The Last Waltz

Looking back, again I'm writing this after an absence just shy of two months. Last seen I guess I had arrived back East after summer photography school and Burning Man. All the best intentions of keeping current with this again fell by the wayside, scattered along the road these past 5,798 miles. I don't know why, but it was only at the very end that I realized that it was ending (I know, no endings, just new beginnings). So here I am, sitting outside a San Francisco coffee shop, on the precipice of the next beginning, on the first day of December, 2002. Exactly 576 days from the day I walked out of my cube, 534 days from the first time I set out on the road. This moment may be the first time I've really absorbed that, it's a little overwhelming. In that time I've crossed the country 5 times in the van (8 times in a plane) and driven over 39,491 miles. I've at least doubled the number of people on this planet I call friend. I have no idea how many nights spent in the van, let alone camped in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I've been towed (thank you AAA) at least 4 times, and towed the van myself over 500 miles on a trailer. Uncountable quarts of oil changed. Far far too many minutes on my cell phone. Immeasurable joys, and sadness; certainty and doubt, confidence and fear.

.....walking down the street as I headed out, driving almost all the way to Memphis. On the following day, I managed to get all the way to Dallas, where I stayed with an old friend from Capital One, and then another old friend from Richmond. On Sunday I struck out for Big Bend NP, down in the far Southwest corner of Texas. The last 75 miles or so were through some pretty empty landscape. For some reason I noticed a fair number of dead animals by the side of the road, and realized that over a year and a half of traveling I had never hit one. Within 5 minutes a bird flew into the front of the van and all I saw in the rear view mirror were feathers floating to the ground. A little disturbed by this, I had to stop myself when a little later I started thinking how it had been a while since the van had broken down.... I got to Big Bend, had my conversation with the Ranger, got my maps, and started driving around like a maniac taking pictures. I had started thinking about how many slides I would need, and realizing that I had about 7 hours to fill, I was getting a little panicky. Figuring that usually I get one really good picture per roll of film, I realized that I was going to have to shoot a ton of film, and lower my standards. Well maybe not lower my standards so much, as realize that my audience would be dancing and that this would be serving as background visuals, so it didn't need to be perfect. So here I am, driving through Big Bend, screeching to a stop every time I saw something interesting, jumping out of the van trailing camera equipment behind me taking photo's. I spent about 3 days there, which was both wonderful and exhausting (http://findtao.com/desertscapes1.htm). From there up to El Paso where I spent the night before heading up to White Sands NM, which would turn out to be my favorite stop. I got a backcountry permit, and hiked about a mile into the dunes where I set up camp so I could shoot the sunset, sunrise, and try to get some star trails. As the sun went down I could see all the other backcountry campers on dunes all around me watching the sunset. As I took my pictures I talked to a German guy camped over the way from me. He tries to come to the U.S. every year, usually to hike in the West. After the sun went down, I spent some time trying to take pictures of lightning, and then star trails. When I got up the next morning to shoot the sunrise, I took about 5 shots, and then ran out of film having gone a little crazy with the night photography. Driving out of White Sands, I took off for Three Rivers Petroglyphs, a BLM site with over 10,000 petroglyphs carved into the rocks scattered across a hill (http://findtao.com/desertscapes2.htm).

From there it was up to Albuquerque to buy more film and then over to a place that I had found on the web called the Bisti Badlands. Unfortunately due to my late arrival and bad weather I didn't get too much there, so I went on down the road towards Canyon De Chelly in Northern Arizona, where I was once again saddled with bad weather and lousy light (as well as a burgeoning ill mood), so I decided to go on to Tucson where I had plans to photograph Saguaro NP, and spend a day or two visiting my friend Gary from Burning Man. When I got to Tucson, I dropped off 20 rolls of film at a lab and went over to Gary's for a much needed beer. We spent the next day photographing Cacti around Tucson, and then I departed to visit my Great Uncle and Aunt who live south of the city, and we stayed up filling each other in on all sorts of silly family stories. Somewhat recharged from two days of company and two nights of real beds I again hit the road, this time for Organ Pipes NP, and got some great Sunset pictures (http://findtao.com/desertscapes4.htm). I spent the night in Yuma on my way to Anza-Borrego state park in Southern California, but didn't have too much luck there before finally moving on to Joshua Tree. For some reason I was getting a little weary of taking pictures of dirt and sand, and after a few hours in Joshua Tree...

...feeling like every picture I took was just like one I had seen somewhere else, I got on the road for Death Valley (http://findtao.com/desertscapes3.htm). Death Valley turned out to be fairly photogenic, with the catch being that there is about 20 minutes of great light in a day, 10 at sunrise, the other 10 at sunset. So it you haven't carefully planned your photography, you either end up somewhere great with lousy light, or are driving down the road at unsafe speeds hurtling towards your destination as the sun disappears over the mountains. In spite of these challenges I stayed there two nights and got some pictures that I'm pretty happy with. It is a place that deserves a week of very carefully planned photography, and a very reliable 4WD vehicle to get to the good spots. Someday I'll go back. It was on the second night there, after eating dinner and setting up to do some star trails, that I realized that it was my last night in the wild. While I wouldn't be in San Francisco for about a week, the next day I would get to LA, and be there for a few days setting up the slide show. So in a way, this was it. Here is what I wrote that night.....

I stepped out of the van about 20 minutes ago to move the camera, I'm taking pictures of star trails. It's been a slow few days, and I've been a little tired of it all. As I opened the shutter on the camera, I realized that this is probably the last night of the adventure. I still have some traveling to do, but I'll be in cities, visiting. This is the last night, in the wilderness, by myself, sleeping in the van, eating macaroni and cheese for dinner. I'm in a small campground in the northern part of Death Valley, there's maybe 4 other people here. I got here as the sun was setting, made dinner, and set up the camera. I fell asleep a little after 7, and woke up a little after 9, moving the camera. I read for about 2 hours (Love in the Time of Cholera - Marquez). It was when I went out to move the camera again that I realized this was it, and that maybe I should let go of the weariness I was letting drag me down, and relish these last few hours. I spent a while looking at the stars, realizing that maybe I should have done more of it over the last year and a half - but not really beating myself up about it. They are so bright here, you can actually see how the one shoulder of Orion is a reddish star (Betelgeuse I think...). There is one bright light in the sky, I noticed it last night, brighter than the rest, and twinkling, seemingly with several different colors. I guess it must be a planet, or something manmade, it is hard not to keep looking at it to figure it out. The handle of the big dipper has dropped below the horizon. Cassiopeia is almost directly overhead, as are the Pleiades. These are the only constellations I know, but I can find them almost instantly when they are in the sky. Sometimes it seems as if Orion follows me wherever I go, whenever I need it, it is there. We first became friends in the 3rd grade when I lived in Iran. I had a class project to pick a star and mark it's movement across the sky at night. My Dad showed me the three stars in Orion's belt, and we tracked their progress across the mountains around the city. Since then it's been my favorite constellation. As I watched the stars tonight, a shooting star crossed my vision. Remembering to make a wish, I searched for one, but came up with nothing. I guess maybe all my wishes have been granted for the moment. I may have gotten lucky and captured it on film, guess I'll find out when I get it developed. I think I'll stay up a few more hours and look at the stars. I want to get up for sunrise, and stargazing a while longer may interfere with that plan, but I have seen many sunrises over the last year or so, so I think I may just look at the stars.

The next morning I drove over the mountains to the West, into the empty valley there, I took a turn onto a dirt road to check out a ghost town, and in the middle of nowhere drove past a radar installation. I was trying to figure out what it was doing out there when a pair of F-18's roared by. They flew up and down the valley a few times, once directly overhead at no more than a few hundred feet up. I managed to get a few blurry pictures. The ghost town turned out to be pretty boring, so off I went to a place I had been looking forward to seeing called Trona Pinnacles. As you can see in the pictures (http://findtao.com/desertscapes5.htm) it is an otherworldly place. The van proved it's off-road mettle by tearing up the dirt roads around these things, although by the end everything not bolted down was scattered throughout the interior as I was driving pretty aggressively over some monster bumps and dips in the road. Other than the mess it was a blast. When I was driving out I passed a bunch of people in SUV's and they were looking at me like in disbelief that I had driven my crazy van down through there. At this point I declared myself done with the photo project. I had something like another 20 rolls of film that I had shot, so overall I shot something over 40 rolls on my desert project. I spent a day in LA visiting my friend Tiffany from photo school this summer. I picked up my film the next day and drove down to Orange County where I spent the next day or so with my friend Ron putting together the slide show. We ended up using 3 projectors, with 240 slides cycling through them. The show was blast, coming from Richmond it was exactly what you would expect from a rave type thing. It was in a not so good section of LA, sort of a warehouse district, with a seemingly innocuous door in the side of a building, leading into a small warehouse space below with stacks of speakers, and a smaller loft studio area above. There were dj's spinning in both rooms, and we had the slides playing upstairs. Across the street there was an amazing graffiti-mural painted on the walls. I spent most of the night dancing and watching to see if people were looking at my pictures. It was a good time. Since then I spent a week in San Francisco not doing much other than resting, a week back in Southern California visiting some friends, and the past week back here in San Francisco busily getting settled in. I'm going to rent a room from a friend from Burning Man, I've already purchased my cheap desk and bookcase from Ikea and set them up, as well as pretty much unpacking my few belongings. I'll be living on the Presidio, which is a great location. I joined the Presidio YMCA (which I can walk or skateboard to in about 5 minutes), and have been doing Yoga for the past week to start getting into shape for Snowboard season. I signed up for Swing dancing lessons because I've always wanted to learn, and it should be a great way to meet people. It seems as though every woman in this town knows how to Swing Dance, so this is probably the perfect time to take it up. I've been researching photography opportunities in town. It will be a slow start, so I'll probably do some Temping or get a P/T job at the beginning of the year to get the cash flow going in the right direction. I'm hoping to interview for a photographic internship this week, which if nothing else should give me some other leads. I seem to alternate between being excited and at peace with where I am, and wondering what the hell I'm doing. So many people over the last year and a half have told me that what I was doing was brave and took courage, I never felt that way, it all seemed to me the right thing to do, it is only now that I feel I need that courage - to start over. I know it will all work out, it always has, that I'm certain of, but I do have the bittersweet awareness of all that has been left behind to make all of this possible. I wouldn't change a thing though, it is those losses and risks taken that make me appreciate what has and will be great in this ongoing adventure. The joy and experiences I have had over the last 576 days are....indescribable. Not that it won't be a bumpy road, and there is no AAA for the breakdown's on this path, but I'm sure I can call my extended family all across the country for a tow now and again when things get a little hard....