Word: desertions
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...bottom of what makes California Californian. She parties with Arianna Huffington, lunches with Warren Beatty and does yoga next to Nicole Kidman. She studies with nutty mystics in Big Sur. She rents out her house as a film location. She visits California's failed desert communities and explores its complex water-management system. (She can get a little wonky at times--"Water flow is measured in acre-feet...
Camped mainly around the pacific coast and in the regions of rich soils that feed them, modern Australians have left their land mass largely untouched. The great era of exploration, apart from the dash for minerals, has passed. Most travelers see red earth and desert outpost from 35,000ft., if at all. Nevertheless, the open road still rewards the curious and those with time enough to appreciate its majesty. The sheer length of the national highway, its obstinate sameness, means the journey can be a lonely and humbling experience, especially so for those in a hurry. So slow down, take...
...nothing like the tourist brochures out here on the wildflower trail. The promised expanses of everlasting daisies are a riot of brown, the crippling drought postponing, if not canceling, their show. Here and there a scarlet burst of desert pea catches the eye, and the soft orange of the acorn banksia glows above creamy white smokebush along the road, but this season's wildflower hunt demands a little more effort...
...roadhouse, police station, meteorological office and quarantine center, the 50-resident village is a hub for shark fishing and starling shooting (the bird is considered a pest in Western Australia). "We're either sleeping or working," says local mechanic Rodney Fowler, 60, proudly wearing his eucla spirit of the desert windcheater...
...arms flail in an exuberant choreography. Soon the bell for lunch will summon a well-ordered procession to the community store for a hot meal, the teachers will retreat to their homes for an hour of down time, and the classrooms sit empty on the edge of the desert, soundless except for the murmur of wind...