Desert Sunset

Desert Sunset from the top of Tunnel Two
Less than a week ago I watched the sunset from this hill in the high desert. It is a place I have come to many times. It is a hill pierced by a railroad tunnel. Slow heavy trains growl under your feet here. From this hill you can see the desert mountains. It is a place where lizards and and the animals of the desert mingle.

It's a desert because
Because it's a desert

-Rickie Lee Jones, Flying Cowboys

I have been coming to this same desert, this same hill and have watched many sunsets here. I have come here to look into the desert, to take pictures and to smell the desert wind. I have come here with friends and loved ones who are now gone. I have come here with my babies. But mostly, I have come here alone. Mostly it is a place of solitude, a place for looking into the face of the desert.

But the world is turning faster
Than it did when I was young

- ibid

When I am gone, you can leave what is left of me here. Here in the open where the desert zephyr can pick me up and I will disappear and become the desert and I will be in many photographs.
Technorati Tags: Trains, Railroads, Railroading, Tehachapi, ssloansjca