Letter From the Desert: Burning Birds VI

This is Part Six of a special essay series for paying subscribers to Letters from the Desert. The essay is the result of a nature writing workshop taught by Chip Blake, formerly of Orion Magazine. If you have a chance to work with Chip, do so.

Parts 1 through 5 are linked below:

Letter From the Desert: Burning Birds (Part One)

Letter From the Desert: Burning Birds 2

Letter from the Desert: Burning Birds III

Letter From the Desert: Burning Birds IV

Letter From the Desert: Burning Birds V

A memory:

I am six and it is summer. My parents loaded us into our Chevy Malibu station wagon (turquoise), said goodbye to relatives in town, and headed west for a few weeks of frenetic, nearly nonstop travel. We have not yet made it to Anaheim, our destination of record. That’s still a day or two away. The day before, we had navigated the endless sagebrush two-lane flats of Nevada to Benton, California, passed Mono Lake, and wound up the long canyon to Tioga Pass and Yosemite. My next-oldest sister and I perched atop a fallen giant Sequoia for a photo. Its massive roots, exposed, splayed out like a turkey tail.

I had seen the desert. I was nakedly curious about the juniper and sagebrush. My parents described the previous day’s drive as “through the middle of nowhere.” Back then I was disinclined to argue. But why did they make it sound like an unpleasant thing?

Comment on the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System Thursday, February 11, 2010 

To Whom It May Concern:
Of other public comments arriving with regard to the proposed Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Station south of Primm, NV, I am confident many will address the abundant technical, hydrological, and wildlife-related problems contained in the proposal to bulldoze a broad swath of publicly owned ancient desert habitat for private industrial development. It is on these details that projects such as the Ivanpah SEGS are either approved or denied, and I am grateful that others can speak to those details more authoritatively than I.

What I can address with confidence and authority, however, is the fact that the BrightSource project threatens one of the most beautiful places in the United States.