It’s a gray day here in Bulgaria, which has me yearning for warmer, sunnier days and the desert and mountains of my homeland, the Four Corners Country of the U.S.A. So, here’s a bunch of photos from my summer, much of which was spent cruising around the West in my 1989 Nissan Sentra, a.k.a. the Silver Bullet. Some thoughts gleaned from my travels here and here. I’ll be back in April, for another round of River of Lost Souls talks and a good slickrock fix.
Bullet hole in a sign in the North Fork Valley of Western Colorado. Jumbo Mountain in the background.Coal-burning power plant and clouds near Craig, Colorado.Church, Gato (a.k.a. Pagosa Junction), Colorado, in the San Juan River Valley. One of a string of Hispanic villages just north of the Colorado border, including La Posta, Boca, Arboles, Rosa, and Juanita.Church at La Garita, Colorado, on the western edge of the San Luis Valley near Penitente Canyon.Idaho National Laboratories near Idaho Falls. The shiny dome is the now-empty containment dome for Experimental Breeder Reactor II, which was dismantled after the Chernobyl accident. I pity the poor illiterate cows.Building. Atomic City, Idaho. The town changed its name to Atomic City because the scientists from the labs and Experimental Breeder Reactor I would stop the bar on their way home from work.Picnic table. Experimental Breeder Reactor I, where electricity from a nuclear reactor was first generated and transmitted in 1951. It’s now a museum.LDS Temple and smoky sun over the Snake River. Idaho Falls, Idaho.Wildflowers and Engineer Mountain, Colorado.Looking down Cement Creek at Silverton, Colorado, and Kendall Mountain, with the Grenadier Range in the background.Stone. Animas Valley, Colorado.Hubcap and barbed wire. Near Page, Arizona.Woman walking toward Horseshoe Bend, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Arizona.Agathla Peak and antler.Glen Canyon Dam.High voltage lines and stone.Boaters and SUPpers on the Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam.Sightseers at Glen Canyon Dam overlook.Smokestacks, Navajo Generating Station.Sacred datura blossom, near Hovenweep National Monument.The Utah/Colorado state line.Bear track, Abajo Mountains, Utah.The Bears Ears, from the Abajo Mountains.Mormon Tea and Comb Ridge.Sign. Comb Wash.Stone and light. Bears Ears National Monument.La Garita church. San Luis Valley, Colorado.Gabe. Weminuche Wilderness, Colorado.Animas River north of Durango, Colorado.
Journalist, editor and writer focusing on the Western United States and its landscapes, communities, and cultures. Creator of Land Desk. Author of "River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster" (Torrey House Press 2018), "Behind the Slickrock Curtain" (Lost Souls Press 2020), and the forthcoming "Sagebrush Empire: A journey into the heart of the public land wars" (Torrey House 2021).
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Jonathan P. Thompson 
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