inspired by kleinbl00
I took this on the dirt road that skirts White Sands Missile Range. No one travels this road but the ranchers whose cows eat the grass that grows in slightly radioactive soil. This old missile is about 3 miles I would estimate from the Trinity site of the first atomic blast.
awwww, thanks!!! Here is a photo for you - of an old abandoned military truck outside of White Sands Missile case (actually the truck is inside the base, and I was standing just outside, in the desert sands, to take the photo. Middle of freakin' nowhere!
That's truly awesome. Near the petrified forest? Here's my totally New Mexican front yard in sepia tones.... EPIC!
....aaaand I am logging off to watch a movie with the boys, so I thank you for this awesome roadtrip through the Land of Enchantment and Points West, and leave you with our Christmas Tree - we hauled a tumbleweed out of the acequia and decorated it! Free! Green as hell!
...but did ya notice the homemade Reddit alien ornament?! My son, 15, made that. I'm going to do a Tumbletree EVERY year. It has been a wonderful conversation piece, cheap, and heck, I could keep it up all year as it doesn't need water. I can't believe more folks don't do this. Hopefully, I am starting a new Southwestern trend. You will probably see Tumbleweed merchants fill the Texas streets next November. It's just a matter of time.
Ohhh, no I didn't. My grandparents and I have a Christmas tradition that I fly in or drive in from wherever I may be, we cut a little beat-up spruce tree down from their land in the Texas Hill Country, and slather it in lights. It's a great (free) tradition, memory-making, all that stuff. I don't know why everyone doesn't do something similar!
Oh, now that is a site to lose oneself inside - there are more mysteries in our simple lives and homes than in all of Roswell. Here's my son, contemplating the mysteries of life in the New Mexico sunset from the vantage point of his vintage Trooper.
So I didn't have any super sweet photos until RIGHT NOW, as I was driving home from work: And this one of our roommate's puppy, Chella. We were letting her drink some beer so she was especially happy. This is one of many, the only one that didn't end up blurry.
What a beautiful girl! I love her impish grin! I bet she's so much fun. And your sunset is gorgeous, etheric. Where is that? I love the orange snake across the sky. Here's a pic of the rodeo for you, and one of my doggie, Dante:
It was getting on the 405 north from the 110. So LA. :)
I see your VLA and raise you one more set of disks! Whereabouts did you live? I can't imagine living anywhere else, but I like the solitude and can't live without the chile.
If I grew up in Los Alamos, I wouldn't live here anymore, either. I love Lottaburger! Here's the No Scum Saloon for you!
Ed Grothus concurs. Dunno the No Scum Saloon. I'll bet it's a lot like Uncle Bill's Bar:
Ha ha! I've been to both places! My son, 17, a junior at NMTech (yes, he's a smarty pants) is studying astrophysics, and I fear that he will end up in Los Alamos, a slave to government and intellectual war. He should be a writer. He has the gift. He just loves the chase of the photon too much. Let's reject this insane technology! Here's a dino print at Clayton Lake:
Socorro would have never been the same. I can't believe you deliberately missed out on Miner Days and hiking up the "M" mountain in that nutty race! And the waffle raves!!! The black widow on my screen door will eat your cicada! http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g480/twinkletoesontheriv...
I don't miss black widows. Much prefer the hawk that watches me jog: Friend of mine from high school went to NMT. Majored in explosives. He had the coolest job in the world for a while: He'd drive out into the middle of the desert, hop into an M1A1 Abrams tank with a dozer blade on it, build a berm of dirt, get out of that M1A1 Abrams, into another M1A1 Abrams and then shoot at the berm. He lives in Maryland now. Oddly enough, working for my wife's Uncle.
Oh! What an awesome shot! Beautiful bird, so regal and intelligent. You have to wonder what they think. They must see us as bumbling idiots. And that neighborhood looks just like how I imagine the west coast to look - all saltillo tile and white fake adobe. It really is lovely. Socorro is as UFO notorious as Roswell, you know! They recently (last few months) put up a memorial to Lonnie Zamora, a police officer who had one of the most famous sightings of all time: http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g480/twinkletoesontheriv...
My mother plays in the Roswell Symphony Orchestra. Has since the '80s. "Roswell" to me is "Oil men with too much money" - the UFO thing is secondary. (partially because what I think is the true story is so much better) Hmm... mural. Mural. Mural. Shit! No murals! Instead how bout a doodle from within Titmouse, studio that produces Metalocalypse among others:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!!!! I love it!!!!!!! Roswell is all oil men and big haired Texas ladies slumming in New Mex. I actually went to the UFO Conference a couple of years ago, took my sons. We sat through two lectures and left, bought frozen custard at Caliches, then hit the road home. It was just too sad, and sadly earnest. All of those people held such desperation in their eyes. They've had some kind of real experiences, I don't know what, and they were unnerved by it. It didn't feel right, our being travelers from northeastern New Mex, just there for the story. This is kinda alien: solar cemetery sconces in Lemitar, about 4 miles from Socorro:
I ended up having hundreds - HUNDREDS - of the blasted huge things around my home this past year. It was terrifying. But I didn't exterminate. I let them be.
Oh my gosh, hiss , I have SO MANY southwestern camping stories! I will start a new thread on that today! I love camping in the desert. You do need to watch out for : scorpions, rattlers and other snakes, coyotes, fire ants, tarantulas... but depending on where you stake your tent, you may not become a vulture's dinner.
Desert setting? failed missile? must be Willie E. Coyote.
Cool site! I am too poor to order any posters of my photos, but boy I wish I could! In keeping with the spirit of the thread, here's a photo for you! Me! Hitchhiking in NE NM!!!!
Not sure how you managed to fit a banjo in that suitcase?
No, but I wish I did! Being able to toss a banjo in your suitcase would be way cool! My banjo weighs a ton, it's a Recording King RK-36.