I spent the day and change before the NOR shoot visiting a friend in Arkansas.

I rode on his Yamaha Rhino through some pretty damned rugged territory. We went to places called ancient bluff, and Satan’s cellar. I wanted to take pictures, but I have neither the skill nor the equipment to do justice to the places I went.

So I soaked it all in. I looked at it all, and thought, this is how this place has been for ten thousand years. Other than a few tire tracks and cigarette butts, which will be gone before the end of the year, this place is as placed by the hand of God.

You could see crude stone walls, laid by hand by farmers a hundred years past, an occasional arrowhead by a hunter potentially far older.

it was a damned difficult place to have to leave. The smell of the evergreens and the sound of the running water will be loose in my head for a long time to come.

But I had shooting to do, and friday morning, I left intending to do it.