Trails to Sky

The old Bankhead Highway cuts through some of the most quietly beautiful terrain in Texas — a forgotten thread of American history running west through the Palo Pinto Mountains. From the air, you can still trace the original route winding through cedar breaks and limestone ridges, long before the interstates straightened everything out.

Flying over Palo Pinto, the mountains open up into something unexpected — deep canyon cuts, rocky escarpments, and that particular West Texas light that makes everything look ancient. These are places that don't announce themselves. You have to go looking.

Caddo Lake, Texas and Black Lake Bayou, Louisiana — two of the most otherworldly wetlands in the American South. Ancient bald cypress trees rise from dark, still water, draped in Spanish moss and threaded through a maze of bayous and hidden sloughs. Caddo Lake is one of the few naturally formed lakes in Texas and home to one of the largest cypress forests in the world.

I've been flying both of these places for years. I know the light in the early mornings, the way the fog sits low between the cypress trunks, the channels that seem to lead nowhere until suddenly they open into a perfectly still mirror of sky. These places don't reveal themselves all at once. They give you something new every single time.