ABOUT ME

I was six when my family moved to Sedona, Arizona in 1957.  My father was a professional writer and photographer looking for inspiration which he found in the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona.  As a boy my father and I hiked many of the canyons and mountains in the area.  He was always in pursuit of photographs and I tagged along behind him looking at the rocky cliffs.

Two weeks during each summer we would take a road trip and explore other states.  By the time I was 15 we had traveled to scenic locations in every state west of the Mississippi River.  I hadn't realized it yet that scenic sites were always directly related to the geology.

In 1966 Dan Dickey moved to Sedona and we quickly became best friends.  We explored and climbed up many of the difficult slick rock mountains around.  In 1971 we both enrolled at Northern Arizona University and were roommates.  Dan was taking a geology course and would tell me what he had learned in class.  I found it fascinating and that was the beginning of  my lifelong passion for geology.

Over the next 10 years I lived in many different locations and I'd read about the geology of where I lived at the time; Detroit and the pulverized and scoured land forms left behind by the glaciers; Phoenix with its granite and metamorphic mountains in the basin and range zone surrounding it; Durango, Colorado and the uplifted sediments and dead, eroded volcanoes of the southern Rocky Mountains; Prescott with its dead volcanoes and granite batholith; and finally Flagstaff surrounded by the San Francisco Volcanic Field of 600+ dead or dormant volcanoes.   

I settled in Flagstaff for the last 40 years and was a river-runner in the 80's and 90's.  I helped to organize private river trips on the San Juan, Green and Colorado Rivers and owned my own raft and gear.  On many of these trips geologists accompanied us and would explain the structure of the rocks as we floated past.

Over the decades I've amassed a sizable library of books about geology and paleontology and I've read them all at least once.  I've taken two geology classes, one at Phoenix College in 1975 and another at Coconino Community College in 1995.

Today I use Google Earth to find geologic features from satellite photos and explore them by Jeep, quad and on foot.  I also explore the  intranet to mine data and for research.  I keep a blog and write/photo essays about what I have found for two reasons:  First, I record what I have learned so I don't forget it, and second, I like to believe there are others who find what I have written to be interesting and useful.

Today I live Pueblo, Colorado. I am a photographer, geologist and retired industrial mechanic, engineer  and CAD draftsman.  I have no regrets but if I could go back and make different choices along the path of my life's journey I would have been a geologist.   

I have put over 11,000 miles exploring Northern 

Arizona back roads on a Polaris Sportsman 500 quad.