At the very western edge of North America, where the last wagon, the last train, the last tricycle comes to its rolling stop before the Pacific Ocean is a place where a person might go to rest their head on concrete or read a book in the wind: The Great Highway. I spent an afternoon here a few years ago before it had been discovered as a writing surface. I sat with my back to the wall and my face turned to catch the rare heat of a spring sun and felt the anthems of immigrant America, of Pete Seeger, Walt Whitman, Jack Kerouac, and every stoned out hippie of the Pan Handle playing beneath the wind and the roar of cars and surf. Such a satisfying bleakness, so relentless, yet warm with the company of epic multitudes.

Today images arrived from another traveler to this place. The complete text of the wall says: "The paint on the walls is more important than the toy in your heart."

Is this true?

Photos by Aaron Zube, painter and architect, San Francisco.