Tag Archives: desert

Here I am on the end of a string.

Walking in circles.

The circles are getting bigger.

Why?

Pal Dusty & I are trying to find the head of a pin.

The pin marks the back-most boundary of our land.

I step over a shrub.

I walk through red chunks of broken boulder.

No pin yet. Its head is a little bigger than a 25-cent quarter.

It’s the exact same color as a quarter, too.

We have secured latitude and longitude now.

As well as a satellite GPS tool.

But the coordinates are missing two decimal places.

And for this estimate, we are two hundred feet away from our target.

(At least, this is merely another estimate.)

So Dusty feeds out a little more kite string. And I circle.

Horizon: sharp mountain, no mountain, smooth mountains, trees.

Back and forth across the red desert, searching for the head of this pin.

More kite string out. Wider circle.

Same, yet different shrubs, rocks, dead grass, sand underfoot.

Exact same horizon circle of sharp mountain, no mountain, smooth mountains, trees.

It’s easy work.

But dull.

Found it!

Under thick shrubs and branches so dry they look like beach wood, though of course, it is not, I see that silver metal head of a pin.

We build a brick-red cairn.

Big rock base, medium rock middle, little rock top.

Love cairns.

Dumb thing to love, but there you go.

That was the last pin we needed.

Now we know exactly where we live.

To be continued