inglorious wanderer

Las Vegas is not just about night life and city lights in the same way as BLM is not just Black Lives Matter. BLM is also Bureau of Land Management, a US federal agency within the Department of Interior currently headed by Secretary Ryan Zinke. BLM manages outdoor recreation, livestock grazing, mineral development and energy production on public lands.  The Red Rock Canyon located in the northern part of Las Vegas is just among the many public lands under BLM.  It’s my second visit to Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a place I don’t want to be stuck in. At least, this is what I have always thought.  I have always associated Las Vegas  with all the  “good stuff” that an as old as old school Third World immigrant would never learn to deal with. The first time I was here,  Q wed  A. It was a quickie wedding done in a private chapel operating as an LLC, a limited liability company, that is! The marriage had since ended after almost three long years of meth and booz...

"For each man sees himself in the Grand Canyon - each one makes his own Canyon before he comes, each one brings and carries away his own Canyon." The quote seen inside the viewing room of the visitors' center is from Carl Sandburg. Carl Sandburg was a poet and and three-time Pulitzer awardee who mused on the Grand Canyon. After  the United States acquired Arizona, along with California, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming following a brief war with Mexico that ended in 1848, Grand Canyon was designated as a forest reserve by President  Benjamin Harrison.  The American Antiquities Act of 1906 subsequently made the Grand Canyon Forest Reserve  into Grand Canyon National Monument by President Theodore Roosevelt.  Grand Canyon became the national park of today three years after the enactment of the National Park Service Act by President Woodrow Wilson.  The Grand Canyon is both a high desert and an inverted forest. It showcases  hundred of millions to almost tw...

I imagined the Chapel of the Holy Cross  on a hill in Sedona to be like an apparition of Mary, the blessed virgin. Just like how the mother of Christ was depicted in many  Catholic Churches, you look up and there she is, kindly looking down on everyone, the poor banished children of Eve!  An SUV seemed to be following me while I tried to locate the  "must see spiritual citadel" of Sedona. The driver looked  like another pilgrim to me.  I was ecstatic for some spiritual experience.  The SUV eventually pulled into the driveway of an expensive-looking property. The "must see spiritual citadel" didn't really look anything like the picture of "spiritual vortex" among the red rocks of Sedona that could inspire even this irreverent wanderer. I was looking for an image I saw online. It turns out that the picture was taken about 9 years ago, long before trees in the neighborhood obstructed the "spiritual vortex". I couldn't offer pra...

I did not expect to be driving steeply uphill to get to Chantry Flat. Chantry Flat which is not really flat is named after Charley Chantry, an Iowa-born prospector who came to the Sierra Madre,  CA in 1905. Charley Chantry, in between prospecting for mineral deposits in the San Anita Canyon, found a relatively flat area at the crest of the San Anita Canyon which he thought would be where he'd build a ranch on. Chantry Flat is the trailhead for the Gabrielino National Recreation Trail. The National Recreation Trails designation  on trails like the Gabrielino  or the Pacific Crest are designated based on the National Trail System Act of 1968.  The Gabrielino Trail got its designation in 1970. It's Cinco de Mayo and I was thinking of the Tongva folks who were indigenous to the area long before they were called Gabrielino Indians. I kept thinking of Karlee's co-worker at Starbucks named Angeles. This is the advantage of hiking solo, I get  to think of...