i never guessed it would be this bad,  but i knew it would be "bad".  Where i am good at taking pics is in singular quiet places.   Travel photos have never worked out for me.  So in a way this is as i kind of guessed,  but also, worse.

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xing the Rio Grande which is just a small plain river

 

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these places in the distance,  Homes.  Can you imagine living there?

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trees appear when the elevation changes

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that's an arroyo that at times would flow the same as the Rio Grande.  Old Cowboy's dash alligator.

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when i used to pass this way more frequently,  i often looked at this place.  Thinking i could live here.  I could do just fine.   I wonder who did?  What was their Life like?  What did they do in their days?

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the entrance to Abo.  People lived here.  Entire lives.  Start to finish.

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far in the distance a perfect Mesa.  

and so it goes,  Hwy 60.  for some time more and then suddenly we round a curve and are in Mountainair.   The downtown some few blocks of Commerce.  The outlying acres,  homes here and there.  Turn right at the flashing light and go down turn left and then left again near the rodeo fair grounds and to the end of the road and i got to Cindy's home.   I took no more pics.  as in pics of her home, her.  It always feels to me that it is invasive,  that they and their Spaces are so personal such an intimate experience that i just can't.  I didn't ask her so i don't know how she would have felt,  but i just didn't.  I'd planned on stopping here and there on the way home for some pics but we worked the entire time i was there and i left later than i'd planned and i had a longing PULL for the Goats and Tay who i ended up leaving in her crate.  I just wanted to Haul Ass.  and i did.  Once out of Mountainair the speed limit is 55 and then 60 and i drove it at 80.  

so i'll be thinking of this day for a while.  NEXT time, Julie,  i'll take pics of Mountainair which is a very eccentric community,  so very much N. Mex with the Do it how you Do it thing.

And then…last but not least,  early this morning i got an Email fro  HILDA.  You might remember that Hilda identified the Lubber…the giant grasshopper thing?   and also more recently reminded me that it wasn't Lavender growing but Russian Sage?????  Well….Hilda reads along here and when she read i would be in Mountainair,  she emailed saying that she lives so close by in Willard….SO  she met us at the Storage Unit and tho it was so short,  we MET!   and she brought me two books,  one entitiled  "Never Kiss a Goat on the Lips"…..and now there is a Bright Star over Willard New Mexico where i know Hilda…in person…. IN person.

It was a really fine and fine and fine day.

 

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21 responses to “Shame……or……..?”

  1. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    The road trip shots look good to me…and i so know about feeling one is invading with photos…best to wait till another time is wise…and wow how cool you MET another blog friend in person.

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  2. patriciaspangler47@gmail.com Avatar

    these are fine travel pics…capturing the land and the sky and abodes. capturing time and place. and i gasped. route 60? could it be the same? so i googled
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_60
    and yes. the highway of my youth. through the mountains of WV following the river. that point of reference–everything being either up or down the road. and the road was rt. 60. i didn’t ask, then, where it began–Virginia Beach–or where it ends–Los Angeles–but now I know. and there you were at the other end, driving like a banshee –heading home to goats and Tay. another connection–from cyberspace to ground connects. wonder full.

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  3. cynthia Avatar
    cynthia

    oh grace..never shame..look how you transport so many to places so different..and so familiar ,,all at once..evoking thought and memory..
    what struck me ..the very first thing was the memory of an incredible small tapestry i saw once in california somewhere..it was the same view..the same angle ..seemingly the same subject ,matter if not the same view.. the capturing of the road ahead and to the side..and the mirroring of the road already traveled captured in the small side mirror..it was a piece that i have never forgotten..it had ..well for me ..such incredible emotional impact/connection..that it still haunts me..
    so many tangents coming off of a post ..iam glad for your very full day, for the people who filled it and that you are home..oh that is something i truly miss about the west..driving fast over empty spaces..to haul ass when you need..or want to…gentle day grace

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  4. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    I love these photos, a panorama of your road trip, showing how it is here. Looking at your photos grace, the land, sky, mesas, old homestead,is like looking at a story collage of this landscape. And the story continues with meeting Hilda and the book that just begs me to ask, why can’t you kiss a goat on the lips? I’ve never thought of doing that but I sure would like to be able to give Celia a hug,if I could ever catch up to her and if she would ever let me but I guess thinking a hug, where goats are concerned, is best…

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  5. beth Avatar

    Wonderful on the road photos capturing that feel of being in the truck with you. This landscape so alien to me. But I am about 45 minutes north of route 60 so a connecting thread of highway. That makes me happy.

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  6. Hilda Avatar

    Hi Grace and so good to meet you, though such a brief visit. But, it ended up being more for me. I stopped in Mountainair planning to visit the thrift store and or art gallery. They were both closed, but I was surprised to see a sign next door–BAKERY. I went to check it out and couldn’t help but ask the woman who waited on me where her accent was from…Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. I started speaking Portuguese to her then. She’s been in the U.S. five years, and I’ve been here over 50! She’s coming by for coffee Monday (on her way home to Corona which is south of Willard) so I can converse in my rusty native tongue. I meant to tell you I so enjoyed the well written article about life in Madrid, http://www.brooklynrail.org/2012/06/express/earthship-new-mexico
    What a different day today–we are in the midst of snow accumulation!

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  7. grace Avatar

    HILDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh, oh, Hey….so Glad you are HERE
    this morning!!!
    I am just warming up this house so will think about this even
    MORE great addition to the day yesterday and write more later,
    but how just so totally Great that you met someone who speaks
    that Mother Tongue!!!! Just a big big SMILE at that and next
    time, then we will visit the Bakery.
    I woke today at 4 something and it was as if i woke into a
    different world tho a familiar place….very strange and yes,
    magnified because it was RAINING, which i hadn’t imagined after
    the beauty fully Sunny day yesterday, but all grey and socked
    in with Rain….so i was googling Mountainair and then Willard.
    Now i’ll google Corona next. and thinking about what brings
    anyone to where they end up. And now i know that you have
    a Long Story. This is all just the BEST.
    ok…later, to you and Thank you for being here this morning
    to emphasize that yesterday WAS IN FACT Real…
    xoxoxo

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  8. Mo Crow Avatar

    Ah, there is nothing like a road trip in a truck for a good long way! Our friend Eric (who didn’t have a license or own a car 25 years ago) would take a flask of whiskey and sit in the driver’s seat of the broken down truck out the back of the big old inner city share house he was living in, he would turn on the radio and “drive” through the dreaming all night long til the sun came up!

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  9. jude Avatar

    the pictures seem perfect to me. no more, no less.

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  10. julie Avatar

    They are perfect pictures, I love riding shotgun with you, although I would probably put the crocodile in the back. And I’m in for Mountainair.
    And thank you.

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  11. grace Avatar

    Julie…today i imagined you and i doing a photojournal thing in
    Mountainair. Your Old Man can stay here and keep the Goats
    company while we’re gone. I can see us interviewing people.
    Taking photographs of stuff in their yards. Tracing back with
    them why they came to find themselves there.
    Who knows. Maybe it will happen.

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  12. grace Avatar

    yes. In Person. A New Mexican. Yes. And she is content.

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  13. grace Avatar

    cyberspace grounds and connects. It DOES. Amazing, yes?

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  14. grace Avatar

    Very Much, the tangents…they are so FULL of SO MUCH
    and that empty highway
    just so EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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  15. grace Avatar

    i don’t know yet. have just begun the book, we are not at Goats
    yet, so….?????????????????

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  16. grace Avatar

    yup. in 45 minutes then you could be on IT…..on your way HERE!

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  17. grace Avatar

    Bless his heart

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  18. grace Avatar

    they Are, aren’t they

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  19. julie Avatar

    This hits me so deeply, right before I turn off the light.
    Yes. When the time is right.
    You have planted a seed.

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  20. beth Avatar

    Ha. I’ve thought about this more than once!

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  21. grace Avatar

    who can know?…it’s a good dream

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