Escaping a Train, Restoration for Wildlife, Another Train and Still Finland

Whats Happening?

If we jump in the way back machine and return all the way to 2010, you may remember that I started this website for three specific reasons.   One, I wanted it to serve as resume or CV as a forged out to carve a path into the world of freelance writing and photography. Two, I wanted to encourage myself to become a better photographer by putting by work out there for comment and critique and three, I wanted the site to be a home for my short stories and other writings.

I never really intended it to turn into a “travel blog”.

And so, if you haven’t noticed, it seems like this website ends up falling by the wayside just a bit here and there as my freelance business grows, as I get more assignments and continue towards my goal to being a regular writer for the likes of National Geographic, the Smithsonian and others.  To be honest, things have been going pretty well.  I’ve been very busy and by the look of things the rest of the summer and fall are going to be backed with work.  There is no way I’m going to drop this website, just from time to time my posting may be less and sometimes more depending on the amount of work I’m getting.

So.  Because I have been posting less I wanted to be sure to point you to some of my most recent work….and I know you’re all VERY excited….

Recent Publications

– All Along the Arkansas River, Peaks and Plains, Summer 2014 (text and photos)

Boys will be boys. My son and nephew are nothing if not boys.

“Ahhh!”  My nephew’s prized Denver Broncos cap flew from his head, off the train and into the tumbling rapids of the Arkansas River. It was gone in the blink of an eye.  “Oh no!”  Tears filled his eyes.

“Let’s see if we can get in the engine!” my son yelled! “I know how to drive this thing!”

“No you don’t! You’re only six!” and the hat was forgotten. The two of them took off running through the open-air car and into one of the sitting cars, bumping, yelling, slamming and pulling on each other the whole way.  Jackets dropped, heads banged against doors and water bottles pounded to the floor and rolled under the benches as the train rounded a curve. I cringed and looked apologetically at the train crew.

– That One Time I Nearly Got Runned Over by That Damned Old Train, Vrai Magazine, June 2014 (text and photos)

I nearly got myself run over by a 150 year old train a few years ago. It was a woman’s fault. Kind of.

Ok well, not really. But kind of. Ok. Not really…. I guess it was really my fault.

I walked out of Chama, New Mexico with a small backpack and the book titled “Blood Meridian”. I set camp up in the pines and aspens during a rain storm. My sleeping bag was soaked through. Dinner was beef jerky, M&Ms and the book…..

– In Leopold’s Footsteps, New Mexico Magazine, July 2014 (not yet available online, text and photos…except the 1914 shot…)

There is a sulphur bog and a series of burping ponds in a little valley on the south end of the Valles Caldera National Preserve.  The ponds that feed the marshy area below are aquamarine and the little valley cradles a distinct rotten egg smell.

Years ago a road was cut through the forest and up the valley alongside these wetlands.  The road altered the way the water from rain and snowmelt ran down the hills and into the valley bottom.  The result was that a series of deep gullies threatened to drain the sulphur bog and its little ponds…..

– I also had a slew of articles and photos in the Taos Summer Guide for 2014

– BookTaos Online purchased a number of photos for web use.

This is just a sampling of what I’ve been up to.  There are others out there and I try to link to everything I write on this page….but I havent been able to quite keep up lately.  Then there is a little photo contest I won….that I’m not sure I can talk about yet….so you didn’t see it here….

FINLAND

There are a number of LARGER projects I’m pounding ahead with too.  Longer term stuff and requires I move step by step and bite off only what I can chew.  One of those is about European Wilderness.  When I living in France and then in Switzerland in the 90’s I was forever thinking that Europe desperately needed a home-grown Wilderness protection movement like we have in the USA.  It has taken awhile but suddenly, they do!  It is small and under financed and yet they are rapidly moving

As both a writer and Wilderness activist myself, I want to be the one to document the growth of inevitable success of this work.  And the project I am putting together for August in Finland is one of the first steps down that path.

Given that I am a new and in some ways unproven writer (although that is rapidly changing) I am not able to access the funds to do some of the research I want to do.  That will change.  But for now, I’ve gone to crowdfunding for this work and this specific trip.  If you can, please help out.  I’m over halfway to my goal and even small amounts add up very fast.

THANK YOU!

And there you have it!  More soon.

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