The secret places of Phoenix, and Los Angeles


My two favorite cities in the world are Phoenix, and Los Angeles. I love to talk about them, and all too often I realize that my view of them is vastly different from most people's view. And it has to do mostly with my secret places.

Most people that I talk to live in a world of sitting in their cars in traffic jams, staring at brake lights, and then being inside of buildings, looking at walls, inside of elevators, and their only relief is from that is to watch other people play a game on TV. And since that's all they see, that's all they know. And of course they insist that they have to live in that world because they're not rich. And even rich people do the same thing, it's just that they sit in more expensive cars, and watch other people play games on more expensive TVs.

But that stuff never interested me. I did enough of it to realize that I didn't want to live my life staring at walls, trapped in spaces, watching other people play games. I wanted to get out there, and do stuff, and see stuff. And that led to me to my secret places, which I've been visiting since my twenties.
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I've been talking about my secret places for a long time. In Santa Barbara, it was Hendry's beach, in the San Fernando Valley it was Los Encinos, in Los Angeles it was Rustic Canyon, and in Glendale, Arizona, where I live now, it's the Sahuaro Ranch. I go there, I take pictures there, I talk about these places, and mostly people say, "Huh? Is that near the freeway? Next to the Starbucks? Is there a place nearby where I can watch the game?" And I find that it isn't a question of location, I could give the GPS coordinates, it's just that for most people these places don't exist, just because they can't imagine them.

I understand. There's a world out there of walls, and traffic, and sitting in rooms watching other people play games. And my trying to describe my world just sound mystical to most people. But that's never stopped me from trying. Because secret places are wonderful, and wonderful places are best shared by people who understand.

Thank you for visiting secret places with me today. And there's so much more to see!

Sahuaro Ranch, Glendale, Arizona. In the heart of the city, but millions of miles away. A secret place.

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