Sunrise over Elko

Pulling the curtain away from the window in rm. 450, Stockman's Casino and Hotel, downtown Elko, I see that Nevada's a place I want to know better--knowing it's much vaster and more uninhabited than it seems--but probably don't have the time for at this point in my life.

Likewise southern Idaho and the area around Soda Springs, another vast region where it's possible to believe there are still places in America that are unmapped.

Great country, settled by Mormons and other sub-groups of pioneers exploring the connection between religion and desperation.

A landscape in which I'm able to see myself for the first time as neither mortal or a child of god.