Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

This section is for people to post trip writeups and pictures AFTER the trip is over.

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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Boxer »

Back in June 2010, on my epic journey to see the west coast, I was returning east on a similar route, headed eventually for Pietown,NM for the second time on the same trip. But my experience was just the opposite, weather-wise. It was so hot crossing on I-40 I thought my tires would melt. And I exited at the exact same exit at Holbrook. Do you by chance recall a rest area on the right as you come off the interstate toward Holbrook? I pulled in there for my lunch of crackers and canned tuna. The ice in my cooler was doing that sloshing thing and it was only noon. A young traveling family and I were the only people there. The young mother and a small child were walking a little dog. Their small car was so packed full I don't see how they all fit inside. They offered me some cool strawberries, seeing that I was almost to the point of heatstroke. We were all nestled under the one shade offered by the little shelter at the roadside rest stop. I asked them where they were headed and the fellow said they had to make it to Roswell before the day ended. I only had as far as Pietown, NM to go. I moved on, took a left at Showlow and soon was sleeping under the stars again.

Your narrative is bringing back lots of memories of my own. Thanks for the report.
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by bmwdave52 »

I know what you mean about the school kids checking out you and your RR. That happened to me a number of years ago when I was stuck on US 50 in NV for yet another road repair. I was out in the middle of nowhere when a school bus full of kids came to a stop right next to me. I looked up and all the windows were taken up with young faces gazing at me and my Roadster. I remember doing that when I was a kid.
A very cool moment, never to be forgotten.
I LOVE your pics. AZ and NM are going to be my riding destination for next year. Awesome!
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Dr. Strangelove »

Ha! touching nerves, good! And thanks. Nikon, btw

So, gentle readers, the last time I told you about the ice in my face, and coming to a wet cold coulda been frozen stop at the, you guessed it, Super 8 in Holbrook Arizona. I think I creaked when I walked in, I know I shivered. I can press a mental Play and blurt, Non Smoking Senior Rate and add Damn it's cold, hissing through clenched teeth and open lips. Whatever the price was would be fine, could've been payable in tender of the Russian Czars and it would've been fine. That's how nasty it was out there. It was this bad...the only walking distance eatery was a Pizza Hut and that was fine too.

I download Stella! move her to someplace visible and enter room 115. Smells a bit like smoke, or stale a/c, but not bad enough to move. I wiggle out of the rainsuit, out of the "gear" and put on jeans and a hoodie and run to the Pizza Hut, get my pizza and run back and cocoon for the evening.

The next morning dawns cold and gray, but mostly dry. By the time I am leaving, it is dry, but still gray. Holbrook is the farthest west I will go and now I start Eastward Ho.

Let me tell you "youngsters" what the greatest thing about getting old is. Actually the second greatest thing, the first being you find so many more women attractive than you did when you were younger. So, right up next to that is the Senior Pass for the National Parks. $10 for a lifetime of FREE admissions. Woo damn Hoo !

The Painted Desert and The Petrified Forest are essentially the same park. They are on the same road. They have the same entrance, the same visitors' center, and being somewhat off the beaten path, you have them mostly to yourself. No "bussards," those bus-loads of tourists you see in Bryce. Very few RV's unlike Yellowstone and it is really easy to pass whatever might hinder your progression from one spectacular other worldly vista to the next.

First named by the Spanish explorers who were taken by its bright and saturated colors. they described it as painted.

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A Regal Portrait Of Stella!

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I 40 sort of bisects the Painted Desert from The Petrified forest. You stay on the same road as I mentioned earlier and you're there. Although it was still cold, the clouds were breaking apart and the sun illuminated this alien landscape with clean clear light.

That rain that stung me and gave me pause for my safety had scrubbed the air and birthed pellucid skies, allowing the Earth to glow as if lit from within.

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The first "sight" is Newspaper Rock

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Pretty remarkable and large.

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and a detail shot
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If you go, take the spur to Blue Mesa.

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And to those who read The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Casteneda back in the day, would you trust this guy to not report you if you did take a souvenir? This is truly their country. They allow you to visit.
("For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel, looking, looking, breathlessly." -- Don Juan)
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Dr. Strangelove »

I apologize for this taking long to post but part of the reason is this new modem I was talked into by reps at ATT. We now have the new Motorola NVG 510 UVerse modem and it and it's associated service for the past month has been TERRIBLE.
DO NOT "upgrade" to this from your dsl. It is going in and out now, I have had techs at my house 4 times, I have been on tech support almost daily with the 20-30 min wait times and then get NO WHERE.

I cannot advise you strongly enough to not do what I did. Right now I am waiting for the lights to be all green and then I try to slip this post in

still waiting
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Sunbeemer »

What a journey! So glad you and your new modem didn't freeze up! The scenery is awesome (per the true definition of that overused adjective) and your photos do it justice.

Thanks for all the time and trouble it took to post this for us to enjoy. =D> =D> =D> =D> =D>

What is that item attached to the top of your top box...is it "S.P.O.T."?
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Dr. Strangelove »

Thanks, Rich, and yes it's a SPOT device--first generation.
SPOT allowed me to do that map in the first entry
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Sunbeemer »

Nice! And comforting!
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Dr. Strangelove »

Touring The Painted Desert and The Petrified Forest the way I did took probably about 4 hours and I gained an hour going back into New Mexico, and I am sure, no wait. I must have lost an hour, or maybe Az has their own time zone, I think that's it, Anyway, I was leaving The Petrified Forest early afternoon and planned on getting to Silver City, NM that evening, a favorite of mine, cool little town. I took 180/191 then 180 the whole way there. A very nice stretch of roads. The finish on the road is a little better in AZ than NM, but it is fine and varied in its terrain, from desert, to alpine, to rolling foothills, again, a very nice way to get from A to B on two wheels.

The part of 191 I was on was not THE 191 that southwestern riders know very well. That 191, called The Coronado Trail I think, was south of where I was and it is really something. It is VERY much like Deals Gap, but well over a hundred, actually 135 miles from Springerville to, and I am not making this up, Three Way, Arizona ( "Menage a trois, Arizone" to the early French fur trappers). It ends in these HUMONGOUS copper mines that no photo and justifiably capture.

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But I didn't go that way this time--did it last fall though.

So, I am on 180 going down the western edge, more or less, of New Mexico and get to Silver City, formerly a mining town, but now it seems to mostly a college town, home of The Western New Mexico University Mustangs

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From left Missy (Zeta), Pepper (Pi Phi), Carmen (Delta Gamma), Kirsten (Chi O), Heather (Delta Zeta), CoCo (Omega Mu Gamma), and Harley (Lambda Omicron Lambda)
Let's Go, Mustangs! Woo Hoo !!! YAY!!!! Number One!!! YAY!!! MUSTANGS!

You see students everywhere downtown and they look like typical college students. And you see their profs downtown, or what appears to be college prof material. But, This all adds to the appeal of this neat little town in south central New Mexico.

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Dinner at Jalisco's, always a treat

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and then a post-prandial walk around town

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And back to the motel before the ride tomorrow am (Comfort Inn this time, livin large)>
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by fpgirard »

Seriously, this is fabulous content..... the pictures and the prose.

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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Sunbeemer »

"HARLEY" (LOL). Really? For a girl? :-k
Well I guess that explains the bullet hole in the fence! :lol:
It's just that kind of town... LOL
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Boxer »

You must have 'enjoyed' Jalisco's. I see they didn't have to "keel juu". :lol:
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Dr. Strangelove »

I DID enjoy Jalisco's. Didn't keel me then, didn't keel me later.

But upon leaving, maybe it was the fabled "curse of Jalisco or Antonio's Lament," but I get on Stella!, dark now, on her sidestand. She is parked Harley-Style, backed in facing outward, for an easy exit.

Cold now, so I decide I will start her and then put on my gloves. "When you think you weaken the team."

Two things conspired against me at this nexus of time and space, outside Jalisco's "we'll keel juu."
1- My gloves covered the neutral "idiot" light, and unfortunately I was in full idiot mode.
2- My sidestand switch was "acting up" sometimes, but not enough to ever remember that it was, until it did it again

The short story, after the above forward which could have been written by Dominick Dunne.
Stella! was actually in first gear, doh, because being parked Harley-Style required it as the street fell away toward the curb. I turn on the ignition,. She boots. I press the starter button.
She lurches forward, still on the sidestand, and in the dark, before she, and I stumble downward to the pavement outside of Jalisco's.
With green chili breath, expletive after expletive is muttered and Oh, boy, I get to pick her up for the second, and last, time this trip.
Three old guys across the street, my age, I hoped they saw me and would help. Yeah, I can do it by myself, but help is always welcomed. Good news, bad news: They didn't help, and they didn't see my pas de fou.

Right side down after the fall, I am sure to lift her with the sidestand engaged, as the lurch raised it. Fortified by the hearty Jalisco fare, I lift her with one heave, and right her.
We make it back to the Comfort Inn without further incident.

The next morning It's cold again, freezing, iirc, and we head, east and north on a planned day ride to the Gila Cliff Dwellings north of town. To do that, on "pavement" you take 15 north and to complete the loop 35 back.

15 is a very twisty road, very narrow in places, unmarked much of the way, and one of those "mystical" roads you happen on from time to time.
On the way back you pass the Santa Rosa Mine.

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It is the kind of road, on which you just can't stop unfortunately, but as I was riding along, I caught a guy entering the road from the left, from the woods in a red plaid shirt with brown corduroys, I turn..and he is not there. Hmm

I ride a little farther, a guy is entering the road from the left, from the woods, all dressed in white, like Paul McCartney on the Abbey Road Album (their best effort, I think). I turn and he is gone.
Ok, now I am a little weirded and I start thinking of dead relatives and then I see the sign on the road informing me this is "The Trail of Mountain Spirits," that would explain it, but the feelings pass.

http://www.oldwestcountry.com/tmpl1.php?CID=8YQTA

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The road becomes single lane blacktop before it opens back to two lanes with a center line

another sloppy video

http://vimeo.com/33485651

I get to the visitors' center, and visit, but it appears the road ends here and to see the cliff dwellings requires a hike. I am not a good hiker. I am able to put one foot in front of the other, but walking in motorcycle stuff on a trail with a heavy camera just does not appeal enough, at least right now. So, I start the meander back on 15 then left on 35.
NM35 is finished a lot finer than NM15. 35 is civilized fun while 15 is raw. on 35 if you went off the side, someone would find you, while on 15 you would wind up a fleeting wraith in someone's peripheral vision. But this is a VERY nice loop and takes the better part of a day.

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The Gila River near the visitors' center

I get back to the opulent comfort of the Comfort Inn, stopping at O'Reilley's for an H4 headlight bulb. The clerk was surprised how much one of those is. I am not. You are not. Ride enough and your high beam will go out and you have the pleasure of the "simple" job to replace it. Why does it confuse me every time? When it emerges it appears so very straightforward, but the return trip is always an adventure, a "journey." Then you have to get the rim back on, and if you do it quickly the first time, you are lucky, because on Stella! at least you have to get the retaining tab just right or she will spurn your attempt to make it fit.

The last time I replaced the bulb was here at Gooseneck Park near Mexican Hat Utah.

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Not Mars

I fix Stella!'s eye and for tomorrow AM I am good to go and get an early start, in the cold New Mexico sun

First stop an almost ghost town, no, I am jumping ahead.

I will wind up in Socorro this evening, hoping at the Capital Bar on the Plaza, but many miles until I sleep. Look at the new Mexico may and you can see NM 152 snaking it's way from Santa Clara to I 25, and snake it does.

Over hill and dale, you have this winding mountainous roller coasting twisting gem to yourself. Don't expect gas...there ain't none. I found this out the hard way, looking for it. When I finally filled she took 5.1 gallons and after 226 (232??) miles iirc. I still had my spare quart, but that would be 10 miles at best. The girl did not let me down, though there was a lot of foreplay in the shifting and throttle controls along the way to refueling.
She responded. Oh Daddy, yes!

Passed through that aforementioned semi ghost town, Hillsboro. Cute, Quaint, Not Dead Yet, No Gas.

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catching up

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along 152

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At the fuel stop I fill the thirsty girl and hit I 25 northbound, past Truth or Consequences, and exiting at NM52 and on to another ghost town, Chloride, named after the anion in the silver salt when there was silver in them thar hills.

In its heyday,in the 1880s, Chloride boasted 100 homes, 1,000-2,000-3000 people, eight saloons, brothels, three general stores, restaurants, butcher shops, a candy store, a lawyer's office, a doctor, boarding houses, an assay office, a stage line, a Chinese laundry, a hanging tree, a hotel and no churches. How about that.

Word is that many of the finer ladies of the town began to receive letters of, let's say, an off-color, a salacious, a lascivious, an obscene nature. Though I was told by Donna, the proprietrix of the Pioneer General Store
( http://www.pioneerstoremuseum.com/Pione ... useum.html ), how it was determined, I forget now how it was discovered, that the new doctor in town was the perpetrator of the mailings. He was hung in effigy from the hanging tree.
Damn, I thought I had a picture of the hanging tree, but I guess I don't.

It's on this site though
http://www.pioneerstoremuseum.com/index.html

The new doc left town the next morning, the letters with their embarrassing details stopped.

This is Donna
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more later
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Boxer »

"Oh Daddy! Yes!" ??!! :shock:

I'm loving the pics and the story. Thanks Doc.
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by GypsyRR »

Great report still and great photos.

How many miles could you go with the spare fuel in those canisters on the back of your side cases?
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Dr. Strangelove »

The one with the black stripe-electrical tape- is oil. The other one is gas. Each holds 33 oz, so that is 33/128 of a gallon, a little over a quart. In optimistic circumstances or 50 miles per gallon that = a little over 13 miles. Not that far but could be critical, and it is a comfort to know it is back there. Stella! is a big girl.
Actually the oil one has seen far more service. My experience is that I have had to buy a quart of oil somewhere on the road, use about a little of it, wrap it carefully in a plastic bag, and then have to clean it up when it inevitably leaks somewhere. That is my 100% experience. With the present method, no issues at all.
I think the bottles are made by MSR, called MSR Fuel Bottles. I hold them in place with Blackburn water bottle cages for bicycles. These are nice because Blackburn makes nice stuff for bicycles, finished nicely, but also since aluminum they can be bent to accommodate the MSR bottles which fit snugly.
To reinforce the hold I use an RV sewer line clamp bought at pep boys. It fits well, is cheap. and it has a thumb screw so I don't need a screwdriver to open to remove. My thinking is that, if I have run out of gas, it would mean middle of nowhere, and one of the last things I would want to do is unpack to find a screwdriver.

and thanks
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by sweatmark »

My experience is that I have had to buy a quart of oil somewhere on the road, use about a little of it, wrap it carefully in a plastic bag, and then have to clean it up when it inevitably leaks somewhere. That is my 100% experience.
100% my experience also. So familiar I laughed out loud.

Great pics, doc.
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Dr. Strangelove »

Chloride was down the road a piece from Winston, another if not ghost, moribund town. There is nowhere the attraction in Winston that there is is Chloride.
( total aside here: There was another Ghost Town I passed through, but did not stop, Duran. If you go that way, you need to stop and take some pix. I didn't because it was very cold and late in the afternoon and I had to make tracks, but it deserves mention. It is NOT near Chloride)

I talked to Donna a good whlle. She and her husband had put the general store back together and harvested all that stuff, cleaned it and mounted it. Her husband wasn't there, and I didn't ask if he is still among us. I did observe to her that it must be a real labor of love to do what they did, and keep it going and she agreed. A nice lady. There was a couple in there visiting from Massachusetts. It's kind of neat how you get into discussions in these out of the way places about the most random things. The discussion we had was about the proper syntax of the word y'all. I probably used the word. Now you would think that a Massachusetts' Yankee would be horrified at the word itself, much less it's so-called "proper" usage.

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But, au contraire, they were totally on board with the word, having lived in the south during some part of their lives, long enough to know that it is the plural of you and has modified forms that are also valid like "Y'all's" (the possessive form), "y'alls-selves" (the reflexive), but never ever used as a singular 2nd person personal pronoun. Yep. That was the conversation this New Orleans boy, the couple from Massachusetts and Donna had in the Pioneer General Store in Chloride, New Mexico on this afternoon.

Donna told me about some other sights of the town and after I walked next door to a former dance hall/saloon, probable brothel, but no church, I walked around.

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So, I am walking in the cemetery, beautiful site at the top of a gnarly rocky road, and looking at the inscriptions, and I come across one that I thought looked familiar, maybe I heard his name somewhere, maybe you did too. I soon knew I didn't know him and thinking a little longer about it I realized that...

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Frank Tucker...Old Pal...know him? I thought not... You don't know dingle.

Time marches on, for me at least though maybe not so much for Chloride, and it's time for my two wheels to be wandering, so I rustle up Stella!, coax her to a start, and rolling out of Chloride I pass the hanging tree wondering where that doc from long ago wound up after stirring up all sorts of hormones in Chloride. And I'd bet there was someone who maybe missed getting those letters, you think?

On 52 headed back east to the next stop

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a not as sloppy video

http://vimeo.com/33633840
_________

Next stop one of the goals of the trip.

I continue eastward on 52 to I 25 and turn north. I soon get off of the slab and follow old hwy 85 that is now known as NM 1. It parallels I 25 and I believe is the old Camino Real, dating back to the Spaniards in the 1500s and earlier than that as a Native American trail. The history here is really something and you can feel it and hear it and taste it, it's ancient.

I was surprised by NM1. Most often these roads that parallel the interstates are little more than frontage roads, but not this one. It had character, and it only had me. Some turns, but a fair amount of up and down lent much interest, that, and the fact that it was usually far enough away from the slab that I couldn't see it or feel its presence. It was really a backroads feel and very nice.

It was late afternoon and the sun was golden and slanting in from my left giving a very contrasty orange yellow glow to my destination, the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge.
Between Halloween and Valentine's Day many many many tens of thousands of migrating, mostly water, birds either stop there or rest there for the winter. It is quite a show and a favorite of birders--I am not one, not that there's anything wrong with that--and photographers--and there are some VERY serious photogs there with VERY serious glass.

It is a national park and my senior pass again comes in handy. The senior on the motorcycle scores again!

I had planned on getting there before dawn to see the stars of the show, the Sandhill Cranes, alight by the thousands. Two things prevented me from doing this.
1- "Before dawn" came about way too early, hell, it happens before dawn and I told myself as my alarm was trying its best, that after all, I am on vacation, and it's dark, and it's cold, and I am on that most dangerous of vehicles, a motorcycle, and so what if I miss a few, I'll just get there a little later, and I was warned about the mosquito issue. I get to do before dawn every day and it has little appeal, no matter what
and
2- It was still a little early for the Sandhill Cranes and their numbers were not in the 50-60 thousand range yet.

But I get a little ahead of myself. I still got to do the Bosque del Apache at two very nice times, late afternoon, when they were coming back from feeding in the surrounding field, and in the early morning light.
The morning shots are not as golden as the afternoon ones, you can probably tell the difference. It was a remarkable place and the birds were very cool. The Sandhills made a clacking noise with their beaks and sort of honked, not like a Canada Goose--they were there also--but sounding more refined, if that could be a valid description.

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A Sandhill Crane
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and off toward the west on this Sunday Morning, that most New Mexican of Dylan's songs coming through the ear buds...

Hot chili peppers in the blistering sun
Dust on my face and my cape,
Me and Magdalena on the run
I think this time we shall escape.

Sold my guitar to the baker's son
For a few crumbs and a place to hide,
But I can get another one
And I'll play for Magdalena as we ride.


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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by GypsyRR »

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Awesome photo! I have wanted to go to that national wildlife refuge for a long time. I was reminded after reading about the Bosque del Apache refuge that there is a wintering ground for Whooping Cranes not far from me. I think I will try to go there after Christmas.

I love the Notis! in the window at Chloride too!

You put together a great trip. I hope your SPOT tracks link stays online for a long time because I'd like to copy those tracks one day. Well, I'd probably skip staying in a haunted hotel though.
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Sunbeemer »

Wow! Nice ride beautifully documented. Thanks again for sharing it with us. Your picures of the Painted Desert look like they were taken on Mars. Extreme aridity!

The Sandhill Crane pictures were really interesting. Glad you got to see them while you had good light, which would not have happened before dawn anyway, so I think that was a good decision that I could easily have justified in my own mind :lol:
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Re: Travels with Stella!: Occupy New Mexico & a little Az.

Post by Dr. Strangelove »

Thanks, Rich. There's more coming, but these holidays ahve been really busy. Hope to attack it later today
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