A Tail of Two Dinosaur Roadside Attractions (and the SLIGHTLY fibrous nature of time)

If you like dinosaurs, this is a story for you! Mark Cline says we are experiencing the future right now. In an early morning hour near Natural Bridge, Virginia, I stand outside the Dinosaur Kingdom II, meeting the artist who created this attraction and many other fibrous sculptures and installations. Next to us, motors whir […]

Mushrooms and a rainy season in southern Appalachia

Late July, 2022 I’m back at the mountain family property at Fancy Gap, Virginia, clearing paths and finishing construction of the stone labyrinth. There have been storms; trees have fallen, and mushrooms are growing all around (including in the labyrinth). I’m learning to identify these mushrooms, so if you know these species, let me know […]

Great Dismal Hospitality

Dates of travel: August 2019, June 2020, July 2022 JULY 2022, GREAT DISMAL SWAMP Yellow flies surround me as I walk through thick, humid air and sunlight, to a picnic table to write notes on the way to a gig in Elizabeth City. I’m near the North Carolina-Virginia line. Beside me is the yellow silt-tinged […]

The Appalachian trail from Amicalola falls, and North Georgia memories

March 24-April 2, 2018 Finally, the central core of this cross-country trip has come — to drive with my spirit-sister Mamaluna to north Georgia so she can begin a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. On a stormy night from coastal Virginia heading southwest, we set out on a new journey, where all parts are exciting […]

Another cross country drive 3 – the river at Memphis and on to Appalachia

March 17-20, 2018 I pick up my car from the mechanic in Berryville, Arkansas and drive toward Memphis, hardly stopping at all in between. There are pretty, rolling hills of farmland and a few towns in this part of the Ozarks, but no places as interesting as Eureka Springs. There were hopes to find crystals […]

Another cross country drive 2 – Oklahoma into Eureka Springs Arkansas

March 14-17, 2018 From a cold blustery sunrise at Amarillo travel center and the cycle of truck stops to the forested hills of the Ozarks, i try to make it across the midsection of the land in one day. Friends in Arkansas have invited me to visit and stay, and if i get there tonight […]

Another cross country drive 1 – Tucson to New Mexico

March 12-14, 2018 It is my first time driving back across the usa since 2011 and i am anxious about it in ways i never expected. Committed to supporting my spirit sister in her quest to thru hike the Appalachian trail, i leave the warm comfort of Tucson for the cool eastern woodlands with no […]

Go Forth into the Waterfall: Pisgah and Dupont Forests, North Carolina

originally posted April 2010 Jessica Powell and Brian Goforth want to bathe in a waterfall as a wedding ritual. Her dress will not just sit in the closet for years after their wedding, wearable but unworn; she will let the water and the rocks rip the dress into a mess of memories. And they will […]

	Sunset for Tucson… on A Winter Collage, Slightly…
	Fall at Fancy Gap –… on Ballads of Fancy Gap
	Foggy Mountain Break… on Galax, Fries, Pittsboro: fair…
	Foggy Mountain Break… on Ballads of Fancy Gap
	Foggy Mountain Break… on birth in Iquitos…..