It was in 1994 that my life took a dramatic change. My father had just passed away, I was recently divorced and had been working as a retail manager for the better part of thirteen years, and though the job payed the bills, I was under constant stress. These three factors pressed on me till finally I stopped listening to the rational voice within my head and quit.

  I needed time to discover who I was, so I dried twenty pounds  of meat, loaded up another forty some odd pounds of essential gear in a back pack, jumped on my mountain bike, and headed towards The Big Bend.

  At first each day was hell, I struggled with almost every mile. My arms would go numb, my back would ache from the wieght upon it, but as the days passed, my body adapted and my mind felt at ease.

  After ten days, I had traveled from Austin through the Hill Country and found myself camping along the Nueces River just west of Uvalde. I awoke to a beautiful crisp morning, took a long walk along the river, and made this entry into my journal.

  March 4th, 1994. Total miles 254.4

  After two of the longest days so far, I've decided to take a day to rest and let my muscles heal. I awoke today as the dawn broke and decided to take a walk. The sun rose, leaving burnt orange streaks against a true blue sky and with the exception of my legs being stiff from the preceeding days, I felt good.

  I walked to a bend in the river where I had been before, and watched two nutrea swimming for a short time, then went on. The river was low, flowing beneath the time worn gravel, and emerging only in recessed areas now and again. But where the river showed itself, life flourished in crystal pools of blue and green.

  Looking to the west, along the banks, I saw hunter's blinds standing quietly awaiting the coming of the next season. But on this walk I have found an older story of people who never payed a dollar to hunt, and who hunted not for sport, but to survive. The story came in signs scattered upon the land; a small mound where ancient humans sleep, in burnt rocks where they built their hearths, in small flakes of flint, and in the form of tools and points from which these flakes were struck. In that moment, I was lost; no longer aware of the world I live. In that moment I understood the freedom that my ancestors sought. For five more miles I walked in silence. This was the rest that I needed.

  It's been a number of years since I took that walk, but even today, as I make my way across this land, scouting, hunting, or simply hiking, I look to the ground for signs of the people who walked there before me. Each time I find a piece of their lives, I can hold it in my hand, drift back through time, to find myself walking along that river, and my mind is at ease.

  I'm posting pictures of a few of the pieces I've found over the years. The areas I've found them range from Golthwaite, to Austin, to Leakey, to The Nueces outside of Uvalde, to the Rio Grande. All of the pieces are surface finds, and I consider each one a gift. 

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