In this collection of essays, M. Dane ('Duke') Picard takes the reader on journeys across deserts, mountains, canyons, and rivers from the American Southwest to Italy and France. His blend of vivid description and humor evokes the rugged days of field petroleum geology in the Great Plains and pastel Badlands of Utah and Wyoming in the 1950s and later days unlocking the geological secrets of sandstone in the Rockies. Along the way, he pokes gentle fun at the academic life in stories that will make anyone smile who's ever sat on a faculty committee or chaired a professional meeting. The final essays on his travels through Provence and Italy are rich with details of the beauty and the history - both human and geological - of the regions. M.D. Picard is the author of numerous professional articles and books, and has served as president of the National Association of Geology Teachers, the Society of Sedimentary Geology, and the Rocky Mountain section of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. He is well known to the geological community for the essays and book reviews he has published over the last ten years in geoscience journals and magazines.