Itinerant Air-Cooled

After all these years of driving through New Mexico, I do not know why but this time I am transfixed by its great beauty:







This view just filled me with joy:


Unfortunately, as usual, I did not give myself sufficient time to drive from Pomona CA to Los Alamos NM, and I had to keep up a serious cruising speed, of which my bus noted "what else is new?" Most of my pictures here were dizzily shot from a wind-buffeted driver's window:



I did stop at a closed tourist trap that was commemorating the Continental Divide. There were many shuttered or abandoned roadside stops that promised you a look at the world's largest lizard and real Indian jewelry:




There was something stirring in me this year, some hunger to know why this land looks like it does:








. . . and the hunger was answered past my hope when I stepped into jtauxe's house. This guy is a geology nut and is extra-smart to boot.
Next post, I am going to blow the bandwidth on photographs of the approach to Los Alamos. What a remarkable geologic story, and the beauty of the land actually gave truth to the cheesy slogan!

You're a lucky man. Keep spreading the gospel.

Amen, brother

Amskeptic wrote:After all these years of driving through New Mexico, I do not know why but this time I am transfixed by its great beauty:

I don't mean to try and over-simplify a complex part of history, but having a new administration in DC has let me breath a long awaited sigh of relief. Sunrises seem to have more sparkle and it's easier to hear songbirds, I don't seem to be as paranoid as during the last reign . . . . It just seems there's more time to be "transfixed by. . .great beauty." I'm glad you're seein' it Colin and thanks for sharing it w/ us all. =D>

New Mexico. My favorite place.

I'm glad to have finally met you, Colin and glad you were able to see some of our state's beauty. Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us around the country. And I was in awe at seeing your manuscript. It's amazingly beautiful. I want to start reading it before I die! I hope you consider publishing the parts of it you have done now instead of making us wait (how many?) years for the entire book. I understand the painstaking effort required of you, and the care you put into will be worth waiting for. But I know many would buy it if you published the first half (or whatever it is) now, to give you enough $ to finish the rest, if that would help you. Then you could sell the second half when it's done.
Anyone else ready to buy it in 2 (or more) parts?
Keep up the great work, Colin.

I am. I'd buy even just chapters

I've been fortunate enough to see quite a bit of Southern New Mexico, and I have to agree, Enchantment. It called to my heart. I call it the anti-Oregon.

I visited with my girlfriend at the time who grew up there. She said Oregon took some getting used to, all those trees and short site-lines made her claustrophobic.

Mmmmm, green chile. It was in the fall, and the chile roasters were set up all over.


neal

I love New Mexico and the geology that god gave her! As a geologist, I have to agree that trees just get in the way of what you are there to look at.

Volcanos still give me a woody.

Next time I go I will spend months looking around.

Randy in Maine wrote:
Volcanos still give me a woody.

Eeeeuuuuwwweeee. Remind me to never travel with you. Your fellow road mates are probably happy there are no volcanoes in Maine.

Tim

Randy in Maine wrote: Volcanos still give me a woody.

CAUTION: Never travel in the Pacific Northwest. See your doctor if your erection lasts more than a thousand miles.

Randy in Maine wrote:Volcanos still give me a woody.

Viva Volcanoes! (Not sure I want to see that commercial though)

Sylvester wrote:Colin is in injun country!

Indeed he is. We are quite surrounded by Pueblos. Perhaps the right perspective is that we newcomers are allowed to travel on certain corridors and to live in enclaves within all that land that had people living on it when we got here. I'm just waiting for the day when San Ildefonso Pueblo stakes its ancestral claim to Los Alamos and runs all the weaponeers out of here.

jtauxe wrote: Perhaps the right perspective is that we newcomers . . . . .

Great perspective John, thanks!! =D>

Gotta love the expression, *weaponeers.*

ruckman101 wrote:Mmmmm, green chile. It was in the fall, and the chile roasters were set up all over.

If Colin had come one week later (that would be now), he would have had the pleasure of working in the driveway with the smell of roasting green chile wafting over him. We are exactly downwind of the main (only) grocery here in town, and they've got two roasters set up outside. It is simply heavenly. (I like that emoticon, 'cause it looks like he's got chile peppers on his head.)

I did get a fresh chile or two to have Jim and Colin try, and even tasted it to make sure it was not too hot. It was sold as "mild", and the piece I ate was no hotter than a bell pepper. Colin, however, got lucky, and had a pretty hot piece! I tried another, and yup - it had some authority! It's funny how a single pepper can have mild spots and hot spots.

Mmmm... time to have a couple of bushels roasted so's we can peel 'em and cook up some of that fine green chile stew!