Today's day trip was to the Guadalupe Ruins near the dilapidated town of Guadalupe. It is not exactly a ghost town as there appears to be one rather newish residence occupied by living human(s). The location is about a two hour drive off the paved state highway over a partially paved and mostly dirt road that is maintained pretty well by the county.But driving 2 hours on a dirt road with spectacular views but no civilization can be unnerving if you had no idea where you were going.
We passed several people walking along the dirt road which was, in itself, unusual. Leon has driven the road many times to his work area and said he's never seen people walking the road. Then we spotted their destination: an old stucco church off the side of the road. Today is Good Friday and people from the area were walking miles to the noon services.
We passed by El Cabezon peak which remains in the background throughout the day. We were definitely in the middle of Nowhere, New Mexico.
The Guadalupe Ruins are reminiscent of, but not on the scale of, Chaco Canyon, an ancient pre-puebloan culture. Walls and Kivas are made of stone and adobe mortar. Pottery shards are scattered here and there and while visitors are welcome to pick them up, examine them, photograph them, they are not to be removed from the site.
We began at Perea Nature Trail on the main road (Rt 550) near San Ysidro. This one of Leon's projects. He had to haul 50,000 pounds of gravel to spread over the one mile trail. Click to enlarge.
Bird blind that Leon and a co-worker reconstructed
Leon's 50,000 lbs of Gravel
Then it was on to far flung parts.Here are some photos and spectacular views of Leon's "Office" - another one of
the places he patrols. Great job, but I do worry about him out there
alone, miles and hours from any civilization or assistance, should he
ever need it. But there is cell service - mostly.
The ruins are at the top of this outcropping:
The trail to the Ruins
Guadalupe Ruins
El Cabezon in the distance
One of the two Kivas under a protective roof
Note the detailed fine stonework
The Kivas are round structures
Pot shards
Pot shards
The dark area is a "pond" and if you look carefully you can see cattle and a corral - Click to enlarge
Air B&B, Room with a View $500/night (just kidding)
Cabezon again
The trail to the ruins which are at the top of the hill to left
The geologic variety is astounding: sandstone, quartz "river rock", lava rock (not visible), and below is a trap rock "wall"
A "wall" of rock, a natural formation
Remnants of the wall of rock extends down hill across the road and up the hill
View from the road
Abandoned adobe at the "town" of Guadalupe
Here is a 360 degree view from the ruins at the top of the outcropping (It was breezy, so lower the volume):
We have visitors from Connecticut (Joyce and Robin and their dog Manny) this week and Leon was excited to show them around his office at the Bureau of Land Management. So we went to the area where there are petrified trees.
It is not an easy ride or an easy place to find. We took our 25 year old four wheel drive Ford F250 diesel. The land is located between the Santo Domingo and San Felipe Pueblos. Down miles of rocky, rutty, hilly, and rough dirt road. Leon knows just about every square foot of the territory. He spends hours on patrol, cleaning up after inconsiderate visitors, mending barbed wire, and "ground truthing" (something like checking out the actual on the ground satellite images of unidentified structures, roads, features and documenting his findings). I must say that I am so happy for him that he has such a great job. Somehow our move to New Mexico almost seven years ago has been a fortunate decision.
We've been here in the petrified forest of New Mexico before and I've posted about the place before but it is always a fun and interesting place to explore. What makes it special is that it is on public land, free, no where near an Interstate or highway and remote enough and difficult enough to get to so that there are few if any human visitors.
So, in case you may have missed a previous post about our New Mexico petrified forest here is a recap from today. Glorious sunshine and blue skies made it a great outing. Enlarge the photos for a more intense experience. Even then, they do not do justice to the views or the fossils.
New Mexico goes legal
and it's not an April Fool's Day joke.
Cannabis, marijuana, or as we used to call it, pot, is now legal in New Mexico.
Personally I smoked more than my share of weed back in the 70s and spent many hours with my hippie freak friends listening to music and getting all philosophical and paranoid and spouting words of wisdom and frivolity.
That was when a an ounce was $20 and there were "dime" and "nickle" bags. I think they had just invented zip-lock bags for the purpose back then.
I remember saving some seeds from a particularly nice bag of pot and growing a few plants. I went up to the college town over the summer and planted the marijuana plants on a hillside near a lime quarry. It was just across the road from the rural college I attended. It turned out to be quite a crop ready for harvest when college resumed in the fall!
I've always loved growing things.
We were "One Toke Over the Line" pretty often back then.
And here's one you never heard of. If you can suffer through this you might get high just listening to it without smoking anything...The lyrics are interesting to say the least...Wait for when the Captain walks around the wheel house....
Here is an article and some links to help LGBTQI Ukrainians. I have not researched or verified any of this information and have not yet made a decision about which of these organizations i will support. You might want to do your own due diligence before making any donations.
Just something I whipped up in my spare time today. When you're out of bread and don't want to drive the 35 miles to town for a loaf. Besides this is better than anything in town.
Dandelion greens, lacinato kale,wilted in olive oil, garlic and red pepper flakes; cannellini beans, very little Italian sausage just for flavor, black pepper, chicken stock. Served over a little white rice and topped with grated parmigiano reggiano.
Note: I remember way back when my aunts would all go out together in the spring to the Connecticut dairy farmlands (now upscale housing communities or shopping malls) to pick wild dandelions. Now we pay $3.79 for a bunch which is maybe 10 ounces, grown on California farms for people like me craving the food of my ancestors.
P.S. I am not ignoring the news or current events. I just have nothing of import to add to the commentary or sentiments that I read or hear or see every day. My heart is weary and I cook.
I would like to re-post the entire article about the ACLU Lawsuit against Texas on behalf of the trans children and their parents who are being made in to criminals in Texas, but I will only post the link here.
Please read the post. The right-wing evangelical hypocrites are waging all-out war on LGBTQ Americans...because they sense the "climate" is right to take away all of our hard-won civil rights. Bills in legislatures all across America are being put forth to destroy us, to make us criminals again, to wipe out our marriages, to deny transpersons the right to medical care for gender dysphoria, to make it against the law to even TALK about sexuality and gender in a classroom, to eliminate gender studies at the university Wyoming) and to build a colossal closet of legalities and booby traps.
It sickens me that the attacks are predominately against trans children. At least when we marched and protested and even got arrested for our rights most of us were adults. Children should not be expected to take to the streets to defend their right to be who they are.
What is happening to our country? These fucking republicans are pure evil.
Leon and I watch the news, we ache in our hearts, we wonder not only about the Ukrainian people but also about the Russian soldiers who are Putin's Pawns in this deadly game of chess he is playing with otherwise peaceful, innocent people.
Living in this new world order where evil and horror and hate and lies and power and violence and irreverence have taken hold is not healthy for the human spirit. I can only hope that somehow this will all implode on those who thrive on spewing their toxic breath on the rest of us.
