That good ol' mountain dew
As you might imagine, it's difficult to find the internet in Arkansas. In fact, it's difficult to find a gas station that will take a credit card. Apologies, then, for being remiss in updating.
After leaving Albuquerque, we headed north to Santa Fe -- a lovely, if very touristy, town. It made it to the list of possible places to move after this is all over with, mostly because of excellent food and incredible mountains (a feature we weren't really expecting in New Mexico, but the state turns out to be full of surprises). We headed to Taos and the Sangre de Christos mountains, north of Santa Fe after two days in the nation's highest capitol city. In Taos, we found a beautiful antique map of North America from 1877, which we picked up as a souvenier of the trip. We did some hiking up in the mountains (where the altitude really whipped us). It had already snowed up there, and at night was getting down to about 10-15 degrees -- we had to sleep huddled under our two sleeping bags and the down comforter, and were still freezing most of the night. We had to be in our tent by dark (around 5 pm), otherwise it got too cold to function. But it was cozy and wintry, and we upped our nightly sleep allotment to about 14 hours.
From there, we headed west to Chaco Canyon -- an area where one of the major civilizations of the southwest was rooted. There we visted Pueblo Bonito, the largest building in the U.S. before the advent of structural steel -- 600 rooms, 4 or 5 floors high, elaborate masonry -- and built between 850 and 1150 A.D. It was *amazing* -- even more so because you can walk through all the rooms and sort of pretend like you're discovering it for the first time. A friendly ranger, obsessed with the astro-archeological events that the Chacoans constructed in the canyon (they think, anyway -- things like shafts of light that shine in patterns around the equinoxes), took us up to watch one of these events at sunrise. We were standing on 1000 year old walls, on the third floor of the ancient building ... it was pretty amazing.
Here we also met a new friend, whom we picked up in the desert. Strangely enough, his name is Chaco. He's been with us for over a week now, and eats insufferable amounts of our food, though he hasn't figured out the food box yet. The third morning with us, we woke to find that he had stockpiled our "fancy nut" mix in John's left shoe. After that we bought the mouse traps. We caught him yesterday for the first time, and he's got the cutest little mexican mustache that points straight out to the sides. But it was raining, and we let him go right next to the car, and we woke up this morning to find that he must have run straight back in -- the Doritos had been raided.
So, with Chaco in tow, we headed north and east into the mountains of Southern Colorado. There, we visited the Great Sand Dunes -- the highest dunes in North America. We climbed a 650 foot dune (which was probably the most difficult hike we've done). It was worth it for the 360 degree views of the dune field, the 14,000 foot mountains next to us, and the endless valley stretching south into New Mexico. We ran down the slipfaces of the dunes, which were incredibly steep and incredibly fun to descend -- the sand makes a sucking noise as your legs slip in up to your calves, and avalanches of sand run down the face from each footprint -- and each step carries you five or six feet down the slope.
Then began our rapid trip across the Texas panhandle (the worst smelling state so far -- cow shit and gas pumps, echgr) and Okalahoma (where we went to our first WalMart ever in Carrie Underwood's hometown). We angled for the Ozarks. In some of the more rural drives we've done (*seriously* Deliverance country), we passed huge encampments of hunters (it's elk and deer season) in the mountains there. We passed a local restaurant actually advertising Fried Catfish and Froglegs for lunch. And they have the crookedest roads you've ever seen -- there's not a straight road in the whole state. Our second night in the backwoods, we found the Ozark Folk Center, which happened to be hosting the final festival of the season -- bluegrass. It turned out to be an excellent show of five groups from all over the south, but one of the strangest experiences of the trip. The audience was uniformly ancient. And -- totally surprising for a bluegrass show -- unequivocally silent. There had been a lot of pre-show requests for gospel (every band mentioned this and played at least half their set as gospel), and the only enthusiam the crowd showed was for the men to reach up and pull off their hats for the gospel songs. Polite clapping and the removal of hats. It was either the most discriminating crowd I've ever been a part of, or the most repressed. I thought it was pretty good bluegrass, but maybe my standards are too loose...
Anyway, here we are in Music City. Nashville. Tennessee. The weather is shit -- that good old east coast November rain. Our trip ends in less than a week. We're in denial about that, but beginning to look forward to what's next -- turkey, mostly. And even thinking a little more seriously about where we'll be moving, and how to move, and when to move, and ... There's a lot of unanswereds. One thing we're pretty sure about is that we'll miss this way of life -- sleeping out, sleeping long, never seeing the same thing twice in a day. We've come up with some easy coping mechanisms -- making pancakes on the propane stove, camping in the back yard, sitting in the car on Sunday afternoons to listen to This American Life.
Quick warning for those on the east coast: we plan on having a party when we get back. Not sure where or when, exactly. We're looking forward to seeing everyone -- we're having a lot of pangs of missing folks. Oh, and we'll be back in DC the day after Thanksgiving (although that weekend will mostly be family time). Best, J and H.
After leaving Albuquerque, we headed north to Santa Fe -- a lovely, if very touristy, town. It made it to the list of possible places to move after this is all over with, mostly because of excellent food and incredible mountains (a feature we weren't really expecting in New Mexico, but the state turns out to be full of surprises). We headed to Taos and the Sangre de Christos mountains, north of Santa Fe after two days in the nation's highest capitol city. In Taos, we found a beautiful antique map of North America from 1877, which we picked up as a souvenier of the trip. We did some hiking up in the mountains (where the altitude really whipped us). It had already snowed up there, and at night was getting down to about 10-15 degrees -- we had to sleep huddled under our two sleeping bags and the down comforter, and were still freezing most of the night. We had to be in our tent by dark (around 5 pm), otherwise it got too cold to function. But it was cozy and wintry, and we upped our nightly sleep allotment to about 14 hours.
From there, we headed west to Chaco Canyon -- an area where one of the major civilizations of the southwest was rooted. There we visted Pueblo Bonito, the largest building in the U.S. before the advent of structural steel -- 600 rooms, 4 or 5 floors high, elaborate masonry -- and built between 850 and 1150 A.D. It was *amazing* -- even more so because you can walk through all the rooms and sort of pretend like you're discovering it for the first time. A friendly ranger, obsessed with the astro-archeological events that the Chacoans constructed in the canyon (they think, anyway -- things like shafts of light that shine in patterns around the equinoxes), took us up to watch one of these events at sunrise. We were standing on 1000 year old walls, on the third floor of the ancient building ... it was pretty amazing.
Here we also met a new friend, whom we picked up in the desert. Strangely enough, his name is Chaco. He's been with us for over a week now, and eats insufferable amounts of our food, though he hasn't figured out the food box yet. The third morning with us, we woke to find that he had stockpiled our "fancy nut" mix in John's left shoe. After that we bought the mouse traps. We caught him yesterday for the first time, and he's got the cutest little mexican mustache that points straight out to the sides. But it was raining, and we let him go right next to the car, and we woke up this morning to find that he must have run straight back in -- the Doritos had been raided.
So, with Chaco in tow, we headed north and east into the mountains of Southern Colorado. There, we visited the Great Sand Dunes -- the highest dunes in North America. We climbed a 650 foot dune (which was probably the most difficult hike we've done). It was worth it for the 360 degree views of the dune field, the 14,000 foot mountains next to us, and the endless valley stretching south into New Mexico. We ran down the slipfaces of the dunes, which were incredibly steep and incredibly fun to descend -- the sand makes a sucking noise as your legs slip in up to your calves, and avalanches of sand run down the face from each footprint -- and each step carries you five or six feet down the slope.
Then began our rapid trip across the Texas panhandle (the worst smelling state so far -- cow shit and gas pumps, echgr) and Okalahoma (where we went to our first WalMart ever in Carrie Underwood's hometown). We angled for the Ozarks. In some of the more rural drives we've done (*seriously* Deliverance country), we passed huge encampments of hunters (it's elk and deer season) in the mountains there. We passed a local restaurant actually advertising Fried Catfish and Froglegs for lunch. And they have the crookedest roads you've ever seen -- there's not a straight road in the whole state. Our second night in the backwoods, we found the Ozark Folk Center, which happened to be hosting the final festival of the season -- bluegrass. It turned out to be an excellent show of five groups from all over the south, but one of the strangest experiences of the trip. The audience was uniformly ancient. And -- totally surprising for a bluegrass show -- unequivocally silent. There had been a lot of pre-show requests for gospel (every band mentioned this and played at least half their set as gospel), and the only enthusiam the crowd showed was for the men to reach up and pull off their hats for the gospel songs. Polite clapping and the removal of hats. It was either the most discriminating crowd I've ever been a part of, or the most repressed. I thought it was pretty good bluegrass, but maybe my standards are too loose...
Anyway, here we are in Music City. Nashville. Tennessee. The weather is shit -- that good old east coast November rain. Our trip ends in less than a week. We're in denial about that, but beginning to look forward to what's next -- turkey, mostly. And even thinking a little more seriously about where we'll be moving, and how to move, and when to move, and ... There's a lot of unanswereds. One thing we're pretty sure about is that we'll miss this way of life -- sleeping out, sleeping long, never seeing the same thing twice in a day. We've come up with some easy coping mechanisms -- making pancakes on the propane stove, camping in the back yard, sitting in the car on Sunday afternoons to listen to This American Life.
Quick warning for those on the east coast: we plan on having a party when we get back. Not sure where or when, exactly. We're looking forward to seeing everyone -- we're having a lot of pangs of missing folks. Oh, and we'll be back in DC the day after Thanksgiving (although that weekend will mostly be family time). Best, J and H.
1 Comments:
This post has beautiful travel descriptions. The anecdotes are lovely. I am so happy I found this blog.
This is Joshua from
Israeli Uncensored News
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