Kirjahaku

After a career as a wildlife biologist with state and federal agencies, Jake Collins and his artist wife Rachel were content in retirement, living their dream on their own nature preserve in western Colorado. That changed when a young New York City couple entered their lives. Tori and Al knew something was missing from their city existence, asked Jake and Rachel to show them the "real" West, were "adopted" by the childless older couple, and came to share their dream. They changed Ravens Nest, but Jake and Rachel changed them and brought new meaning to their lives while enhancing the lives of their mentors. Al, a famous writer himself, discovers a treasure trove of writings by Jake: semiautobiographical short stories documenting a life of adventure and love of nature. Share the laughs, the tears, and the journey as Tori and Al learn the meaning of dreams and creativity of Ravens Nest. Then think about your own life and place.

What makes a place special or sacred? Is it the history, the scenery, the wildlife, the isolation? All of the above and more are what makes the Bureau of Land Management's Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area along the Gunnison River a special place.This area between Delta and Grand Junction--river and canyons, rock cliffs and mesa tops, wildlife and wilderness--is a colorful display of millions of years of the history of Earth. It is a place of human habitation from the ancient explorers of thousands of years ago to recent pioneers trying to establish a new life. It is a place to float a river, ride horseback, hike red and white rock canyons, ride bicycles, motorcycles or four-wheel vehicles. It is a wilderness in which to disappear and discover yourself. It is a place to find the sacred within us all.Join author and Artist-in-Residence of the Dominguez-Escalante NCA, Bureau of Land Management Joseph Colwell as he explores different portions of D-ENCA and searches for meaning. You may never feel the same about this historic and beautiful setting, or yourself, again.

How much of your childhood do you remember? What can you recall of your hometown? Who were the people who influenced your life? These are questions that Joseph Colwell answers for himself in his recollections of growing up in the small Illinois town of Tuscola. At the time, his adventures and experiences seemed nothing special. But looking back over 60 years, he remembers with fondness the place where he grew up and the time of mid-twentieth century. The place and the time laid the foundation for his life and for countless others. His hope is that everyone who grew up in a hometown similar to this one, especially a half century ago, will be able to relate to a place and a time that formed their values and character, which stayed with them throughout their lives. Think of your own growing up as you enter Joseph's time machine.Joseph describes the values of a hometown and how this small town was his home, even after he left it to pursue his career out West. Many of the businesses and people who were teachers, mentors, and adult influences on his life and the lives of his contemporaries. The place was important but also was the time--mid twentieth century. He describes how that world is gone, but why we remember it in such fond terms as seen from today's world.

What would make a person retreat to her newly acquired property in rural western Colorado and shut out the world? Who is the mysterious Opal? A young woman who moves to California in the 1920s with a new husband and hopes for a new beginning, only to find herself four years later a broken person with shattered dreams. Just as she had been gaining confidence in the promise of a better life, she returns home to start over... but in the process becomes a recluse, a hermit who cannot shed her past.Inspired by real life and a woman he never met, the author of this fictionalized drama searches for answers. Why would someone live in a place of beauty and wildness, yet live amongst her own filth and garbage, alone and friendless? Opal's journey becomes his too, as little by little, he uncovers the mysteries of her life.

What would you think if you found evidence of an advanced life-form encased in a two-hundred-million-year-old sandstone canyon wall? This was the problem that Ev Collins had when he found something on a hike in the canyon country of southern Utah. Ev, a geology professor, was pondering whom he could tell and what he could share, when the day after his discovery he chanced upon Mida Peterson, a doctoral anthropology student from the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico. Ev decided to share his find with Mida, who agreed with the life-changing implications of this stunning discovery. They teamed up for their scientific investigation of their find. Ev quit his job, they moved to nearby Torrey, Utah, and with the aid of Ev's wealthy stepfather, set up a cultural center as a cover. In secrecy they bring in a retired NASA physicist in excavating the find.When they finally enter the buried object, they discover a timeless new Earth. As you join Ev and Mida in their discoveries of time, time travel, geology, supernatural powers, and new life-forms, you will think of the Colorado Plateau canyon country as more than rocks and beautiful views.