Soft guitar strings flitter from steel guitar on my radio nob–Hyundai rocks! The melody is softly reminiscent of the road and memories and I’m driving but I feel like asking Siri what key this song is in. 100 miles becomes just another accumulation we garner and Jen silently takes in views. I have an art show in Reno no one will see.
The largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world is an estimated 10 million tons in the pitch lake located in La Brea in southwest Trinidad. Bitumen they call it in the UK. Classified as “pitch”, is a petroleum material hard to refine, great for road making. Asphaltum is what it once was called. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek ἄσφαλτος ásphaltos. We drive on it.
None of that matters, other than providing an intro all about the black road that snakes us out to the Western states of Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, a snippet of Wyoming and eventually South Dakota. We leave from Fort Wayne, end of November.
The very American and cinematic and very superficial is the view we chase and we loved it. It was a vacation paid for by an art gallery, but more so paid for by art sales my girl Jen made it happen like with a swish of her magic sales wand over social media. A magic social media sales wand.
Glowing digital travel maps of America take us from Indiana to Nevada to Indiana via Mount Rushmore. I tried to include maps in my videos. These days videos offer so much info amongst the artistic treatment, I can’t pass up the medium.
•Red Rock is near Denver and the location is most famous for the amphitheater there amongst the glorious rock formations and overlooking city lights in the distance.
•Crossing the Utah/Nevada border became a recurrent adventure in the night. Luckily we ended at a decent hour and the motel was still open and ready for us in Pioche.
•Cathedral Gorge and Calienté were such a blessing and a great morning was had to great us from our grand entrance to Nevada the night before. Hint: it was dusty.
•Thunder Mountain monument is a gem that I feel privileged to know of. I wrote an article about it way back.
•South Dakota. Hotel room after our day that took us to Carhenge and we enjoyed our stay.
•Bonneville Salt Flats and the Great Salt Lake and the Anola Gay. Dropped the bomb on Japan. Eerie, yes, and the beauty is in the minimal landscape with pefectly flat white vistas. The history at the Salt Flats is colorful in the auto arena. This is racing.
•Goldfield and the Mozart for Thanksgiving was a warm moment and filled the belly. Memories rolled back in from the days when I lived there and the spirit of indivualism would subside on holidays for feasts.
•The Sands at Reno has great windows. The views are pretty good with city lights below. I reminisce about cleaning the windows here in years gone by. I showed Jen the door to the roof that’s open.
•Virginia City held our attention the day after the Reno show and the shops weren’t so busy we couldn’t move but the town was full. And the bars..
•Outside of the Badlands we watched bison. This was after wonderful Wall Drug experience. You know they have the largest private art collection of wester art in the world?
•Crazy Horse monument isn’t finished. They want a big donation to go in.
My last time South Dakota … it was colder than now at Standing Rock. I camped out in that cold and today, looking at the map, I can see it’s right in the middle of the country.. I could’ve gone left , back to Reno, or to the right, Indiana. I went right. Back home. Bought a house. Still painting and showing art.
Fort Wayne is my home town. It’s the MidWest.
Art of Sorg 