El Camino Royale

When in doubt, drive to California. Or so at least that is what comes into my mind when I am having another midlife crisis or feel lost. Using the King’s Highway or El Camino Real (as if I am somehow as emotionally martyred as Christ himself) as my backdrop somewhat cheekily, I have often set out from my home in Colorado to see what I can work out in my head by setting off into the expanse of the Southwest. I know the desert and the mountains well. I know where the pronghorns begin to appear on the horizon. I know when the Joshua Trees will appear and start poking their arms at me. I know the best truck stops, the best off highway Americana oddities, the sun-beaten asphalt paths that seem to head dead straight for miles and miles. I feel the most at home roaming out here when no one knows where I am. The West (of the good ole USA, that is) is a complicated landscape. One born of genocide, rife with mining pollution, and full of desperation for many. I suppose I am often looking for my own brokenness in the detritus along the road. A shattered pane of glass like the corrupt and overly simplistic photograph I tried to make. How can you sum up the Grand Canyon in a photograph?! I often become whole again by gliding over the highway, listening to a radio station preacher in Spanish, or connecting with a friendly gas station attendant. I’ll put on Harry Dean Stanton singing an ode to decades gone by and hope to sit next to his ghost at Dan Tana’s Bar in Los Angeles. I’ll stop at the ocean and stare out at what is and what could have been.