On the road again ...
This dispatch is a day late and many words short because the Silver Bullet (which is running like a champ) and I are back on the road, checking out various corners of the Four Corners Country. Steering the car along the backroads, stopping to take photos, and taking it all in has dug into my writing time. I have much more to say about Trump’s plans for energy, the environment, and public lands, but will hold off on it until he announces more cabinet appointments. The picks so far are real doozies, and I am far less hopeful now that Trump will curb his fascist tendencies.
Anyway, Wendy and I set out two days ago from Durango and made our way to Santa Fe. I’ve done that drive about a billion times (I went to college in Santa Fe and lived there for a couple more years after graduating), but I never get bored of it, especially the section south of Pagosa Springs. The ponderosa glades around Chama give way to piñon and juniper and the pink, beige, and yellow sandstone cliffs around Ghost Ranch. Then you’re cruising through blazing yellow cottonwoods juxtaposed against dark basalt boulders in the Abiquiu River valley.
We stopped at Tierra Wools in Chama (formerly in Los Ojos), where we were captivated by the weavings and the wool, and at Bodes in Abiquiu, where inflation was on full display ($10 potato chips, I kid you not). Weirdly, though, gasoline prices are not all that bad — unleaded is going for less than $3 per gallon at most places, meaning I could fill up the Bullet for around $30.
The recent storm dumped quite a bit of moisture on southwestern Colorado, including a nice base of snow in the high country. But it really walloped New Mexico, and it was odd to encounter more snow, not less, as we got further south and dropped in elevation. Folks in Santa Fe said it was the biggest November snow they’d seen in years. Meanwhile, the post-coronavirus tourism bubble has yet to pop or deflate: The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that lodging and sales taxes remain at near all-time highs.
After dropping Wendy off in Albuquerque for her own road trip eastward, I headed west, exiting I-40 as soon as possible, at Mesita, whence I continued on the old Route 66 through Laguna and Acoma Pueblo land to Grants. Mount Taylor’s snowy slopes were bright against the crisp blue sky as I passed by the ancient lava flows — deep black and chunky, as if they had solidified mere moments ago. At Grants I headed southward past El Malpais and El Morro National Monuments, through Ramah, Zuni, and St. Johns, and then back up to Holbrook. Today I’ll continue south and west toward Glen Canyon Dam.
I’ll be soaking it all in, and taking photos, many of which I’ll share with y’all soon.
Just a note to say how much I love your photographs, Jonathan — you really have a gift for conveying the spirit of this extraordinary region.
Crazy, crazy and possibly heart-breaking times — thanks for staying on the story. Me, I'm barely holding it together, trying to listen to my inner Gandalf, if you substitute "the Ring" with "this wretched election":
“Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
What a road trip! Familiar towns and beloved places. I delight in thinking about you on the road and appreciating beautiful places and look forward to what else you so generously share. I've been having to look for bright spots this last week and Cottonwood and Bigleaf Maple golds are among them. In some ways, I feel like at least 48 percent of the US and a lot of the world just learned of a very serious and possibly terminus diagnosis and now we are in that phase before the disease starts to take its tole where the beloved one looks fine and is mostly okay and I remember it's a time to really be present and with said loved one before the gritty and awful and indignities of decline set in. Thanks for taking the long exhale...