Gone Analog - Part II Parallel Circumspection, dunes, electronic leashes and a day of small frights...

December 6, 

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I foraged green chile stew and a bottle of Mexican beer at the Alamo Pub - how could I resist?  A real local hangout.  Someone had an extremely cool motorcycle outside.  Would have taken a picture but it was dark.  Pool table, dark, lots of big fat guys hanging out.  My first instinct was to walk back out the door. This seems to be quite a breeding pool.  Anyway, interesting and goddamn it all just remembered that there was a photo in there that I was going to look at.  I'll have to go back.

Would you believe that I wore myself out today?  Went to the dunes and took off on a hike through the dunes to the edge of the park area.  Should be around 5 miles but with all my photographic detours it took longer.  I have a fast pace so wasn't worried about the time since I started around tennish.  When the shadows became long and the sun was approaching the mountains and I still had a third of the distance to go, I decided to walk more and shoot less.  

Started out on a different trail earlier in the day with real abstract, sort of micro views on things and then in the afternoon was swept into the sensuality of the curves of the dunes. It is so incredibly beautiful. It can take my breath away.

Weirdness....   Am going to have to file a complaint with the Air Force.  They kept flying this huge fucking plane over my head all day long.  It was so low that I could make out all of the shadows and details on the fuselage, though I am clueless about what kind of plane it was. Simply enormous.  I had my wide-angle lens on so it took  @&##$* very long time to get out of my picture each time.  Blast.

Also, at the beginning of this hike you sign in so that they know if they have to come look for you if there is a dust storm, etc.  They also tell you that the planes from the missile testing ground are flying overhead in "shared" air space and if you happen to find any metal debris that it might be dangerous so just leave it alone and get a ranger.  That is usually my course of action when I find bombs and other undetonated explosives on the ground.

But, I did manage to stagger back to my car at something less than an hour until sunset.  What did I see on my drive out but a ranger leading a sunset walk.  So, I stopped and caught up and had a chance to do some of my new jokes on finding undetonated bombs on the ground and the airplanes in my way.  I guess that there are just some things that work with an audience.

Oh, and I did notice after I got back from the pub (redneck pub) that I had left a white trail of gypsum leading from my car door to the door of my room.  I made sure to park my car in another spot lest someone think that I am such a slob.  Of course the floor of my room is also guesting a number of personalized footprints and I suppose it might not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the person leaving the tracks is in fact residing within Room 21.  Of course there is probably a surplus of rocket scientists in this town so any way that you look at it, I am essentially sunk.

Parallel circumspection, dunes, electronic leashes and a day of small frights

I was up around 5:30ish to make the sunrise at the dunes.  A fabulous experience. Would you believe that I actually carried that )(*% phone (hereafter know simply as ff) with me this morning? I detest electronic leashes but sometimes find them a necessary evil that must be utilized to keep in contact with the part of the world that goes on around me.  I long for the days of carrier pigeons and the art of disappearing from the face of the earth, the part that so called civilized man inhabits.

Now, yesterday was sort of a yin/yang kind of day.  I began it at the dunes and ended over at Al's.  Took some time out for lunch and ate -- guess what?????  more tortillas and cheese.  A very easy thing in the microwave.  I may actually be turning into a tortilla.

But, today was a little different.  I did the dunes and then took off after the light blew out for my purposes.  I headed back up the mountain to look for the old mining trestle that I saw on the way down a few days ago.

Now, I don't know what it is about this trestle that is so interesting.  It spans a canyon, is basically falling apart and has notices posted all over the place to keep off of it for your own good.  Not being totally insane, I heed their advice.  The lighting basically sucks.  It is mostly backlit, which makes it tough.  I take a couple of shots just because I have slid all the way down the fucking mountain to get there with my camera for once just on me instead of safely in a backpack.  As I am heading off, a cloud obscures the sun and answers my problem to some degree.  I put another roll of film in, rate it differently and wait for more clouds to pass by.  Something may come of it, but all things considered I may have another run at it some other time later in the day.  It goes without saying that climbing up a slippery no footholds kind of a hill is always much easier than going down it.  I arrived at the car without any disasters.

At this point I am once again looking for something new.  I decide to head up north to some Indian and Spanish Mission ruins.  I haven't had a watch on for days and what is time but some strange foreign concept anyway, so off I head with only a mere reckoning about distance and all of those good things.

I pass through the towns of Tularosa, Obscuro (home to the Obscuro Missile Range, "Welcome"), my own favorite Carrizozo which is the home of an old haunt of mine, the Crossroads Motel, Claunch and on into the descending black arms what turns out to be a mother snow storm.  I see the squall line as I am leaving Alamogordo.  It is whipping up the gypsum dunes into a haze of white dust and hanging on the western ridges of the mountains before spilling over.  Somehow, I evade the darkly menacing arms of the storm and end up in the grey/white snow making clouds.  A calculated risk here.  A big storm coming through.  Can I survive should I get stuck?  How much food do I have with me?  Some sausage, sunflower seeds, dried mango and a pack of ginger gum.  I chew all of the gum and eat half of the sunflower seeds thinking about my supplies.  Too bad I didn't bring some of that cheese too.  This could be interesting, exciting and an adventure.  

Just past Tularosa they were doing some roadwork and had the traffic reduced to alternating one-way traffic.  I arrive in time to sit and wait for my turn.  I am the second car back.  I watch as semi's come barreling down this stretch and am becoming nervous.  They must be going close to forty or fifty right past the bumper of the car in front of me.   I had stopped maybe three car lengths back from him and was in the process of turning my wheels to the right to get off of the road some more when an out of control semi barrels past the guy with his horn blaring and mere inches between their bumpers.  Glad to be out of the way.   

Oh well.  Back to the scenery.  There are some beautiful cloud formations and as usual, I am stopping along the road.  It is so cold that I cannot be outside without my gloves.  And this is with three layers of clothes, hat, scarf, etc., all on.

I pull into the ruins and am the only person there.  Just when I park, the snow flurries begin.  It is absolutely a treat for me.  The snowflakes are landing on me and I am enjoying trying to catch them and eat them as I wander around.  The clouds continue on past me and I am at the top of the mountain looking at storms that surround me while I stand in the clear.

They tell me at the ranger station that it is snowing at the next ruin up the road about thirty or forty miles.  I figure that I am all the way up there and may as well head on up and so I do.  Plus, I love the idea of more snow.  Never mind the fact that these roads are not very well traveled and I have been told that a couple of hills can get icy.  On I go.

The next ruin is at this little town just past Mountainair.  The whole town actually seems to be a ruin.  Many very old buildings built of cut red sandstone blocks that people are still trying to live in.  The mission ruin is spectacular.  Red sandstone maybe four or five stories tall, many walls collapsed, no roof, but you certainly have the impression of a European cathedral.  Not something that I always get from these missions.  Beautiful clouds and colder than hell.  My feet feel as though they are totally naked.  Never mind the warm socks and boots.  I wander around the paths and look at some of the outlying sites and see the sunset through some beautiful stands of huge and very dormant trees.  And now, I must drive back.

I finally must look at the time and consider what will be left of my day, since I am RETURNING.  I have ruled out the longer -- more traveled route, because it IS longer.  So I head back down the road that goes through nowhere and hope for no ice.

Every single curve is well marked by arrows, crosses for the dead and signs that tell you "do not pass."  I heed all warnings.  I am driving in the complete darkness, fine.  I am completely alone, fine.  But, I am thinking that I would really like to stop and eat at this restaurant that I always pass by in Carrizozo. I am hungry.  So, food is a goal at this point.  

Finally, I get to Carrizozo, I couldn't tell you how much later, but awhile later anyway.  I stop and get just a little more gas to make sure that I'll have plenty should I get stranded.  Though it is not snowing right now, that is all one of the cashiers is talking about at the gas station.  She would rather take clothes off than put them on.  Something like that.  Her husband/boyfriend comes in with her small daughter cuddled in his fleece lined denim jacket.  "There's your mama, he tells this child with a dirty face.

Every car in the town but mine seems to be covered with inches of snow.  Some small amount of good sense that is lurking somewhere in my jeans (back pocket) told me that this is not the evening to try the local greasy spoon.  I got a cup of coffee and a candy bar and headed on down the road.  

Things were going just fine and I was telling myself that maybe I wimped out when suddenly there were some splutterings of snow.  A couple of semi's passed me and before your could say Alamogordo three times we had passed into a flurry of horizontal snow.  You know, I broke one of my sort of not rules, but basic premises about not driving at night across vast expanses that are unfamiliar.  Another survival strategy that I do use is to hang with the truckers, some distance back.  They are big and easy to watch, plus I figure if anyone is going to have the scoop on things, it will be them.  So I kept up.

For the most part, it was constant.  Every once in a while it would ease up and then sometimes as cars would pass the other direction I could see the road turning gray from the snow accumulation.  This did not thrill me.  I am no fan of ice.  There were a couple of pile-ups as we got closer to town and I ran a very red light because I didn't trust the road for stopping.  

I gave up on dinner but went to the store and bought a couple of things and am now safely inside and watching it sleet/snow.  End of this adventure.

Oh, no.  I just took my shoes off and left more white sand on the floor.  Some days I leave grass all over the floor, other days white powder.  The housekeepers must love me.

I'm not sure where my mind is these days.  Wandering around alone I suppose.  It prefers to be unleashed and I am trained accordingly.  I keep making things into words that they aren't.  Seeing snow pillows instead of snowplows and on and on and on.  I like it that way.  Things work.

P. S.  My appointment with the archaeologist got put off until Friday.  Willkeepyouposted.  German word.  As of today, Chaco is clear.  Who knows?