Dispatch from Panamint Springs, California
Text, photographs and web design by Erik Gauger

I had been sick for months, and being bedridden makes you more anxious to leave. Without action, you only dream. Where will I go when I'm better?

In bed, I made sketches of my truck, imagining it like a small vessel, and I its captain. The road out there - the infinite North American landscape - is like a great sea. Without deadlines, you can go anywhere. All you need is your health. Your health and some road will be open to you.

All captains of ships need to go to extreme measures to maintain order. Even the solo captain of a small vessel spends evenings in port scrubbing decks, lathering wood, organizing ropes. The harbour is perpetually a place of spring cleaning. Sometimes, even, the smaller a space, the more time you spend cleaning it.

I am repelled by cars filled with junk. Get in the passenger's seat, and the guy is like, 'Oh here, don't mind that stuff,' as he helps you with CDs, napkins from Jack-in-the-Box, paperwork from the office, some envelopes from bills. And then you dig under the seat cushion and find some packets of ketchup, and you’re like ‘what do you want me to do with these?’

That kind of disorganization is disheartening to the long distance driver. Keep yourself clean-shaven, keep your dashboard dust-free.

I'll be at the wheel for thousands of miles; long weeks this summer. You see how people on the road stop shaving, how they stop eating well. Those days - 'I get by on mountain dew and beef jerky', those days are over with. Now its organization, health, water, and more water. Fresh fruits and vegetables. Pasta to be cooked on the stove. Good olive oil and canned clams.

Desert Southwest Anza Borrego The Barren Desert The Channel Islands Windblown zoology off the coast of Los Angeles Colorado Plateau, Navajo Country Mesa to Canyon along the Plateau Death Valley The Saltwater Fish of Death Valley Mojave National Preserve Wandering the Eastern Mojave High Desert Stories from California's High Desert Areas Los Angeles Gray River in the Sun Los Angeles Map Imperial Valley Death and Salvation on the New River Panamint Valley Panamint Valley Roach Motel White Sands and Southern New Mexico Atomic Agriculture on the Rio Grande The Salton Sea Bombay Beach and the Salton Sea Slab City and the New River Death and Salvation on the New River Trona, California Trona and the Unusual Lake Searles Western Mojave Four Seasons of the Mojave Los Angeles Coast Images and captions from the LA coast.