Threatening To Rain

 I was able to count all seven of the drops.

Once out by the actual wtilderness, there aren't many places to camp. I commandeered the far corner of this trailhead parking lot.

Out the other way

Everyone loves a rainbow

The spritz

Ojito Hogbacks

 

They're just west of the anticline and the White Ridge Bike Trails trailhead.

Ojito - Irish Folk Music

We have an unlimited data plan. There's signal so I get out the headphones and indulge.

Devane's Pub, Clonmel, Co, Tipperary : Tony MacMahon (accordion) and Steve Cooney (guitar) perform O'Neill's March & Tralee Gaol. 2003

Noel Hill, Tony MacMahon perform The Concertina Reel / Come West Along the Road / The New Mown Meadow in December 1988.

The Playlist

We leave tomorrow for Salida and Denver.

Ojito

It was June 29th we left Ojito and dropped Phoebe off at By the Book. The wilderness and public lands cover a good-sized plotz in the neighborhood of Cabezon Peak, but this part isn't as well-known. The access road isn't easily seen nor is there a highway sign pointing to it. During the four days we were here we only had one vehicle go by. Yaaaayyy!!!

Memorializing Shooting

The sign on the highway says: CABEZON.

Sheen Fit for L.A.

There's a smaller one that says White Mesa Bike Trails. It's prime desert, some of which is designated wilderness. But it's Memorial Day weekend and the shootists appear to have a majority.

Sculpture

Four-wheel drive lo enabled me to scale a short, nearly-vertical wall that got me onto a pipeline road. There are bits of chert scattered about as if someone, perhaps hundreds, or thousands, of years ago was busy at something. And there are blooming cacti. Or, rather, there are cactuses that're blooming.

The Rode In

In any case, the shootists are safely (we hope) on the other side of the hill and it'll take an equally stout-hearted vehicle to get up here; not likely. So, we'll settle in and hopefully the water'll last.

TILT!

Ojito Wilderness - New Mexico

The area is popular with shootists

These kinds of pictures look dull and boring, but there are places where the topography varies more. I was drawn to the contrast in color & textures in this small bit of "badland."

But it takes determination (mindfulness!) to ignore the unbelievable devastation from over-grazing (BLM public lands "management").

One the cows missed. Note orange flower.

The area is rife with gypsum (CaSO₄·2H₂O). There's a large mine less than a mile from highway 550. 

The mineral appears throughout the area in various forms.

Renowned for the mountain-bike trails, there are also a couple of nicely-graveled parking lots with pit toilets and bear-resistant garbage cans. The sign, topped with two video cameras, is, you can be sure, the BLM's attempt at beneficent "inclusiveness" aimed at exhibitionists.

The Schvoog lost one of his spats on the Comb Wash road (Utah) several weeks ago. Another fell off when we crossed the railroad tracks enroute to the Holiday Market in The Railyard. They were the plastic, $25.00-a-set ones from Walmart and all were cracked from, I think, being whacked by the boys at the tire shop when getting their rotations. The abandoners provoked elimination of the hangers-on. Now The Schvoog can feel some sense of "conformity" in his (currently fashionable) low-brow look. But I'm thinking maybe a wrap of Tabby Stripes or Leopard spots would add a nice bit of distinction.

Something like....?

Addendum:

(Anderson:) I was carrying a lot of electronics (link to Wiki article) so I had to keep unpacking everything and plugging it in and demonstrating how it all worked, and I guess I did seem a little fishy—a lot of this stuff wakes up displaying LED program readouts that have names like Atom Smasher, and so it took a while to convince them that they weren't some kind of portable espionage system. So I've done quite a few of these sort of impromptu new music concerts for small groups of detectives and customs agents and I'd have to keep setting all this stuff up and they'd listen for a while and they'd say: So uh, what's this? And I'd pull out something like (Bergamot:) this filter, and say, now this is what I like to think of as the voice of authority. And it would take me a while to tell them how I used it for songs that were, you know, about various forms of control, and they would say, now why would you want to talk like that? And I'd look around at the SWAT teams, and the undercover agents, and the dogs, and the radio in the corner, tuned to the Super Bowl coverage of the war. And I'd say, take a wild guess.


Anderson's website.

Landfall track listing with excerpts.

LSD In Ojito

I'd been looking for several years, asking here and there. I even went up to Gerlack last year in advance of the horde to see if I might be able to endure....but decided not.

Suddenly, last time in Albuq, it appeared. The story went that this had been formulated on the original sunshine recipe. It took a couple of months for the right time to come along but today was the day.

I took a quarter dose. Liftoff was as gentle as it gets but as we headed north on the freeway I knew I'd need to get somewhere quieter. Fortunately, Ojito Wilderness is only a little more than an hour away.

Michelle stayed straight but she's naturally stoned so we had a wonderful time ambling about in the desert.


Its tongue hanging out....

In this, our commemorative selfie, Ms. Cook is "overshadowed" by Mr. Nose.

The rest was impossible to capture.

This Is Not My Beautiful Pavement - Ojito Wilderness

The undercarriage of the Honda FIT is smooth; to facilitate air flow and mileage. But it also provides a modicum of protection from the foliage and, I like to think, lessens the damage to the plants.

2008 Honda FIT

The road had a pretty good hump in the middle that the Russian Thistle and other invasives had made full use of.

It's relatively quiet -- though there IS a shooting place across the valley -- but there's not a lot of flyover and it's a pretty area.

Last Night on Anderson SE

It's been musical houses for the last ten days or so and I'm more than ready to be back outside. The convenience of being able to get to appointments has been nice, but the racket of the refrigerator and the on-demand water heater, the yappie dog across the street, etc., etc., have had me eager to be gone for a while. Still, it's been nice to be able to spend time in the evenings with Ms. Cook.

And this afternoon Herr Christensen of Rolling Steel Tent came by. We had an enjoyable visit and dinner at The Frontier. He heads south on the morrow and I head north. I'll camp in and around the Ojito Wilderness until Phoebe is ready, then off to Utah to meet up with she of the Capri (truck camper).