Day four… a trip into the canyons…

Again, Randy and I set out in the 4Runner. Having gone up into the hills for an overview, we now investigated the roads through the various human operations in the area, ‘living on the planet.’ At length, we also came upon a group of turtles sunning on a rock. I didn’t manage to get a photo.

Human habitation and struggle had certainly been evident in the drive up to 9.5K feet ASL. But I spent more time thinking of this while driving down into and among it. My awareness circled around the calling to live in such remote and challenging environments. The trickle in the streams can quickly become floods. The faces in the sandstone rocks are alternately scolding and laughing, and, the often relentless wind may well tumble the faces down. On the plus side, there is plenty of rock and mud to build with. The adobe church, sitting out apparently in the middle of not much by way of community might testify to faith if it were not itself ramshackle and boarded up.

The towns both Tecolote and Bernal, not to mention Las Vegas, are not that far. But one needs at least a 4Runner to get there.

The big population centers are Santa Fe, and, of course, Albuquerque. Taos is to the north. Between Santa Fe and Albuquerque is the big geological disturbance, the Rio Grande Rift. So I-25 snakes around it, writhing, rising and falling…