A fellow wanderer and good friend from Crested Butte days, Dave Lindsay and I are always laughing about ‘working the edges’. A term we use to describe getting away from the usual crowd of campers and pilgrims. If an area we have spent time in is starting to be discovered, we move off to an ajacent area to camp. It’s also a metaphor for our wandering life in general. “Work the edges” we say. A city, a national forest, anywhere. Avoid the group and find your own space somewhere else.

Phoenix, AZ and the adjoining masses of Scottsdale, Tempe, etc. house close to 2 million souls. The edges, however, are countless miles of public land covered with crazy tough mountains and endless trail systems. Years ago I discovered an edge. Fountain Hills is a truly bucolic town of 20,000 people. On the very east side of the masses, Fountain Hills is surrounded by the Superstition Mountains and the Mogollon Rim of the Colorado Plateau. You’d never know that just to the left are way too many people.

Since mom died a couple of years ago, I’ve felt restless. Less need for time in NC and more of a pull from where I feel at home. The desert SouthWest… you can see where this is headed. Maybe it’s because Ed Abbey’s birthday is coming up, maybe not; and so, Lindsay, I found another edge.