New Mexico, Land of Enchantment. It is different, somehow. Gorgeous scenery, of course ---
Mesilla, NM - a lot of old buildings. Billy the Kid is a mainstay of te tourist trade, out here. He was a ruthless killer, a halfway retarded, an honest but misguided guy who stood by his friends and got in trouble for it, a hero to the Mexicans, or maybe an early fighter for social justice - take your pick, nobody can prove any of it. He was "shot by Pat Garrett, who'd once been his friend", or maybe died of old age.
Church in Mesilla - not old, but nice.
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This roadrunner dominates the skyline on a hill outside Las Cruces
And it's environmentally responsible...
There's a mesh of steel wire, filled with old computer keyboards, pots and pans, tin cans, fenceposts, signs...but the chief ingredient is sneakers:
Just for interest, here's a real roadrunner. Incidentally, coyotes, Wiley E. or whatever, almost never go after roadrunners. Not only are they pretty fast, there's not much meat on them...
Mesilla, NM - a lot of old buildings. Billy the Kid is a mainstay of te tourist trade, out here. He was a ruthless killer, a halfway retarded, an honest but misguided guy who stood by his friends and got in trouble for it, a hero to the Mexicans, or maybe an early fighter for social justice - take your pick, nobody can prove any of it. He was "shot by Pat Garrett, who'd once been his friend", or maybe died of old age.
Church in Mesilla - not old, but nice..JPG)
This roadrunner dominates the skyline on a hill outside Las Cruces
And it's environmentally responsible...There's a mesh of steel wire, filled with old computer keyboards, pots and pans, tin cans, fenceposts, signs...but the chief ingredient is sneakers:
Just for interest, here's a real roadrunner. Incidentally, coyotes, Wiley E. or whatever, almost never go after roadrunners. Not only are they pretty fast, there's not much meat on them... The roadrunner is an amazing bird. He (or she) kills a rattlesnake by grabbing it by the head , lifting it in the air and smashing it on the ground, which fractures its spine. After it's done this a half-dozen times, the snake is dead, and he swallows it. If the snake is so long he can't get it all down, he just rests in the shade, with the end of the snake hanging out of his mouth, until the front part is digested. Then he swallows some more, until it's all gone.
The snake's best tactic, it turns out, is to curl up with its head hidden inside its coils. If the roadrunner can't find the head, he gives up.
Later on, in California, we saw this whole tree full of sneakers. Is something going on with sneakers?
Las Cruces - a beautiful toen. This is the Heritage Museum...
The Wild Bunch. They were pretty wild, even tho they did seem to dress well.
Saddlemaking kit belonging to Austin 'Slim' Green. It turns out there is a whole lot to saddlemaking; a good one cost a lot, even back then.
A Sidesaddle: ladies who thought it immodest to ride astride the horse, or who had a dress on, sat sort of sideways.
The had a lot about hats, too: A hat stretcher:
Hats:
A J. B. Stetson advertisement
Clever (or maybe stupid) sign
On the Gila National Forest, a trail up a narrow canyon, called the Catwalk:
This is reconstructed; the original was much like it, being a maintenance walkway along a flume that brought water down from the top to a mining operation. Eventually they used it to generate power as well as refine the ore.
Note the bolts, for holding the mountain together:
Out in the desert west of Datil, NM: The VLA, or Very Large Array, of radio telescopes. There are 27 of them, aranged in a Y-shaped array of three arms, each of which can be as long as 13 miles. The elecronics are complicated, involving amplifiers that run at 15 deg Kelvin to reduce noise. The scientests never have to go near the place; they submit their requirements, and the data gets transmitted back to them, by internet.
That is, Verrrry Large. See the truck next to one of them? Of course, they all point in the same direction, unless one is out of commission, which two or three always seem to be, in which case they go belly-up, you might say.
13 miles sounds like a nice round number, but it's far enough that they have to move the units by rail, so they have their own railroad. I think by exempt they mean no crossing signal is needed; they move at about 2-3 MPH
Datil Well: There were a whole series of these wells, about ten miles apart, for watering the herd on cattle drives.
Black (or brown, or cinnamon) Bear. They're really big on not leaving food out, or approaching bears - if they get used to people, sooner or later they'll maul somebody, so the often end up being put down, which is politically unpopular.
Alligator Cypress tree. Rather rare.
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On the way west...
On the way out of New Mexico, we went thru Pietown - the cattle drives in the old days went thru here, and a local bakery made pies for them to take along on the trail. It's also right on the Continental Divide; we got a coffee cup that says "It's all down hill from here."
And so, off into the sunset...
13 miles sounds like a nice round number, but it's far enough that they have to move the units by rail, so they have their own railroad. I think by exempt they mean no crossing signal is needed; they move at about 2-3 MPHDatil Well: There were a whole series of these wells, about ten miles apart, for watering the herd on cattle drives.
Black (or brown, or cinnamon) Bear. They're really big on not leaving food out, or approaching bears - if they get used to people, sooner or later they'll maul somebody, so the often end up being put down, which is politically unpopular.
Alligator Cypress tree. Rather rare..jpg)
On the way west...On the way out of New Mexico, we went thru Pietown - the cattle drives in the old days went thru here, and a local bakery made pies for them to take along on the trail. It's also right on the Continental Divide; we got a coffee cup that says "It's all down hill from here."
And so, off into the sunset...
1 comment:
Hello :)
The Exempt sign at that railroad crossing you have pictured means that vehicles normally required to stop at all crossings, like buses and things, don't have to stop at this one.... and likely because of the great sight distance up and down the track.... and those low train speeds you mentioned.
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