In 2021, I went to Marathon, Texas at the behest of friends to attend a music festival. My wife had died the previous year, and I was slightly adrift. Two things happened that helped me right my mental ship. First, there was the music. We listened and we played. And it was good. Second, a friend took me out into Big Bend. We walked around. It was hot. He’d just bought a new camper and he invited me to join him on some hiking adventures. I missed our first trip that November to the Guadalupe Mountains, but made the second in February of 2022 to Big Bend. We hiked and I fell in love with the geography and the geology of the place. We’ve been on the go ever since.

As we walked, I needed to know what I was seeing. I wanted to know how those rocks got where they were. So, I started buying books and getting them as gifts. The more I read the more I needed to read because geology is full of odd terms, and they’re used rather casually sometimes, and I needed to know more about them. Plus, it’s a developing science and it’s hard to know whether or not the information you’re reading is the most current. That’s how I stumbled upon John McPhee’s 1982 book, Basin and Range.

I’ve loved McPhee’s work ever since I ran across his writing in the New Yorker back in the early 70s. He writes in elegant prose and he’s right up there with E. B. White another New Yorker author I love. Basin and Range makes the western mountains and valleys come alive and it’s a lot easier to read than some of the more technical books I first read. In fact, if you’re interested in geology of the west this is a great starter book, enchanting and easy to read.