Excerpt:

It was in 1975 when I was 27 that I first experienced myself as part of the wildness of the land. My older brother Dan and I had just crossed the Pecos River in Texas after midnight into the endless expanse of Creosote on the eastern edge of the Chihuahuan desert. Somehow those millions of spread-out Creosote bushes weren’t simply out there anymore, apart from me. We were wonderfully alive together. I was ecstatic.

I’m cautious about making too much of this experience because it didn’t touch my life as a whole. But ever since then, whenever I’ve been in the Chihuahuan Desert or in one of the other American deserts, I’ve felt a part of them in a way that I can’t describe. I particularly love the rough lowland desert terrain encircling the purple fortress of the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park, and the wall of the Sierra Carmen Mountains just across the Rio Grande River there. And the northern fringe of the Chihuahuan Desert making its way through and along the Tularosa Valley in south central New Mexico; you can stand in the Oliver Lee State Park on the eastern side south of Alamogordo, and watch the dawn light spread across the wide valley floor, casting the long, distant line of the Organ Mountains on the other side in purple light.

To read more of Scott’s article, click the link below:

An Entirely Different Vista Found… By Scott Thompson

To see more of Terry Knouff’s photographs, click the link below:

‘Instant Moab’ Moab in Winter…Photos and Captions by Terry Knouff

Excerpt:

In early summer of 1919, young Bill Tibbetts finally came home. After spending eighteen months at the Utah Sate Industrial School for juvenile offenders in Ogden, Utah, Bill had joined the army. He was nineteen when he put on the uniform. At the time, America was mobilizing to fight the First World War and Uncle Sam was happy to have a few healthy young juvenile delinquents join the ranks. The state of Utah thought it was a good idea, too. What better way to rehabilitate a kid than send him to the army?

Spending time in the army and traveling across the country gave Bill a whole new perspective of the world he lived in. In many ways, he was different when he came home to Moab. He was older, smarter, more world-wise, and more apt to think things through than he had been. He was twenty one-years-old now, five feet, ten inches tall, and well muscled. His bearing, good looks, and commanding personality made him stand out in a crowd. Men stepped aside and women swooned.

To read more about from Tom McCourt’s book, click the link below:

An Excerpt From ‘LAST OF THE ROBBERS ROOST OUTLAWS: Moab’s BILL TIBBETTS’, PART 4…By Tom McCourt

(This article appeared in the August/September 2014 Zephyr.)

An excerpt:

It is an uncomfortable position for me, as a woman, to be opposed to the first nomination of a woman for President. It would be much more pleasant to count myself among the Pro-Hillary camp. To buy the T-shirt, attach the bumper sticker, and chortle knowingly to myself whenever Karl Rove says something inescapably stupid and sexist about my candidate.

But I just can’t step in line. I am too pained by the knowledge that, with Hillary as nominee, our first woman President likely would be no improvement on her male predecessors, and possibly would be even worse.

To read more of Tonya’s article, click the image below:

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2014/08/03/sowing-clover-hillary-clinton-in-the-masters-house-by-tonya-stiles/

Click the link below to see 12 photos of the new Latigo Wind Project, looming over Monticello, UT:

TWELVE PICTURES ARE WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS…by Jim Stiles