There’s a mystique about ghost-towns, iconic feature of the Old West. My father loved Western movies, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, even Yul Brenner. So, you could say that the mythos of the wild frontier & its memorable landscapes have colored my imagination with its oranges, reds, ambers, & ochres. The cacti & hardscrabble vegetation just by existing in an inhospitable environment symbolize that defiant, devil-may-care self-reliance & rebellious nature of the cowboys famed for barfights & midday duels.

And that’s not even counting the landscapes of Woody Woodpecker, Speedy Gonzalez, & Wylie E. Coyote which captured the attention of practically all 80s kids, including me.

So, when I met the real thing in person, last weekend, I felt bowled over by the unique beauty that surrounded me. Sure, shows like Westworld & movies like The Magnificent Seven reinforce a long-time American infatuation with the Wild West, outlaws, & a kind of anarchy associated with that particular geography & era in history. A certain kind of polarization of social constructs, masculine/feminine, lawman/outlaw, good/evil, pioneer/native, wild/tame, etc., reassured individuals through labels & categorization.

Surely, in retrospect, we know these things were never clear or tightly contained; yet, the mythology of a “simpler time” can be seductive.

Maybe that’s why I’m fascinated by old ghost-towns, abandoned mines, & delapitated saloons & old stores with “false front” architectural features. In my mind, I can hear the harmonica & wind, while tumbleweeds roll through the center of dusty towns. This has sparked a personal entertainment revival of watching shows like Hell on Wheels (Anson Mount’s BEST role as Cullen Bohannon) & Deadwood (Timothy Olyphant’s BEST role as Seth Bullock) & favorite films like Open Range & Tombstone.

The history of southern Utah is inspiring, & I’m excited to see more of it.

A short off-route trip to the abandoned settlement of Grafton, where Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid was filmed, allows for exploring rustic buildings in a spectacular setting. Walking around its buildings, I could imagine that life would have been really tough there, given the limited water & unforgiving heat in the height of summer months. Given the dry atmosphere & bright sun exposure combined with the rockiness of the land & horizon, settlers would have needed that “true grit” to sustain life there.

The gardener in me holds an appreciation for the tenacity of the local vegetation, succulents & grasses & trees, that clings to life out here.

More to come regarding my local(ish) travels, as I add to my memory more idyllic & quiet places of repose I can revisit in my mind as an introvert. A fairly dreamy person, I find such places of distinct beauty & silence treasures to protect & hoard in my imagination, as you might have noticed from other blog posts. Different areas, regions, even countries, have contributed to those spaces to which I can travel during meditation to restore a sense of calm & help my anxiety to dissipate. Photography also slows me down to soak in the views, creating compositions & trying to capture some semblance of the beauty that eludes words & images. This blog continues to help me use my writing & photography as a means of savoring & sharing those happy moments with others.

Fellow introverts, writers, & thinkers, where are the places you store in your mind that bring you the most comfort & contentment? Where are the places in your heart & memory that give you the greatest solace? How do you share them with others?