Whoever said The West is Best got it right. Since I left New Mexico in 2007 to move east to Virginia, the West has itched me, and will do so for the rest of my life. To be fair, Georgia O’Keefe said this about New Mexico, but for me it applies to everything west of the hundredth meridian of longitude—what I think of as the dry-line beyond which dew points, and thus humidity levels, are comfortable.

I make an annual pilgrimage to the big sky country of high plains, deserts, canyons, and mountains, most often to the Four Corners region. Some years I make two or three road trips west. In 13 years, I’ve crossed the continent 20 times—12 by flying and 8 by driving. I’ve done this drive so many times and by so many different routes that there is not much appeal to the middle of the country anymore—the so-called fly-over country between the Rockies and the Appalachians.

Out there on the road, I feel like the proverbial stranger in a strange land. This is a bland land, and is populated with religious fanatics. We barely speak the same language. There are few NPR stations available, nothing to relieve the monotony but billboards about abortion, gun rights, and Jesus. There are almost no decent food options. The banal road-culture of America—the gas stations, truck stops, convenience stores, fast-food hells, sprawling mega-cities and ugly strip malls—is the most depressing, lonely thing I know of in North America.

But once I get to the Front Range of the Rockies and the Southwest desert, all is well. There is scenic and cultural diversity, vast public lands with unlimited places to camp, adventure and salubrious air to be enjoyed. I drive because I like to camp. I hate motels, and if one flies and rents a car there are limited options for camping. My truck is four-wheel drive and my camper is built for tough, off-road exploring. This book is one of a series, each documents with hundreds of images the sights and adventures that I seek in travels around the American West.