Alien Landscape: Finding charm in peculiar places

To my eyes, Arkansas is an alien landscape. After many visits to the Ozarks to see my sweet mother-in-law, I still approach the terrain as if I were a curious extraterrestrial.

Places I call home stretch from the California coast to the Sonoran desert. The textures of my worlds are soft redwood bark, gnarled oakwood, and crunchy pine needle carpets, sand and sea, spiny cactus that house wrens, sport vivid blooms in season, and give mute testimony to nature’s resilience.

The north central part...