I love finding the extraordinary in what at first appears to be the ordinary. On the road such serendipitous discoveries are road trip magic. They are what keep me driving on to discover what’s around the bend.

As I wound around a bend on a dry West Texas highway that once was the Overland Road for wagon trains, I spotted an eclectic mix of old cars and trucks scattered in a valley. Like the dry bones of dead animals or old wagon trains, I love to photograph old rusted cars at rest on the open plains. It’s a photographic fetish of mine, along with photographing mannequins.

At first glance most people would mistake this place for a junkyard and expect it to be guarded by a mean dog. But the whimsical feel of the house with the shamrock on the door and the hippie looking school bus made me feel confident in knocking on the door.

An old man limped out to calmly greet me. He was as weathered as the old warped boards of the house. But his blue eyes were kind. I said that the cars in his yard were amazing and that I’d like to photograph them. He said, “That depends on how you look at them”.

He continued that some people mistake his place for a junkyard. They don’t realize that it’s actually a place where friends of the family have been storing their vehicles over the past several decades. As he reminded me – “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure”.

He pointed to many of the dozens of dead cars in the yard and told me stories in intimate detail about the people who brought these cars.   I became more fascinated by him than the cars.

I stood under the broiling mid day Texas sun talking with him, too mesmerized to move. I got one Hell of a sunburn. But it was worth all the sun damage for the rich conversation I had with this true sage of the sagebrush.

This sage spoke of the Internet and the insanity of people living their lives online much like how a Christian would talk about porn. Of course, he was right. But how many people now days can afford the luxury of not using the Internet and actually communicating face to face with everyone?

He also spoke of the importance of having roots and knowing the place you live intimately. He said that his grandfather bought the homestead in 1908 from the widow of a dead black buffalo soldier who had been sent to nearby Fort Davis to fight the Indians and protect the settlers moving West on the Overland Road. This soldier died in 1901 and was buried on the property. The old sage said he intended to be buried right next to this dead buffalo soldier.

The Sage had never been married and seamed to fear it like the plague (see video below for his views on marriage). But he did say he had 50 some children ranging in age from age 4 to 64. In his quiet thoughtful way this man had made a rich life for himself and those he befriended. His desolate junkyard was a kingdom of riches to him and his friends.

The Sage looked like the Irish poet and playwright George Bernard Shaw. And after speaking with him I discovered he was just as eloquent and literary as him as well. Of course the best of our conversations occurred when my camera off. But the below video clips will give you a taste.

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After we talked he showed me an old model T truck that he was remaking into a whimsical vehicle that, when completed, would be more gazebo than truck.

I laughed when he ended our conversation with, “Young man, I’ve enjoyed our chat. But I have to get back to work. But stop by again and stay longer next time.” After all, wasn’t it suppose to be the young man who was suppose to be too busy to listen to the old man talk?

I handed him my card knowing that he would never go online to view this story. When I invited him to call my cell, he smiled and said that he didn’t call anyone and that people stopped by when they needed to talk.

When I asked for his name, he handed me a card that read “My Card” on one side. On the back it read, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you. But it will amuse the rest of us.”

I’m glad I didn’t get his name. A name would have only detracted from my newfound belief that he was a spiritual wizard/avatar residing in the body of an old white bearded man.

He wished me well in my journeys and said he hoped that I would find what I’m looking for. Though the Sage had road tripped across North America and Mexico endlessly in his youth, he found his place where he began. It was the same place where he built dams in the creek as a child to form swimming holes. It was the same place where he played and would some day be buried next to the dead buffalo soldier.

I hope when I’m his timeless age, some time and place down the road, I’ll be rooted in my own place with 50 children of choice and a knowing kind twinkle in my eye.

Next Stop – God only knows. But I’m heading for the Peyote Way Church.

After hanging out and working with the Mayor in Austin, Texas for two weeks, it was time to get back on the road to California. Two weeks with the Mayor is like doing an intensive retreat focused on destroying your vital organs – such as your brain, kidneys, lungs and liver. The constant regimen of drinking, smoking, stupidity and over working was slowly killing me.

Beyond pickling our vital organs, we had accomplished getting the Roads Scholarship off the ground and documenting the Bat Girl of Austin.

But it was time to get back on the open road cutting through West Texas and the Arizona/New Mexico desert and on to Northern California. I planned to tent camp in the desert and detoxify, while doing a spirit walk in the Arizona desert fueled by the sacred peyote. Peyote is a small, thornless cactus native to South Texas and Mexico. It as been a sacrament of Native Americans for more than 6,000 years and was legal in the state of Arizona, if taken as a religious sacrament.

I had given up Catholicism and organized religion some time during puberty. But for peyote I was willing to become an active church goer. I planned to join the Peyote Way Church, which grew its own peyote and administered the sacrament. It was located East of Tucson, Arizona near an Apache Indian reservation far out in the desert on a 160 acre “religious Sanctuary” at the end of a dead end road.

As I drove West from Austin I rolled through the heavily forested Texas Hill Country. Austin is an oasis in the middle of Texas for more reasons that politics and culture. The forests, rivers and lakes surrounding Austin make it a natural oasis in a largely dry and vast Texas.

As I rolled West the trees became shorter and sparser until they transformed into vast expanses of bushes and then mere brush. The wide flat expanses stretched out infinitely under the open blue sky. The wind whipping through the car blew the clutter of “to do lists” from my head, as the hypnotic music of the Doors conjured up visions of sitting quiet in the desert basking in pure hallucinations.   In Mr. Morrison’s own words – “Out here we are stoned immaculate.”

Oddly my cell phone, after some erratic behavior, died. I was left alone with my own thoughts with no possible intrusion from calls, emails and twitters with hundreds of miles to cross. At times like these, I light up, set the autopilot to the legal speed limit and let my mind wander the vast expanse.

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Spring Fed Oasis in the Desert

After driving a couple hundred miles under the dry burning sun I stumbled upon an oasis in the desert – a gigantic two acre pool fed by one million gallons of spring water each hour.

I love water and I love to swim. I had serendipitously found my heaven in the desert. Such unexpected delights on the road are what make road trips magical. I had been pushing myself hard and I knew that this oasis was where I needed to rest. I rented an old lodge that was built by the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) during the 1930′s depression. Outside this room a stream, fed from the giant pool, flowed past. This oasis was known as Balmorhea State Park and the San Solomon Springs.

As I walked about the park, I thought how the 1930′s mentality of man dominating and conquering nature was exemplified by all the dams, channels, pipes and valves that had been built to control and channel the natural force and flow of this miraculous spring. I wondered what a million gallons of water flowing from the ground must have looked like before it was shaped into a giant pool.

Only recently, in an attempt to reverse some of the affront to nature, some of the wetlands that were destroyed have been restored. However, not all the fish in this wetland are native to this ecosystem.

Note the large oversized amphibious vagabond creature behind the stream’s observation window.

On my walk I noticed a woman who was obviously distressed. I asked if I could help and we began talking. She had sought refuge in this oasis after fleeing her husband and a two week stay in a mental hospital.

Yet for all the craziness in her life she seemed sweet and worked as a teacher and translator for deaf children. We hung out and enjoyed the pool together along with the fish and turtles. Compared to the lives most people lead, she didn’t seem particularly crazy to me.

Next Stop – Encountering the Sage of the Desert in a Junkyard Paradise

Austin, Texas claims to be the “world capitol” of live music and bats. Each night, from March to November, 1.5 million Mexican free tailed bats take flight at dusk from the Congress Bridge. Their steady stream of fluttering bodies can blot out the sky if you are below them.

It was there at dusk that we found the “Bat Girl of Austin” waving her arms in the air and gleefully beckoning her legion of bats into the air to scour the surrounding Texas Hills for thousands of pounds of insects.

A popular slogan among Austinites is “Keep Austin Weird”. Bat Girl was certainly doing her part. When I asked her questions about the bats she responded with answers that were far more detailed and intimate than I could have imagined. This woman spoke passionately about her bats like a mother speaking about her children.

Once all the bats had taken to the night sky she started walking across the Congress Bridge heading for downtown. I asked Bat Girl where she was going next. She said she was off to feed on some sweet nectar.

She invited me and the Mayor, who had just moved from Arizona to Austin, to join her. As we strolled past bars and restaurants people called out to her like she was a super hero. We ended up in a bar where she ordered a fruity drink that she sucked down through two straws.

Bat Girl has a flighty cute demeanor. Everyone in Austin seems to love her. She laughs and squeals with abandon and shoots pool like a super hero. No one could tell me anything about her beyond that she could be found at the Congress Bridge and the clubs at night. The doormen at the clubs waved her in without question or ID. She was and is, after all, a super hero – “the Bat Girl of Austin”.

The next day she let us follow her around with a camera. But she wouldn’t tell us where she lived or how she lived. She simply fluttered about town and was simply “the Bat Girl” to everyone. Bat Girl will always be “Bat Girl” to me too. “Keep Austin Weird” indeed!

To learn more about the great oasis of Austin Texas and its annual South by Southwest Music/Film Festival, visit the Road Trip Begins.

Next Stop – The Road to Peyote in the South Western Desert

Some times things fall in place so perfectly and feel so meant to be that they are simply “destiny”. In the spring of 2007, I bought a small motor home named “Destiny”.

From the first day I bought her and rolled serendipitously into Austin, Texas during the “South by South West Music Festival” – every turn in the road, every stop and person along the way has been pure destiny.

Unlike the typical cheap mom and pop particleboard box on wheels, Destiny was built like a yacht, with high end wood work and components from bumper to bumper. Destiny was really more motor lounge than motor home.

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It was meant to be and I knew it even before I flew into Houston, Texas and handed a bank check over to Howard, Destiny’s first owner.

Howard was a dead ringer for “Hank Hill” from the TV show “King of the Hill”. He was straight as an arrow and square as a box. He was the perfect man to buy a motor home from.I found him and Destiny on an RV discussion forum that Howard had participated on since he bought Destiny new in 2002. I had read all his meticulous posts, which detailed the many ways he spoiled Destiny. I bought Destiny for a third of what Howard bought it for just four years earlier. And with only 13,000 miles on her, it was as if he had been maintaining Destiny for me.

However, the florescent lights and carpeted floors had to go. With some help from friends I made her my Destiny, complete with lounge lighting, wood floors, a new stereo and onboard accessories. The below video is a brief tour of Destiny – after the make over.

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Next Stop – My first date with Destiny – Austin City South by South West Music Festival

My first cross country road trip was many years ago in a VW camper bus. Since that magic trip I’ve considered road tripping to be a sacred pilgrimage. Twenty years plus after my first great road trip, I’m still a devout believer in the religion and magic of the open road (see Birth of a Vagabond).

I kept my old 1974 VW Camper for many years until it died a glorious death in Yellowstone Park. The old parking brake gave way and it rolled down a mountain road and dove a few hundred feet into the rushing rapids of the Yellowstone River. Like a warrior dying in the heat of battle, it was a glorious ending.

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The old “Chuck Wagon” after many hard miles.	It’s my “Destiny”

After a suitable amount of grieving, I decided to buy a motor home that would be small enough to camp on city streets, yet large enough to live and work from while road tripping America. After extensive research online, I found the perfect fit – a 24 foot motor home called “Destiny“.

I took a leap of faith and flew into Texas to buy her. My friend Panama Jimmy flew with me to join me for the maiden voyage back to Fort Lauderdale.

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My first moments with “Destiny”.

Within a few hours of landing in Houston and buying her on the spot, Jimmy and I rolled serendipitously into Austin, Texas. As luck would have it, Austin was hosting its annual South by South West three day music festival. Austin Texas, with its warm, open and down to earth people was an ideal place to begin a road trip. I’d always heard that Austin was an oasis of sanity and open mindedness within Texas – hip yet real and unpretentious. I’m now a believer.

Note – Austin hosts the largest urban bat colony in the world and the battiest girl – “Bat Girl”. Learn about the “Bat Girl of Austin”.

We tailgated, camped and partied on the streets for the rest of the weekend and then rolled on to New Orleans. Thus began the Great American Road Trip. Since then every turn in the road, every stop and person along the way has been pure destiny.

Climb aboard and share this Great American Road Trip and loop the glorious North American continent.

Next stop – New Orleans – My kind of Hell