“When I was about four my father had an engagement to play the summer season out in Colorado Springs with a local band, the Colorado Midland Band, owned by the Colorado Midland Railroad. So we journeyed by train across the country to Colorado and my father rented a small cabin there. That cabin, by the way, stood until the 1980s when it was torn down for a new apartment complex. We spent a very enjoyable summer there. We loved the outdoors and we hiked every day. I remember they bought me a small red tin wagon which could be hauled quite easily to places like North and South Cheyenne Canyons.
“My father only had to play with the band in the evenings at the park so we had a lot of time to see many things. My mother and I sat on the grassy lawn and listened to the concerts each evening. We were there for most of the summer.” – Herb

To see more of the photos of Herb’s first trip West, from 1917, click the image below:

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2013/08/01/herbs-first-trip-west-colorado-springs-summer-1917/

An excerpt: “Wes, for some reason, took a liking to me, and I in turn found him one of the most fascinating desert people I had the privilege of meeting. During the second world war years he was one of a few inhabitants at Rhyolite. He kept a well-stocked bar but, as a diabetic, refrained from indulging. It was Wes, you will recall, who ate live ants, prescribed by a Shoshone woman living in an old box car as treatment for his tuberculosis.”

To read more of Herb’s letter, and to see his photos of Rhyolite, click the image below:

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2013/08/01/a-letter-from-herb-about-rhyolite-ghost-town-eating-ants-courteous-hookers/

An excerpt: “In the fall of 1939, Herb Ringer traveled west from Ringoes, New Jersey to pursue a divorce in Reno, Nevada.
He stayed at a small boarding house on Virginia Avenue for the next several months. While he was there, Herb recorded his observations…”

To read Herb’s observations and see his remarkable photos of Reno, click the image below:

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2013/08/01/notes-on-reno-and-vicinity-autumn-1939-herb-ringer/

Click the image below to read excerpts from Herb’s father’s journal and see more photos from their incredible life on the road:

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2013/08/01/joseph-ringers-journal-1944-1963/

A look at his original manuscript–the Introduction

“EDWARD ABBEY’S collection of essays was originally to be called ‘Desert Music.’ Ed was always trying to help out young artists and writers and based on a single cartoon I’d given him the previous winter, he put in a good word for me with his publishers in New York.
E.P Dutton hired me to draw 26 chapter illustrations and the cover and to my surprise, they sent me a frst generation copy of Abbey’s manuscript, complete with his edits and margin comments.
Later, he proposed that the book be called “Revelations,” but when it fnally went to press in the spring of 1977, Abbey’s book had become ‘The Journey Home.'” – JS

To see all the images of Ed’s first draft, click the image below:

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2013/06/02/the-evolution-of-the-journey-home-by-edward-abbey/

An Excerpt: “It was quite an event. Herb saved the clipping, now faded and yellow, and tucked it away with a few thousand other tokens and artifacts of memories that document his life, an adventure now almost 85 years long. Each of those tokens is a story and all one has to do is wave the memento beneath Herb’s nose and everything comes back, in extraordinary detail. He looks at a photo and he remembers the date it was taken, the place and the people who were there. But he also remembers the smell of it, the angle of the light, the warmth of the breeze…the feeling of that moment. He wraps himself in the memory and the glow of it warms us both.”

To read more of Jim’s article about Herb, click the image below:

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2013/08/01/i-can-still-see-everything-herb-ringers-remarkable-life-by-jim-stiles/