The high mesas of New Mexico are the starting point for Stephen’s journey through the dramatic landscapes and peoples of the South West.The physicists at the Los Alamos Lab, who are unraveling the mysteries of dark matter, contrast starkly to the ecohouse dwellers living off the grid near Sante Fe.
Staying with the Navajo Indians in Monument Valley in Arizona, Stephen learns to weave a basket, before heading to the sublime beauty of Lake Powell, and life aboard a luxurious houseboat.
He takes a World War II Flying Fortress bomber to the Boneyard in Tucson, where 3000 military planes are eerily mothballed, before living out a fantasy by becoming a cowboy at the Old Tucson Studios.
In Nevada he meets semi-naked Mormon missionaries during their calendar shoot, and is initiated into the intricacies of brothel life by madame extraordinary Susan Austin before heading over the Sierra Nevada mountains to the Pacific Ocean.