appropriate. Recalling my early adult life though, I remember it always being interesting. Not always fun, and sometimes I was so broke I survived on bologna sandwiches, but even then, interesting.
I think it not inaccurate to characterize myself at that time as being a “drifter,” blown about randomly like a tumbleweed, with limited direction, and no sense of purpose. Then, 44 years ago, I was teaching a class which included a student named Barbara. Today is our 32nd wedding anniversary.
I will likely always approach life in a “curiosity” mode, a mile wide and an inch deep, but her personality compliments that with a willingness to dig deep. So, after we had enjoyed several bicycle riding trips in recent years, I suggested trying a horseback riding adventure. That was the extent of my contribution. She dug in and spent hours doing research, scouring the web for possibilities, contacting trip packagers, sending emails with specific questions to vendors and facilities.
She found Rancho Las Cascades, a couple of hours north of Mexico City, where the riding is tailored to the skill and comfort level of the individual, through an open range of hills, rivers, and wildflower fields. It is so much more than that, though. There is also an infinity pool and hot tub, yoga, massage, cooking classes, hiking to three waterfalls, tasty breakfasts, filling lunches, four course dinners, and a wonderful staff that accommodate every request with a smile . The self-service bar area includes coffee, tea, an assortment of soft drinks, and a refrigerator full of beer, a complete alcohol selection, lime ice cubes and margarita solution already prepared that you only need to pour into the blender. There’s always a cake platter for a snack. The only thing with an additional cost is the Nespresso machine.
The ranch is the creation of a Swiss woman who worked in tourism and aviation all over the world and then bought the land and built her dream. It is chock-a-block with beautiful regional arts and crafts scattered throughout the buildings and landscape, all selected by her, and the horses–Quarter horses, Appaloosas, Palominos, etc.–are all mixed breeds with some Criollo genes, also all selected by her.
From there to Mexico City, Barbara found Colima 71 Casa de Arte Hotel, another beautiful facility full of arts and crafts, again with a warm and friendly staff that treats you like you are their only guest. It’s in the Roma Norte area, full of restaurants, art galleries, and vintage clothing shops, and jokingly (I think) called “Gringolandia” by one of our taxi drivers.
She has brought a richness to my life that makes me so glad this once I chose to not just move on.
Happy Anniversary Barbara.
For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index
“Empty saddles in the old corral
Where do you ride tonight?
Are you rounding up the dogies, the strays of long ago
Are you on the trail of buffalo?
Empty saddles in the old corral
Where do you ride tonight?
Are there rustlers on the border, or a band of Navajo
Are you heading for the Alamo?” The Sons of the Pioneers
Some small part of me will never let go of my childhood dream of being a cowboy. The reality is I have ridden a horse maybe a dozen times, mostly barn-runners on an over worn trail. Today I cantered across open range. Three times. That won’t seem like much of an accomplish to many, but I will be 78 next week and I was thrilled to finally have a little taste of the freedom I always imagined those men had.
More accurately, the horse cantered and I held on, bouncing in the saddle like a trampoline. But I didn’t fall off. As I walked through the wildflowers and past the Ladybug shaped sweat lodge, from the corral back to my room, my heart was so full my eyes were watering.
In a world that seems to be constantly raging at the slightest provocation, I am so grateful for the moments and places like this, where I have felt a complete peace with the universe. Other moments have been sitting outside my tent in the Serengeti staring at a predawn sky full of stars, sitting on a Wyoming mountainside watching the sunrise over Lake Jackson and the Tetons, or sitting with my dog in Washington Square by my home watching twilight blend with street and porch lights, turning my neighborhood into a fairy tale vision.
For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index
Outtake from “Go West Old Man” tour
“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, one clover and a bee, and revery. The revery alone will do, if bees are few.”-Emily Dickinson
“While I know the standard claim is that Yosemite, Niagara falls, the upper Yellowstone and the like, afford the greatest natural shows, I am not so sure but the Prairies and Plains, while less stunning at first sight, last longer, fill the esthetic sense fuller, precede all the rest, and make North America’s characteristic landscape.”- Walt Whitman
“I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures.” -Geronimo
“A cold wind blew on the prairie on the day the last buffalo fell. A death wind for my people.”-Sitting Bull
“The wilderness needs your whole attention.”-Laura Ingalls Wilder
“Anybody can love the mountains, but it takes a soul to love the prairie.”-Willa Cather
For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index
Outtakes from “Go West Old Man” tour
If traveling across the northern plains of the US, Wall, SD, next to Badlands NP, is a must stop. They have something for everyone.
For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index
Outtake from “Go West Old Man” tour
This is gone now.
In last fall’s “Go West Old Man” tour with my two pals, there were only two places in the 17 day drive that I had never visited–Bryce Canyon, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We left our budget hotel the morning after seeing Bryce, heading for the nearby North Rim. “Breakfast,” was a lobby counter with some stacked, packaged food that was their “included” breakfast buffet.
That minimal effort didn’t bother me. When you are traveling for photography, a lot of meals come down to accepting what you can get when and where you are. I love a 7 course Chef’s Tasting with wine pairing as much as anyone, but I can also live for days on Honey Buns, power bars, coffee and beer if the location is good shooting.
When Paul opened his pastry and looked at the heavy mold covering the bottom he tossed it in the trash. I had already finished eating mine and tried not to think about what might have been growing on it, so as soon as we got into the park we looked for more food and coffee, at the Lodge.
Our drive was always pushing on, spending little time most places. I had a date certain from Barbara that I was to be back home, so we grabbed something to eat, looked around for a bit, and headed on. I wish now I had taken a little more time to explore the place, and photographed the Lodge. The original was built in 1928 and, after a fire in 1932, was rebuilt in 1937, so you expect it to always be there. Things change.
For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index
