Lights at dawn

Here you see what I saw mere moments after the alarm clock roused me from a deep and satisfying sleep:  the lights of Albuquerque in front of the Sandis Mountains on a Saturday morning.  This is likely to be the last photograph of the trip, since we're heading for home in earnest today.  Ending on a high note!

Ancient faces

We left Flagstaff this morning just as the morning rush was ending and made good time on I-40. Truck traffic going east has been heavy so far. The trucks were sort of obnoxious at times, a couple of drivers running side-by-side, their speed dropping slowly but steadily over the miles, trapping traffic behind them. There was nothing to do about it, but try not to be irritated (yeah, right) and try even harder not to make any mistakes as the situation grew dicier.

For most part, though, it was a pretty day. I must say, too, that the train traffic more than made up for odious truckers. Since catching myself actually counting the cars of mile-and-a-half long trains and making myself stop it on the trip out, I contented myself with simply counting the trains themselves. Today's total? A whopping 16! Each of them very long with multiple engines at each end.

We arrived in Albuquerque late enough to check in to our hotel immediately. We have a room with a view of the Sandia Mountains. So very lovely.  The hotel is also close to the Petroglyph National Monument, our reason for the stop in Albuquerque, although a couple days earlier than planned. 

It was too late in the day to go to the visitor center and also to have time to take in any of the three major petroglyph sites, so we opted to walk in Rinconada Canyon, a 2.5 mile circuit along the base of the West Mesa escarpment of basalt boulders.  The petroglyphs were fascinating, maybe not as old as those at Capital Reef, but closer and easier to see.  And, these petroglyphs illustrate a continuity of culture which I found very interesting, as they were made not only by the ancestors of today's Native Americans, but by Hispanic clergy and sheep herders of the 1600s, as well as explorers moving through during the 1800s, and even modern-day graffiti artists.  This locale has been well-travelled over the centuries.

This is the view from the trail in Rinconada Canyon, looking east toward the parking lot and Albuquerque in the distance.  The petroglyphs are on the escarpment to the left.



Sadly, there are some who cannot leave
well-enough alone, bearing arms without
anything better to do than blow the surface
of the basalt and the art on it to bits.

We had an early -- and delicious -- supper across the street from the hotel at the Pueblo Harvest Cafe, part of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.  The dining space was breath-taking and the service superb.  Tal had blue corn encrusted chicken and it was my last chance for one more Navajo taco.  Oh, yum!

We're planning to head for home in a serious way in the morning.  Today has been a sweet and fulfilling culmination of a season of memorable travels. 

Counting cars

Albuquerque, straddling the Rio Grande, sits in a pass on the western side of the Sandis Mountains. As we passed through there yesterday and with the city shrinking in the rear view mirror, a landscape emerged in front of us that took my breath -- the northern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert and, way off to the south, trains. Long trains, purposeful and solitary. Trains moving in both directions -- east and west. (The intersection with the north/south rail route occurs south of Albuquerque at Belen.) Oh, wow.

Over the course of the 70 miles between Albuquerque and Grants, our stop for the night, those trains became much less distant. To my delight, I-40 crossed the tracks at some point and in Grants itself the rails ran between I-40 and the San Mateo Mountains which hover over the town. Also to my delight, our room was on the backside of the building which afforded us (namely me) a view both of the mesa during the late afternoon and early evening and of the trains -- which were far enough away that they couldn't be heard, actually, but their rumble could be felt distinctly.

I don't know when trains got to be such a big deal. It's been a long time, though. Most recently one of the perks of sitting with the gallery in Ridge Spring during the time I was a member of the art association was the frequency of the freight trains as they passed through town just across Highway 23. If there were no visitors when I heard horn in the distance, I'd step out on the porch of the old school building and wait ... and, yes, count the cars. It didn't dawn on me then, but it did last night -- when the train I counted (it was tough, but I limited myself to counting only that one) had six engines, three on either end, and 138 cars, that it's a pretty quirky, even obsessive -- thing to do.

Although very difficult to see, there are two trains meeting in this photograph, taken through the window of our hotel room. Both sets of engines are to the right of the utility pole.

In fact, Adrian Monk's face flashed through my mind like a pang, when, mindlessly, I started counting a second train travelling in the opposite direction, as though knowing the number of cars were a necessity. "My stars, am I starting to degenerate into a parking meter/light pole touching, sidewalk crack avoiding, closet rearranging, towel stack straightening, obsessing nut?" I wondered.

Starting?

*Don't know about Adrian Monk? Click here for a pretty impressive list of habits, obsessions and phobias.