Cheers to Texas' newest state park, Palo Pinto Mountains! Ten equestrian sites and 16 miles of multi-use trails through rolling cross-timbers and open views. (Ridden Dec of '20, published in the Sept '22 HTA Horse Trails of America Trail Journal) A self-proclaimed expert “Googler,” in the spring of 2020 I came across an invitation to ride the up-and-coming Palo Pinto Mountains State Park. A ride advertised by Partners of the Park, in what will eventually be the first new Tex

In the whitewash of midday, the land looks the same. Dry, hot, barren rolling hills and steep cliffs. But in dusk, in the shadows of a pastel sunset, the land comes alive. Each cliffside, each mountain differentiates from the other. The smallest of indentions make the biggest shadows. The harshest mountains turn velvet. This is a land where 80 feels like 90 and clothes must be shed along the way - but at least it's a dry heat, or so they say. This is a land where you wake up

Black Gap WMA, TX I set out to erase a memory last weekend - it’s not the first time – repeating a trip taken before, rinsing to remove...

From Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River, the Comanche Trail runs south to Fort Stockton / Comanche Springs and there, if you veer...

Sometimes you must ride through the bones of the past to see the pure sparkling brilliance of the future. It seems such a simple thing,...

I dreamt of a coyote last night - trotting along beside me. As oblivious to my presence as I am enamored with hers. A big, scruffy, wolf-sized thing. Patchwork and wiry, fur thick in places and thin in others. The field wire between us stretched tight, its squares silver and crimped. I know this animal, I’ve seen her before. We continue forward in this manner, a makeshift boundary between us, until she comes upon a deer carcass, thin and stiff – emaciated. She takes it as her

I swing the saddle up, lean into the horse and gaze toward Mesa de Anguila - one of the least visited areas of Big Bend National Park - and she has me nervous this mesa. In knots in fact, with her switchbacks and steep inclines. I can hardly take my eyes off the rising access trail so I stand there staring a moment and then turn to pull the girth tight. The trail leads us down and into Comanche Creek where patches of fresh water stand and there I stop to let the horse drink

Big Bend National Park, Texas The first thing that changed was my hands. Short but clean nails are now dirty and ragged. Rings no longer...

We drive through the valles and arroyos of west Texas, the flatlands and mesas, the ridges and mountains climbing tall into clear blue...

Pedernales River State Park | Texas A dappling of light and dark gives an illusion of softness to the hard limestone bed underneath. ...

Sometimes I drive until I find myself anew. Casing the southwest as if the dirt will scrub me clean. To the desert and mountains of New...

We follow the dusty, white caliche toward water downshifting along the way, driving slowly through the bends and curves of the road. The descents and climbs. A white tail deer looks up as we drive past. Watching - then lowers his head to continue eating. Mistaking one turn for another, I enter the wrong campsite. One way too tight for trailers. The oaks and pecans hold their ground, strong with a low canopy of intertwined branches which I try carefully to avoid while ba

I didn’t always love myself, you see? It’s not enough to simply show up. It takes purpose to shed the paradigms that others place upon...

At night the ghosts come out. They roam the corridors of my mind and wander the graveyard of my soul - the parts I thought I’d put to bed...

I saw a shooting star last night against the canvas of the night sky. One brief flash among a backdrop of many as it was trying hard to...

The beach lies perpetually in motion. A stretch wide and long as a striped asphalt runway. Sun glistens off the wet sand and with each...