The Search Begins

     We are deep in the midst of an age of vast technologies. Men and women all across the world can be connected to seemingly any information that they could want with a mere press of a button. In seconds as an interactive map of the world can be brought up and nearly any place on the globe can be pinpointed, brought to within spitting distance and rendered in 3D for your viewing pleasure. It seems as though there is nothing left to be found that hasn't already be mapped, charted and placed on a grid. This easy access to a constant flow of information can be deceiving. It can make the world seem small. I am looking out my window right now and see houses and yards with doors and fences. I by no means live in the most populated of urban jungles, but I feel trapped. As I said before, the world can appear small; it is in fact OUR world that is small. I feel I must make a distinction between the world that we, as members of a technologically advanced western society, live in, and the world that remains free and wild.
    When I was younger I was very much a product of the technological age, I loved television, computers, movies and video games. I saw very little reason for me to venture into the realm outside. My father, an avid lover of all things western, would show me classic movies about man's struggle to tame the savage land. There was a beauty existing in the rugged mountains and arid desserts that truly escaped me. I once saw a film by my all time favorite director, John Milius, called "Jeremiah Johnson". It is the story of a man. That is all. No villian, no main set pieces, no sub plots; just a man and his life and how he chooses to live it. I am sure you can see how, as a child, I would find this boring as hell. More on that later. I joined the Cub Scouts in first grade, there was camping and hiking and all of that scouting jazz and, looking back, I feel this was my first real experience with that other world. Albeit I was on the controlled, self contained fringes of where our world meets the other. However, the fact of the matter was that I still didn't appreciate what was out there. In a Rocky-esque montage we can see my life change through a failed Criminal Justice 101 class, a bad break up, a move across the country and a couple of classes in field archaeology. Things were about to change.
     During a summer interlude I made a decision that would change the rest of the course of my life. I picked up a book. I had always been an avid reader although not a very fast one, but this particular book was somewhat out of my realm. My usual genres stayed firmly in horror, fantasy and sci-fi. This was a western. Well, sort of. My father, who I owe much to, sealed my fate long ago when he named me after a character in a Louis L'amour novel. That summer I vowed to start reading the Sackett series so I could discover the man of my namesake. The first novel "Sackett's Land", is not even a western at all, but a historical adventure about a Welshman that leaves England to head to the New World, all funded by a sack of Roman coins he found in a dyke by accident. There it was, treasure, the ultimate goal, the one thing that would pull me out of my cage. Don't worry, this is all leading somewhere.
     I was now living in Arizona, a land filled with tales of outlaw loot and lost Spanish gold, I was going to find some. This is what led me to the outdoors, the promise of adventure and fortune. Well, I haven't found that gold yet, but I have learned what has probably been the most valuable lesson of my lifetime. There is more. More than pink houses with white picket fences, more that business degrees and part-time jobs, more than action movies and video games. There was something out there to see. I stood alone on a mountain top, much like the unnamed character in Bob Seger's "Roll Me Away". I was triumphant but also vastly unsatisfied. Now that I had found the gateway to this other world, I needed to see more of it. I had once turned to Jeremiah Johnson (told you I would get back to it), for its sense of loneliness that comforted me during that terrible break up, now I finally understood what Robert Redford and John Milius had wanted me to know. There was freedom away from the world we created, and now that is what I felt. Freedom.
     Now I sit at a shoddy desk in an unkempt room staring out at the Sparrows in my neighbor's tree and procrastinating on the studying for finals I should be doing. I am still deeply embroiled in the world that society has created, but now I know that there is a difference between here and there. I long for a time when I can once again make my way through groves of ancient oaks, climb atop the red rocks of the Santa Catalinas, swim through the crystalline ocean, and maybe even find some treasure. This is the story of my adventures and how I see the world. I encourage all to go and find out for themselves. But if all you can manage to do is read what I write and look at some pretty pictures I feel as though I have done my part in showing you that there is more to the world than what Google Earth can show us.

- Logan


Coming soon: "A Walk Beneath the Long Dead Sea, or My trip to the Badlands of South Dakota