Flying Star Moments: Poet David M. Johnson

NOB HILL FLYING STAR--I ran into Dave Johnson yesterday afternoon. His new book of poems Rebirth of Wonder has just come out from UNM Press. I have known Dave for about 25 years...ever since I took a poetry writing class from him. He has been an important figure in the New Mexico poetry scene for longer than that.

This book concentrates on the spiritual and physical journey of a preacher's kid from Minnesota who ended up a poet-philosopher in Albuquerque.

Here is a poem from the book.

Patriarch in the Midwest

Where grandfather dipped his pen I burn incense. His inkwell
a bronze pagoda laced with oriental trees and fern.

Winged serpents crawl along the tray, a butterfly etched in the roof
waits to rise with the smoke of sandalwood.

Grandfather was a dragon from the north whose nature rejected
the mystical East, the solitary path to Nirvana.

Jehovah wasn't a breath from within, but a force like a winter storm.
Sin could destroy the household or locusts reap the harvest.

Did Scandinavians travel too far inland losing sight of the sea?
All that snow filling the hollows in a man's mind.

Grandfather talked to God in English and Norwegian, like engaging
the captain of a ship. His sermons charted the open spaces,

As if words could finally cut clear between good and evil.
From his pulpit in Minnesota Grandfather could see the ocean.

Bob Martin's Sunday Wallpaper: A Tale of Two Cities

From fellow boulevardier Bob Martin...
Downtown Albuquerque at 6:38 p.m. on February 8, 2007: ISO 200, 2 seconds, f/5.6, 21mm, Pentax K10D
Lesson: look around the scene carefully for possibilities beyond the initial intent.

I went to the Tricore parking lot (just west of the Embassy Suites Hotel at I-25 and Lomas) to try for a good shot of downtown lighted at night. Originally, I had thought a completely black sky would be best - not so.

How much should I include in the picture? Because I was using a 12-24mm lens, I figured a narrow panorama might be good. Looking over the scene, I decided to aim low and maybe crop out the nearby street scene. Fortunately, that inclusion paid off later.

Only after I had the range of exposures on my screen in PSE did it occur to me that I had more than a scene, I had a story: a tale of two cities.

That was a valuable practical lesson for me to learn: keep my eyes and mind open to possibilities beyond the initial reason for going to an area.

The blue car at the left edge was intentionally not cropped out because it is part of the foreground story primarily told to the lower right.

I may return to try this again for perhaps:
- a slightly more vivid sky, but not so much more as to be distracting - I like the hint of it,
- ISO 100 instead of 200, and
- f/11 to maximize sharpness.

All in all, it was a rewarding experience.

Bob

The Sunday Poem: Robert Wrigley...Kissing a Horse

American Life in Poetry: Column 098
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

A horse's head is big, and the closer you get to it, the bigger it gets. Here is the Idaho poet, Robert Wrigley, offering us a horse's head, up close, and covering a horse's character, too.


Kissing a Horse

Of the two spoiled, barn-sour geldings
we owned that year, it was Red—
skittish and prone to explode
even at fourteen years—who'd let me
hold to my face his own: the massive labyrinthine
caverns of the nostrils, the broad plain
up the head to the eyes. He'd let me stroke
his coarse chin whiskers and take
his soft meaty underlip
in my hands, press my man's carnivorous
kiss to his grass-nipping upper half of one, just
so that I could smell
the long way his breath had come from the rain
and the sun, the lungs and the heart,
from a world that meant no harm.

Reprinted from "Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems," published in 2006 by Penguin. Copyright © Robert Wrigley, 2006, and reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

The Passenger Who Ate Cold Pizza...and Other Stories from the Rails

ALVARADO STATION--The inaugural run of the New Mexico Rail Runner from Albuquerque to Belen was full of important people and those connected with some aspect of the rail project. But the real face of event has to be this UNM student waiting for the train at Alvarado Station downtown. I had seen her get on the RapidRide at UNM on her way downtown...and now here she was, unwrapping a slice of cold pizza while waiting for the southbound Rail Runner.

She lives in Los Chavez. Every morning her folks take her to the train station in Los Lunas. She rides up to ABQ...hops on the RapidRide to UNM...goes to class...and then takes the same bus downtown and the 12:32 train back to Los Lunas.

She is the future of Rail Runner: a real person whose needs are being met perfectly with mass transit systems. UNM is notorious for its lack of parking. This is the perfect solution.

In fact, UNM should consider subsidizing students who buy bus and train passes. After all, even their remote parking lots are filled to capacity. They should also do what they can for bicyclists, starting with a better connector to the Noreste bike path north of the campus.

I was touched at the ceremony when the train made its first stop in Belen. After the usual ribbon cutting ceremony I noticed a man in back of me had taken out his jack knife and was cutting up pieces of the ribbon and passing them out to his extended family. Yes, this train IS that important for this community.

And as the train backed up to start its return north to ABQ (remember the train runs 'backwards' going north), I couldn't help but think about how many stories and memories the Rail Runner service is going to generate...students, shoppers, adventurers, tourists, working commuters.

Here's to the New Riders of the Purple Sage!

Btw, in case you missed it, I wrote a companion piece about the Belen - ABQ Doodlebug for the Duke City Fix.

Johnny_Mango's Sunday Wallpaper: Inaugural Belen Stop of the New Mexico Rail Runner

BELEN--I was there: the first day of service. And while the Lieutenant Governor and the Mayors of both Belen and Los Lunas gave speeches during the stopover, I wandered down the track for one more look at this beautful engine.

The Sunday Poem: Mary Jo Salter...Somebody Else's Baby

American Life in Poetry: Column 097
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Though parents know that their children will grow up and away from them, will love and be loved by others, it's a difficult thing to accept. Massachusetts poet Mary Jo Salter emphasizes the poignancy of the parent/child relationship in this perceptive and compelling poem.


Somebody Else's Baby

From now on they always are, for years now
they always have been, but from now on you know
they are, they always will be,

from now on when they cry and you say
wryly to their mother, better you than me,
you'd better mean it, you'd better

hand over what you can't have, and gracefully.

Reprinted from "New Letters," vol. 72, no. 3-4, 2006, by permission of the poet. Copyright © 2006 by Mary Jo Salter, whose most recent book of poetry is "Open Shutters," Knopf, 2003. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

The Metropolitan Transportation Plan Meeting: A Person Reaction

NOB HILL--I went to the Metropolitan Transportation Plan meeting Tuesday night at the Unitarian Church. Perhaps it is just too big a topic for a two-hour meeting. It is one of those 'trains, planes, and automobiles' subjects overlaid on the human denominators of walking and biking. The primary emphasis of the presenter, Mark Fenton from Massachusetts, was the health benefits derived from these human-powered means of getting around. Making our neighborhoods walkable and bikeable was the thrust of the whole meeting.

Who could be against such a concept? Well apparently a lot of people. There was a kind of a guerrilla movement quality to much of the discussion. I do know from personal experience that even getting a crosswalk in the Nob Hill area is impossible...not difficult, IMPOSSIBLE. After all, cars have right too.

This kind of auto/pedestrian dichotomy is exactly the kind of thinking that goes on in ABQ's department of traffic engineering. No crosswalks. They told me that according to research crosswalks were more dangerous than running across the street. They hope that the bump-outs currently under construction will make the dash even easier.

But wait a minute...I thought engineers were problem-solvers. So said Mark Fenton at the meeting. He started talking about Tucson's Speedway Blvd. MaryAnn and I are familiar with that particular thoroughfare: six lanes of fast-moving traffic that serves as the main east-west surface street for most of Tucson. One peculiar feature of that aptly named arterial is that it has signaled crosswalks!

Fenton explained that the traffic engineers timed them to be in sequence with the rest of the traffic lights. What a concept! And then the pedestrians have to stop on the median and push another button and wait a few seconds to cross the other half of the street...because that signal is sequenced with the lights for traffic flowing in the other direction. Engineers as problem-solvers.....hmmm.

I continue to be impressed with City Councilor (and Council President) Debbie O'Malley. Smart, unpretentious, and dedicated to actually using government to make life better for all of us, she is on my list of people I'd like to see as Mayor someday.

Scott Hale came up and introduced himself. What a treat! Scott comments on many of my Duke City Fix posts and I was so happy to meet him in person. I was especially appreciative of his sharing in one of his comments of a somewhat embarrassing but extremely instructive experience in getting disoriented even in familiar areas.

The last highlight of the evening had to be the snow coming down. What a wonderful way to go home...

Might the School Board Election Be About Charter Schools? (Published in the DCF)

It would be helpful if all the Board candidates would have something to say about some kind of limit on the number of charter schools. Would 50 be enough for Albuquerque? 100? 200? How about even a moratorium? Just how many schools are the citizens of the Duke City willing to build? Read the whole story on the Duke City Fix.

Johnny_Mango's Sunday Wallpaper: Monument Valley

Bob Martin sent me this beautiful shot of Monument Valley. If you haven't spent some time exploring the Four Corners area, you should do it this spring. There is nothing on earth like it. And like everything else in this wonderful part of the country, half of the story is in the sky.

The Sunday Poem: Andrea Hollander Budy...For Weeks After the Funeral

American Life in Poetry: Column 096
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Grief can endure a long, long time. A deep loss is very reluctant to let us set it aside, to push it into a corner of memory. Here the Arkansas poet, Andrea Hollander Budy, gives us a look at one family's adjustment to a death.


For Weeks After the Funeral

The house felt like the opera,
the audience in their seats, hushed, ready,
but the cast not yet arrived.

And if I said anything
to try to appease the anxious air, my words
would hang alone like the single chandelier

waiting to dim the auditorium, but still
too huge, too prominent, too bright, its light
announcing only itself, bringing more

emptiness into the emptiness.

Copyright © 2006 by Andrea Hollander Budy. First published in "Five Points" and included in her book, "Woman in the Painting." Reprinted by permission of the author and Autumn House Press. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

Ken Saville and the Beautiful Lindsey Arndt

THE PIT--Right after halftime Ken came over to our seats at the top of the chairback section. "Grab your camera and follow me!" he yelled.

I followed him through the lingering crowds, past the Lobo store, past the food counters, and into an alcove near the women's restrooms. He ran up to a tall woman who was having a conversation with a young girl. Ken threw one arm around the woman's waist and looked back at me beaming.

Lindsey Arndt Day put her arm around Ken instantly. It took a second or two for my small digital camera to focus and flash, but I got the picture. Ken Saville and one of his beautiful heroes, Lindsey Arndt. Lindsey was a member of the 2001 Lady Lobos that reached the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA Women's Championships.

After graduating from UNM, Lindsey did her student teaching at Navajo Elementary School in Albuquerque's south valley. Ken works there as a permanent substitute teacher. Lindsay's student teaching consisted of being a P.E. coach. The regular coach was out for most of the semester and it fell to The Artist Ken Saville to show Lindsey the ropes so to speak.

"I taught her everything she knows," says Ken. Lindsey Arndt got married, and is now coaching at Sandia Prep.

Ditch Digger

SOUTH BOSQUE BIKE TRAIL--There is an unbelievable amount of mud and dirt in the diversion channel. It is about 5 feet deep in places. This was cleaned out last spring, but the rainy summer and wet winter have left tons and tons of dirt in the bottom of the channel.

When they cleaned all this out last spring, they hauled it up to the corner of Rio Bravo and 2nd St. where it is currently stockpiled awaiting use as fill for some project. This winter it looks like a lot of the pile has ended up back down in the ditch...I can only assume they will get dump trucks down here to haul the dirt back up to Rio Bravo and 2nd.

It would make a nice poetic complete circle, but I don't really believe that is where the dirt came from...although I have no doubt that it is where it will end up. Instead I guess Albuquerque is losing ground ever so slowly to the ravages of the elements. It seems even here in the middle of the high desert we have to fight nature just to keep water from washing it all away.

Portrait of the Artist Going Door to Door (DCF)

NOB HILL--Sam Pillsbury and I set off to find Sam some wall space in that most ethereal of aesthetic meccas, Santa Fe. Read the whole story on the Duke City Fix.

Shoot Out at the Grocery Cart Corral

COAL & YALE SE--Bob Evans and I were coming back from our Monday bosque bike ride when we came upon police cars blocking Coal Ave. at Yale. This was part of the Jay Ulibarri stand-off. Ulibarri, firing a "hail of bullets" at a police car, escaped from the Smith's parking lot and ended up in an apartment building on Harvard where he kicked in the door and made a hostage of the man who was living there.

Thank God no one was killed. No one was even hurt. Officers tazed Ulibarri instead of shooting him. This is the sort of response that should be praised! Good work APD! We are all so glad you were able to handle this difficult situation without causing serious injury or death to anybody.

It would be great if more details of the arrest became available. I am sure many of us would love to hear how APD was able to bring this to a successful conclusion.

"Spare Change?" Came the Voice Behind Us

"Spare change?" came the voice behind us.
"John! Haven't seen you in a long time!" John looked good: clean clothes, clean shaven. He was wearing gloves. I wondered if his hands were washed...something that is pretty rare in his life. Sometimes his hands are so black his palms look burnt.

There are countless stories about John, his life revealed in short tidbits picked up almost at random on Central Ave. He attended Pius X High School. His mother was apparently murdered in front of him during childhood. His life seems to be intertwined with street drugs, but I've never seen him drunk. He loves my girlfriend MaryAnn.

"I've been in jail," he said matter of factly. "I was in there for five weeks."
"What for?"
"They caught me sleeping on somebody's porch."
"Five weeks for sleeping on a porch?"
"I hate that place. It's so crowded. They let me out downtown. The jail is way out by Grants."

The author David Stuart told me he once took John and his buddy Morris out to eat in a restaurant. John was clean and sober at the time. "He was surprisingly articulate," said David.

"Well you sure look good," I told him. He always looked good after being in jail for a while.

"Got any change?"
"Not tonight."
"God bless you."
"You too, John. God bless you."

Another Nob Hill Business Bites the Dust: Hey Jhonny Home

NOB HILL--Graze doesn't seem to be the only neighborhood business closing its doors in Nob Hill. Hey Jhonny Home has been running what seems to be a "going out of business" sale all week. I'll go down there and talk to them this week.

I can only guess they don't want to say "going out of business" because they intend to keep their original store on Central Ave. open.

Johnny_Mango's Sunday Wallpaper: Bald Eagle Perched in a Cottonwood

NORTH BOSQUE BIKE TRAIL--Bob Evans and I saw this eagle just off the trail on a cold and cloudy morning.

The Sunday Poem: John Haines

American Life in Poetry: Column 095

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Literature, and in this instance, poetry, holds a mirror to life; thus the great themes of life become the great themes of poems. Here the distinguished American poet, John Haines, addresses—and celebrates through the affirmation of poetry—our preoccupation with aging and mortality.

He has also written some meaty political poems. Following "Young Man" I have reprinted "Kent State, 1970" from the website archipelago. Don't miss it! --J_M


Young Man

I seemed always standing
before a door
to which I had no key,
although I knew it hid behind it
a gift for me.

Until one day I closed
my eyes a moment, stretched
then looked once more.
And not surprised, I did not mind it
when the hinges creaked
and, smiling, Death
held out his hands to me.

Reprinted from "ABZ: A Poetry Magazine," No. 1, 2006, by permission of the author. Copyright © 2006, by John Haines, whose most recent book of poetry is "Of Your Passage, O Summer," Limberlost Press, 2004. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

Premonitory, her outstretched arms
as she kneels in the spring sunlight,
the cry on her lips that will not
raise the boy lying dead before her.

How often has that image returned,
to fade and reappear, then fade again?
In Rwanda, in Grozny, Oklahoma . . .
Kabul, city of rubble and orphans.

And now the Capitol streets are closing,
an aroused militia at the gates –
the fences scaled by a stray gunman
for an enemy poised ever within.

We are asleep in the blurred ink
of our own newsprint, in the flicker
of our nightline images; in the fraying
voices of distracted candidates.

How long before that prone form rises,
to stand, confused and blinking
on the sunlit campus field; then fall
again in the blood we cannot see . . .

And that long-held cry of hers awakens,
to be heard at last over the stutter
of gunfire – in the grassy echo of a town,
a street, a house no longer there?

Dealing With Being Lost...And Staying Alive (posted on the DCF)

NOB HILL--Now may not be the time you are thinking about going into the mountains...after all, it's 30 below zero in some parts of New Mexico at night. But yesterday's story about Carolyn Dorn makes me think about survival. She lived in the Gila Wilderness in the middle of winter for 5 weeks!

Getting lost in another matter. Today's post on the Duke City Fix tries to give some pointers for not getting lost in the first place. And then what to do if it does happen to you.

Even Daniel Boone wasn't sure of where he was all the time. So don't be too proud to read it.

Johnny_Mango's Sunday Wallpaper: 1916 JN-3...A Life-Size Replica Hanging in Columbus, NM

COLUMBUS, NM--I would say that hardly anybody who is reading this has ever visited the new Pancho Villa State Park Museum. The displays are dominated by a life-size replica of a "Jenny" of the kind used in the punitive expedition that pursued Villa into Mexico. It was also used in WWI. If you have a chance visit the area and the Museum. Eat lunch at The Pink Store in Palomas, Mexico. There are several motels in nearby Deming. For the hardy, campsites are available right at the Pancho Villa State Park.

The Sunday Poem: Three Lines from an Elementary Student, Tatiana Ziglar

American Life in Poetry: Column 093

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Newborns begin life as natural poets, loving the sound of their own gurgles and coos. And, with the encouragement of parents and teachers, children can continue to write and enjoy poetry into their high school years and beyond. A group of elementary students in Detroit, Michigan, wrote poetry on the subject of what seashells might say if they could speak to us. I was especially charmed by Tatiana Ziglar's short poem, which alludes to the way in which poets learn to be attentive to the world. The inhabitants of the Poetry Palace pay attention, and by that earn the stories they receive.


Common Janthina

My shell said she likes the king and queen
of the Poetry Palace because they listen to her.
She tells them all the secrets of the ocean.

Reprinted by permission from "Shimmering Stars," Vol. IV, Spring, 2006, published by the InsideOut Literary Arts Project. Copyright © 2006 by the InsideOut Literary Arts Project. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

An Archbishop, a Judge, & a Senator Walked into a Bar...

As if I wasn't enough of an idiot, I took on an Archbishop, a Chief Judge, and a popular Senator in this morning's post on the Duke City Fix. It's no joke, but I did make it all up.

Johnny_Mango's Sunday Wallpaper: Pelicans on the Salton Sea

Last week MaryAnn and I camped out by the Salton Sea in our quest for warmth. The afternoon temperature was in the mid-70's. The campground was nearly empty. Twilight settled on us slowly. And the pelicans, in a peaceful patrol of the shoreline, glided silently by.Click on picture to enlarge, then right-click, select "desktop background."

The Sunday Poem: Linda Parsons Marion...Home Fires

American Life in Poetry: Column 092
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Home is where the heart. . . Well, surely we all know that old saying. But it's the particulars of a home that make it ours. Here the poet Linda Parsons Marion, who lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, celebrates familiarity, in its detail and its richness.


Home Fire

Whether on the boulevard or gravel backroad,
I do not easily raise my hand to those who toss
up theirs in anonymous hello, merely to say
"I'm passing this way." Once out of shyness, now
reluctance to tip my hand, I admire the shrubbery
instead. I've learned where the lines are drawn
and keep the privet well trimmed. I left one house
with toys on the floor for another with quiet rugs
and a bed where the moon comes in. I've thrown
myself at men in black turtlenecks only to find
that home is best after all. Home where I sit
in the glider, knowing it needs oil, like my own
rusty joints. Where I coax blackberry to dogwood
and winter to harvest, where my table is clothed
in light. Home where I walk out on the thin page
of night, without waving or giving myself away,
and return with my words burning like fire in the grate.

Reprinted from "Home Fires: Poems," Sow's Ear Press, 1997, by permission of the author. Copyright © 1997 by Linda Parsons. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

Yuma Territorial Prison

NOB HILL--We're back...but here's Yuma! The Yuma prison only served as the Territory prison from 1876 to 1909, but its fame lives on. What a hell hole. I hate the suffering. The building itself is pretty interesting however.

It is built of adobe blocks with thick walls and roofs of boards covered with a thick layer of dirt. Inside each cell, a steel cage was constructed. This was then plastered. Six prisoners were kept in each cell.

The adobes were made from a huge hill of caliche located on the property. This stuff is hard as a rock. In fact, the sides of the hill were excavated and rooms carved into the verticle hillsides. Some housed prisoners. Others were offices. At any rate, the same cages built of strap steel were constructed inside the rooms.

The hillside rooms are still standing intact over 200 years from their date of construction. They are in a natural state without stucco or any other form of protection. This says a lot both for the Arizona climate and for the durability of caliche.

The "dark cell" was located within the hillside units. This was solitary confinement. It was totally dark. The room was about 15 feet on a side with a covered stove pipe in the ceiling for air. Inside the room was a strap steel cage about 8 feet on a side and 5 feet tall. The prisoners were put in there naked except for their underwear. As if the prisoner wasn't uncomfortable enough, guards were said to throw snakes, scorpions, etc. down the stove pipe and into the dark cage.

Women were also housed at the prison, though not in big numbers. For one thing, there were so few women in the territory. However, women could be sent to the prison for everything from murder to adultery. I don't believe any men were encarcerated for adulterous behavior!

One woman was sentenced to the Yuma prison along with her sister for running off with a pair of vaudeville jugglers. What a place.

Johnny_Mango's Sunday Wallpaper: Sunset at Rockhound

This is the view from our campsite at Rockhound State Park last Sunday. It has been one week on the road, but I still remember that sunset.
To set as wallpaper, click on image to enlarge then right-click "set as desktop background."

The Sunday Poem: Mark Vinz Drives through Town...Nice

American Life in Poetry: Column 091
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

How many of us, when passing through some small town, have felt that it seemed familiar though we've never been there before. And of course it seems familiar because much of the course of life is pretty much the same wherever we go, right down to the up-and-down fortunes of the football team and the unanswered love letters. Here's a poem by Mark Vinz.

Driving Through

This could be the town you're from,
marked only by what it's near.
The gas station man speaks of weather
and the high school football team
just as you knew he would—
kind to strangers, happy to live here.

Tell yourself it doesn't matter now,
you're only driving through.
Past the sagging, empty porches
locked up tight to travelers' stares,
toward the great dark of the fields,
your headlights startle a flock of
old love letters—still undelivered,
enroute for years.

Reprinted from "Red River Blues," published by College of the Mainland, Texas City, TX, 1977, by permission of the author. Copyright © 1977 by Mark Vinz, whose most recent book is "Long Distance," Midwestern Writers Publishing House, 2005. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

An Interlude of Cardinals

YUMA, AZ--Barb, in a comment below, asks the question, "How is the birding?"
MaryAnn and I are not exactly 'birders', but we do notice what is around us. So far we have seen cactus wrens, Gila woodpeckers, thrashers, hawks, Gambel's quails, and these wonderful cardinals.
We were eating lunch at the Desert Museum near Tucson, when they flew over to check us out. Oh where I grew up in Illinois I used to try to spot them, prowling through the neighborhood with my Little Golden Book of Birds...but in eighteen years I only saw two pairs. Now they were perched right next to me.

It is quite a sight, even if the bird isn't exactly rare.

Postcards Tossed from the Window of a Cruising 4Runner

ROCKHOUND STATE PARK...NEAR DEMING, NM--We had a warm first night (maybe 40 degrees) and took a hike in the morning. This park has heated restrooms with showers. Cost $10. This is a nice place to chill out for a few days. Gorgeous sunsets and views from our campsite.

PANCHO VILLA STATE PARK...COLUMBUS, NM--There is a new Pancho Villa museum right next to the campground. It includes several vehicles and artifacts from Pershing's Punitive Expedition into Mexico. One of the vehicles looked to be a cross between John Wayne's "War Wagon" and a tank. The expedition itself was unsuccessful. They never did find Pancho Villa (for many of the same reasons we haven't been able to find Osama bin Laden). This view of the water tower in Columbus shows the most famous landmark in the town. The smaller tower in front of it, however, is the tower that existed at the time of Villa's raid across the border in 1916.

Villa is both loved and hated around here...depending largely on ones heritage.

LORDSBURG, NM--We didn't spend the night in Lordsburg. We did stop for lunch. If you want to see how freeways create ghost towns, go to downtown Lordsburg.

SAGUARGO NATIONAL PARK...TUCSON, AZ--MaryAnn studied the literature while we relaxed in the Park. We are getting ready to heat up some Chinese food from the previous evening.
Speaking of that, Santa Claus seems to like Mandarin cuisine himself. He uses a fork rather than chopsticks, but getting rice through that beard would seem to be a problem. I guess he is on a pre-flight scouting operation in here in Tucson.

We drove out to Sabino Canyon at dusk. Then we went back to our campground next to the western half of the National Park. We spent two nights here...pretty cold nights.

Last week I would have pitched this tent in the bushes. This week, after MaryAnn read me the brochure, I am pitching it near:

1. a saguaro
2. creosote bush
3. mesquite
4. ironwood tree
5. palo verde

Such is the power of education.