Musings

We stayed in an end-of-the-road town, too small to have chain motels, and I supposed that’s why the one we stayed in, clean and maintained, offered no breakfast. So we went down the street, and enjoyed a hot breakfast at a little café. We learned from observing the men who came in that the proper greeting is, “Buenos días, how are you?” and that it’s possible to wrangle 157 horses before breakfast. I don’t know how big the crew was doing that.

We ventured into the local grocery store for a few supplies. We skipped the many institutional sized cans of food (pozole, anyone) and Mexican brand cookies, and even these Jesus candles. Looks to me like he’s modeling a wedding dress, but I probably don’t understand this imagery.

Then we began moseying downriver, following the Rio Grande toward its mouth far away. We passed a large state park (miles) and some ranches. Found this mostly grown colt and perhaps mom getting their breakfast.

That’s the Rio Grande, or the Río Bravo to people living on the other side, in México. As in: “I can see Mexico from my pickup.”

Took the old road for a stretch, going through surprisingly still active dispersed communities. This church was hanging on, but the second one in this area was decrepit and unused.

Hoodoos overlooking the RG/RB. (From a pano, if it looks a bit distorted.)

Finally, we crossed into Big Bend National Park, and our first stop is this dramatic canyon, named for Santa Elena. Last time we were here, the water was much lower, and we walked into the cleft. Computational photography means detail is visible in the dark canyon faces.

Meet Mules Ears. There’s a trail going over to it, but we were content to look from here.

These olive tinted layers caught my eye.

This spot is called Sotol Overlook. These are sotol plants, pronounced soh-tohl, but the Guru says they are so-tall. 😉

I walked up the hill from our room and heard noise in the brush to my left, looked, and: wow! two deer grazing. I froze and prepared to photograph. They were unconcerned. I got this shot when the second one crossed the street, looking down at the Guru sitting in the porch-shade (difficult to see).

Golden hour on the rocks above the lodge.

Sunset through the formation called The Window.

Posted at 8:36 PM | 1 Comment »

We departed early, heading south through the Galisteo Basin. Cool archaeology is here, but we didn’t stop.

We spotted trains crossing—enough train action here to merit the two levels of tracks….

Strange giant cowboy cut-out face-off or smack-down.

At the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns park, there’s a multifaceted business called White’s City, a commercial undertaking with many buildings that seeks to get money out of your pocket and into theirs. Look at the critter-statues…bison, alien, etc., and a big USA flag flapping above.

Road to the visitor center…hairpin turn that looks like it may hang in space. Turns out it’s on solid ground, however.

We took the sissy elevator entrance. The elevator has a top and a bottom stop, nothing in between. And the distance is measured in feet. We dropped smoothly several hundred feet. The walking tour is of the Big Room. It goes on and on. And on and on.

First view. Shiny handrails are on both sides of the paved path.

Handrails left. This is a big space. Even standing there it is difficult to grasp the size of the open space around you.

More big stalactites, stalagmites and perhaps speleothems.

I was fascinated by this well-decorated passage to…dunno where.

I was also fascinated by the few pools of water we could see. This one had drips falling into it, making the “wrinkles” in the water.

We elevatored back to the surface, had a snack from our abundant food stores in the cab, and headed south-ish below the Guadalupe Mountains. Signs every few miles warned us about the wind. It was always there this afternoon, and for maybe fifty it was straight at us, spoiling our mileage.

We crossed into Texas and had this confirmation that we were approaching the US–Mexico border. We frequently hear about walls, but these things are perhaps far more effective. When airborne.

We had a fancy dinner way out in the relative boonies, very delicious, at Cochineal in Marfa. I had a pricey and yummy steak, and the Guru had schnitzel. With veg for both of us. Recommended.

Yawn.

Posted at 11:59 PM | Comments Off on Scale can be elusive

Our first big adventure was to drive into—and out of—an extinct volcano.

We followed the Jemez River up. It’s in the previous shot, too. Between the river and the road is a ridge locally called soda dam. Long gone hot springs created the deposit, layer upon layer.

This is approximately the crest of the caldera rim. It’s not edgy and distinct. We were glad it was warm and sunny, and the crud on the road was melting, even in the shadows.

This is the Valle Grande of the caldera. It’s huge. You are looking at no more than a “corner” of the interior. All those ridges across the VG are on the floor of the caldera. Huge.

Descending toward Los Alamos (the willows) on the other outer flank, we could see the mountains on the other side of the Rio Grande Valley. Such landscapes!

Outside the lava territory of the volcano-lands, we saw different kinds of rock and landforms. That is the extent of my geology knowledge on this. 😇

Our second big adventure was to walk downtown for a fancy dinner, just as the sunset was glowing over the rooftops in the neighborhood…very soon to fade.

The plaza trees are festooned with lights. And the moon was up.

Food porn. I had elk tenderloin with mushroom sauce and veggies. Perfection.

Plaza lights as we traced our steps homeward, after full dark.

Highly computational photo. Stunning.

And the super-great adventure? Thirty years since our wedding. 🥂🍾 😃

Posted at 6:32 PM | 2 Comments »

We joined the highway hoards returning to their nests after holiday adventures (eating, shopping, hopefully laughing), and found these junque-laden Joads on the move. The retired schoolbus was packed and the maroon crossover(?) seemed the spriteliest vehicle of the bunch by far.

Note in this snap and the previous one that the traffic was heavier in the other direction. For something like 50 miles of interstate it must have averaged about 30mph. We only had momentary slow-downs in comparison. Don’t know the temporary migration patterns that would produce this differential.

We stopped in Pascagoula to stretch our legs at a park across from this pier. I surmise that all had been rebuilt after Katrina (now way back) in 2005.

The park had a shallow wading pool with misters that could have been no more than ankle deep on a toddler when activated. Off to the side was a sign: “Please rub top of bollard to activate.” The Guru looked at it and said, “You first.”

We looked for a seafood place along the Gulf. The first choice was up on super tall pillars with a great view, but closed for cleanup (not cleaning). Ooops. But it was next to a marina full of working boats with nets not crab/lobster pots, which of course was very interesting.

We continued along the shore and found this place, not up on pillars, but still with a fine view of the water from the dining room.

These nifty new phones/cameras are wonderful. These are the colors of the sunset. Ignore the insect blotches, plz.

Deciding that it’d be wiser to get a needed car wash before we got to the desert, we went through the Wall of Foam (blue sign), and got the worst of the accumulated gunk (nastiness of oak residue was particularly worrisome on the hood) removed.

There wasn’t any other traffic on the old US highway we took instead of the interstate parallel to the shore, and the Guru stopped so I could nudge the phone/camera into the land of computational photography. It was darned dark out, but it captured the bridge superstructure as well as a few stars in the night sky. Oh, boy, we’ll have fun experimenting this whole trip!

Posted at 4:26 PM | Comments Off on You first

Asters are so autumnal.

Especially aesthetic autumnal.

Warning: change is coming to our weather overnight!

Posted at 6:52 PM | Comments Off on Grooving on autumnal

Beautiful shade of purple, and unexpected in a grass.

Assorted smallish tall objects.

BeltLine art and Ponce City Market, the former Sears Roebuck building.

Lantana blooms and berries.

Very small puffballs.

I pondered composing a screed about the inefficiency of bureaucracy, but: too familiar, too boring.

Posted at 6:23 PM | Comments Off on Change of direction

Free library in a churchyard. Did not check the titles….

Mild experimentation with wide-angle capabilities.

Posted at 6:26 PM | Comments Off on Wide

Yesterday our neighborhood Kroger re-opened. Or, at least, there was a Kroger here, but there’s a totally new building now, complete with two parking garages (one underground), and a high-rise apartment building. Far right is an old building on a different property. We made our first visit this morning. We passed on the Halloween swag, tasted a few of the offerings scattered throughout the store, and talked to several kindly and helpful employees. Two of three referred to a map to tell us where things were—Bob’s Red Mill dried-bean soup mix (one only, but not the one we like); organic fresh Italian sausage (none).

They are trying for a new identifier. Locally this used to be called the Murder Kroger (after a parking lot event, if I have it right), or Wino Kroger by the Guru. One edge of the store is the Beltline, so: Beltline Kroger.

Here’s the view from the Beltline. Note the blue bow on the column, left.

While most bins, shelves, and cases were nicely filled, with all items tidily aligned, this prepared-food section was empty. Someone decided that empty containers with post-its was better than totally empty. If the handwriting had been clearer, I could have browsed the offerings-to-be.

The checkout lady—we did serve yourself—was very helpful with corrections…five packages of 12-oz Starbucks coffee were supposed to be $5.99 each, but they rang up at the regular price ($7.99), not even the sale price (apiece)—$6.49. Plus, we were gifted some onions that weren’t in the menu at all.

We came out with assorted fresh veggies (salad stuff mostly), some uncured pancetta, and a few other grocs (e.g., coffee!!), plus their idea of a “Hawaiian” poké salad (fine, not exceptional; made for a more interesting lunch than we were going to have). We’ll go back….

Posted at 6:45 PM | Comments Off on Krogerized

…spider. Duh. Secondarily: the sparkles in the web.

…potted plant. Secondarily: the geometric pillows.

…riotous autumnal shapes.

Posted at 7:12 PM | Comments Off on It’s about the…

Proof that we’re southbound. Also, proof that it was sunny early on.

We drove into rain, and never out. Some stretches had incipient rain, but the perception was that rain would restart any moment.

We made the NC transportation museum our big stop. It’s centered on a roundhouse, but I even saw a dugout canoe and motorcycles. My digital dictionary indicates cow-catcher is hyphenated; coulda fooled me.

Wagon hub. Looks like a fancy locking pin.

Have no idea why forty men and eight horses.

Dusty, chrome-laden car.

Aha! Stone Mountain.

Aha! Atlanta traffique.

Posted at 9:41 PM | Comments Off on Homeward (no angel)