tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55420227723724964502024-03-11T05:14:32.159-04:00Life In A Volkswagen BusThe Good Life in a Small Home on WheelsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.comBlogger92125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-41418478294828311912014-07-14T14:11:00.000-04:002014-07-14T14:25:35.936-04:00The Annual Taos Pueblo Pow-Wow — 29th Edition<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span>t is cool and cloudy, the sun a silver ball rising behind the mountain. At 5:36 coffee, and soon we are on our trek, up and over the mountain headed to Taos, a about an hour away. We climb. On the way we see a hitchhiker and stop. He is from Boston, hiking all the way, to see a friend in Taos. His name is Shenandoah. He is as sunburned as a summer berry<br />
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We drop him off at the Taos library, get coffee at a cofee shop, and look around. It is a beautiful day — a beautiful day for the 29th annual Taos Pueblo Pow-Wow!<br />
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A couple of muffins later we are at the admissions gate. The sky is deep blue above us and the gathering crowd of early arrivers.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSDMjy5Et1FS8LNMH7QlNAtrl5zPgb75BINZVrAwDLeDvv8b3FsMzH3UryiWCZd0-nGuLgCN4qrZwNAJ53cJsKd1e5nEYaUDLyzVdT_i2mNkLr5TXSR06zj4dCuL8sxWKqUiwDMvY8Yys/s1600/045rev.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSDMjy5Et1FS8LNMH7QlNAtrl5zPgb75BINZVrAwDLeDvv8b3FsMzH3UryiWCZd0-nGuLgCN4qrZwNAJ53cJsKd1e5nEYaUDLyzVdT_i2mNkLr5TXSR06zj4dCuL8sxWKqUiwDMvY8Yys/s1600/045rev.JPG" height="320" width="175" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Warrior or </span></i><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Dancer? </span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">G</span>ourd dancing is first, a warm-up to the later serious dance competition that will follow in the afternoon.<br />
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The drums beat a steady rhythm.<br />
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<i>"The drum is the heartbeat of the Earth," </i>the announcer says.<i> "The mountains, streams, forests and trees, all of nature are her Bible." </i><br />
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The drumming rises into the air above the crowd from a half-dozen drum circles, groups of five or six men sitting around one large drum, pounding in unison. Later the drummers will sing, traditional pueblo songs, in high rhythmic voice for the competition.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2tfg7fMRtoTpIDaWP-fW3cmJf2bm5BF-1A4HIuscfOBdfUDmCKWIdj-H89nvxtfgpUqWHceGtQNCtpxADxDKBm3rGDWiH_cBFmw2EMSCScqXuM0k4IJBQmba4O3XHcKUsSqrkYD3mDho/s1600/021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2tfg7fMRtoTpIDaWP-fW3cmJf2bm5BF-1A4HIuscfOBdfUDmCKWIdj-H89nvxtfgpUqWHceGtQNCtpxADxDKBm3rGDWiH_cBFmw2EMSCScqXuM0k4IJBQmba4O3XHcKUsSqrkYD3mDho/s1600/021.JPG" height="156" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Two dancers confer</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ysXTP4ctVET6RJIVqgRFxbnwKMyqqyZX3m9gqBiffIhxe0lU4i7loPb058zrxpM3b99CwL9pFW1pyIb1YBOLWOkCNgi0bp94BxVuwcq8HhUd0aWlsWDgCU_RH5QC6PTKOUpjaN1baiQ/s1600/035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ysXTP4ctVET6RJIVqgRFxbnwKMyqqyZX3m9gqBiffIhxe0lU4i7loPb058zrxpM3b99CwL9pFW1pyIb1YBOLWOkCNgi0bp94BxVuwcq8HhUd0aWlsWDgCU_RH5QC6PTKOUpjaN1baiQ/s1600/035.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The grand entrance begins</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNHczIYPvIZjHXOZy5g8yFGvHrm50n7id7UjN3b9JGK8m0TT_12wrWn4LW3ulCYggxJfrDoAXe9QbDq5jbnH8hFxIfIyFdaqzhlB9jP1CiP1byQsclCBuce2Ugfpcam44hepi-m3QqVCE/s1600/041.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNHczIYPvIZjHXOZy5g8yFGvHrm50n7id7UjN3b9JGK8m0TT_12wrWn4LW3ulCYggxJfrDoAXe9QbDq5jbnH8hFxIfIyFdaqzhlB9jP1CiP1byQsclCBuce2Ugfpcam44hepi-m3QqVCE/s1600/041.JPG" height="320" width="176" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Colorful costumes</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjeIC6EZeLZpCK0WD_OELVjrFjdRyl3j1wnodzj2pvmAcXCQehd3Jb5Bd-TckZVses_zhOMBsyVcU8m3OnGa4jrnKnATQud6zcJDRJL0wlLjI019CNgMPIXhdvRSz771zm5XAGvwnQjdg/s1600/042.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjeIC6EZeLZpCK0WD_OELVjrFjdRyl3j1wnodzj2pvmAcXCQehd3Jb5Bd-TckZVses_zhOMBsyVcU8m3OnGa4jrnKnATQud6zcJDRJL0wlLjI019CNgMPIXhdvRSz771zm5XAGvwnQjdg/s1600/042.JPG" height="320" width="284" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Dancers carry numbers </span></i></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjseVovPGfnyzSaPKNHR_oyq-wO9TKthlowuyB-Ii2gKzr8IDGyRZz9Unf7bw6VAOAeIoQ4tLs_0uUlyufM5xCVpDdMWs1WMHblHljZMIh8bo5CRDX7-uxJZkJ5QtMrSPg_k_tk7aNU3E/s1600/059.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjseVovPGfnyzSaPKNHR_oyq-wO9TKthlowuyB-Ii2gKzr8IDGyRZz9Unf7bw6VAOAeIoQ4tLs_0uUlyufM5xCVpDdMWs1WMHblHljZMIh8bo5CRDX7-uxJZkJ5QtMrSPg_k_tk7aNU3E/s1600/059.JPG" height="178" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Color guard and entrance into pavilion</span></i></td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">T</span>here is a magic to the dancing it seems to be. As the afternoon builds so do massing clouds in what had been a clear blue heaven. The power of dance?</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhfcrCbb6nTfP-UgJXfCl7rfC_zMq8ROz6lZ3bsMNVSvdXVMgoYHSkW14MezUx69W9qwQJGwbW6-wHDWp2XYVATqyfwbZbjaff5DIZr_5YNK2opiCu6dE-d2zfFfhEar3GhICvfEEa_k/s1600/063sharp.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhfcrCbb6nTfP-UgJXfCl7rfC_zMq8ROz6lZ3bsMNVSvdXVMgoYHSkW14MezUx69W9qwQJGwbW6-wHDWp2XYVATqyfwbZbjaff5DIZr_5YNK2opiCu6dE-d2zfFfhEar3GhICvfEEa_k/s1600/063sharp.JPG" height="200" width="140" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Younger dancers ...</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYwn_Dvpyx780VRZRTe-uu73V5wYB5LMajMdGOq6R-LSxwYFSfYdsqzaUEvIIQJv-sIlZCLbZJAN_0DRyzyNCN9GUAoC8t62jX8CjtHenGLzj1xYLXgNHMAqqtUUxMAg_lanWlPvB0rvI/s1600/065d.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYwn_Dvpyx780VRZRTe-uu73V5wYB5LMajMdGOq6R-LSxwYFSfYdsqzaUEvIIQJv-sIlZCLbZJAN_0DRyzyNCN9GUAoC8t62jX8CjtHenGLzj1xYLXgNHMAqqtUUxMAg_lanWlPvB0rvI/s1600/065d.JPG" height="246" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">... embrace and expand on tradition</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQeNDc5WveWra8DD1cRoN0V0QaiGwPogAXZJTMag2WIdQhMagkI29yJSDupbHj3nwaCk7-q3eNDOtIKbq8nHjygqlviFZ15XW27leewhF-bR3fawgldHr4UPV8Kl9nsbzNLTdvSR5B8EI/s1600/069.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQeNDc5WveWra8DD1cRoN0V0QaiGwPogAXZJTMag2WIdQhMagkI29yJSDupbHj3nwaCk7-q3eNDOtIKbq8nHjygqlviFZ15XW27leewhF-bR3fawgldHr4UPV8Kl9nsbzNLTdvSR5B8EI/s1600/069.JPG" height="210" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">With the closing of the dancing, dark clouds amass and soon the rain begins</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">W</span>e drive back the next day. In the rain the mountains glisten. Fir trees are likes Christmas trees with light reflecting water drops as ornaments. The land is timeless and tired. Ranches are struggling. Condominiums on the slopes are out of place. </div>
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I remember the dancers. Old ways, new ways collide in eternal regeneration. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-71244615990899656172014-07-10T15:05:00.000-04:002014-07-10T20:40:32.766-04:00Spectacular Sun Rise — Return of the Pocket Gopher Coyote Creek, NM<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVvnzzYVuGW4J3CbdAH2U5Y8673llplFyeVE1w5m7PEWP-kx0BpjrvPUpAF1w8V6QfYJUnf0Wqqe_MrNei_38Oc0X71YbSSe8nPnYdZ8tOZkJP1faSbIjnv8EM2JHBjCsNsmzuLBerVWY/s1600/002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVvnzzYVuGW4J3CbdAH2U5Y8673llplFyeVE1w5m7PEWP-kx0BpjrvPUpAF1w8V6QfYJUnf0Wqqe_MrNei_38Oc0X71YbSSe8nPnYdZ8tOZkJP1faSbIjnv8EM2JHBjCsNsmzuLBerVWY/s1600/002.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a>Here at the state park the sun has to climb a high hill or small mountain before it sheds its light on our creek below. At first there is only a faint glow in the sky. The clouds floating above the mountain are tinged with pink. But the mountain and the valley are dark. The sun climbs.<br />
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Then just before 7:00 the sun scales the eastern slope and burns an arc-like light at first through the trees. Within minutes it climbs higher shining brighter and brighter like a white hot star.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_iGxRoyDlAWxVJwVBsp4UqOpOZVrTGagiz_cp_5ofNKv41rdjSkYGED9X-qGhG0yGp8UwxHEqJepugFSH0E8weOmBx_MCbBlgYUH0ZZcjbELkz0_BWRfChiriHyw92vq71MTH5qrCVU/s1600/013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD_iGxRoyDlAWxVJwVBsp4UqOpOZVrTGagiz_cp_5ofNKv41rdjSkYGED9X-qGhG0yGp8UwxHEqJepugFSH0E8weOmBx_MCbBlgYUH0ZZcjbELkz0_BWRfChiriHyw92vq71MTH5qrCVU/s1600/013.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY2HYotRgzr_Uaf_kjJNiIquSGIMKo4JIkAJR59wBZw6Ul6p6ll_u3XboOed9aVmXTNxkEDkS-uoH-kPmvdhAu8JM6J0K0QPXSt7GZWUocrys1wsRU-gwlOaoFgcYjrwq_eL2xfjNRzCA/s1600/014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="display: inline !important; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY2HYotRgzr_Uaf_kjJNiIquSGIMKo4JIkAJR59wBZw6Ul6p6ll_u3XboOed9aVmXTNxkEDkS-uoH-kPmvdhAu8JM6J0K0QPXSt7GZWUocrys1wsRU-gwlOaoFgcYjrwq_eL2xfjNRzCA/s1600/014.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihFWDjMxkGwAeS7G72l5cLyb5AOZgmZ7VwwpFdfZYmeUu-xiRgpgadK-Prqjax_bYw0Zxx7I1qSDMzGfyqJ-foGurelxCP2im_glr3vIYDR2jSF7F-1yJxqCY3XIu2yDJZJZHMBzM-rRU/s1600/016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihFWDjMxkGwAeS7G72l5cLyb5AOZgmZ7VwwpFdfZYmeUu-xiRgpgadK-Prqjax_bYw0Zxx7I1qSDMzGfyqJ-foGurelxCP2im_glr3vIYDR2jSF7F-1yJxqCY3XIu2yDJZJZHMBzM-rRU/s1600/016.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwjlIWUx7a-SHn-X9DQaFp6UCbVL0nu5UlrnK-Hha2kBG0ph5DqbLFOFG3ufR0mB6XbMnbQOSxrQkDatu-9kvLXTZYLhmCbO1j4Hb8fyRN5CxtznhDyLMZJRHLAMM-fyvgAEOd1b2vgts/s1600/017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwjlIWUx7a-SHn-X9DQaFp6UCbVL0nu5UlrnK-Hha2kBG0ph5DqbLFOFG3ufR0mB6XbMnbQOSxrQkDatu-9kvLXTZYLhmCbO1j4Hb8fyRN5CxtznhDyLMZJRHLAMM-fyvgAEOd1b2vgts/s1600/017.JPG" height="320" width="480" /></a></div>
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It does so until bright star-like light wakens the camp.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">T</span>he normally shy southwest Pocket Gopher tunnels in the soft ground here throwing up mounds of black earth. The one at my campsite, however, is not so shy. Perhaps other campers before me have fed him.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcfFHrJ7VeMwTXZWZZoNQUx5QU9oUtbZocaOP3OailUMWijfI1u04Xz0byi5tIA4B2yBlt0mOScDTDFMKNiQ2pwosouw4Gl6rj5JvruSrWY20Yo11jSXAIInyFVP8ESeNrMdKShkXW798/s1600/026.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcfFHrJ7VeMwTXZWZZoNQUx5QU9oUtbZocaOP3OailUMWijfI1u04Xz0byi5tIA4B2yBlt0mOScDTDFMKNiQ2pwosouw4Gl6rj5JvruSrWY20Yo11jSXAIInyFVP8ESeNrMdKShkXW798/s1600/026.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Our new friend pops his head out into the sun</i></td></tr>
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At breakfast this morning he broke through the earth and looked around. That was our cue to bring out the walnuts, cashews, basil leaves and a cinnamon cookie or two and approach. He seemed undeterred by our presence.<br />
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Nibblingly, he takes a gift or two from our fingers. If it is small, like a nut, he eats it. If it is larger, a cookie or a leaf, he carries back down into the bowels of his earthen home.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_mIIKp5XZeOsvgGhpJzCFtmrUDfTcM-OWv8MNsqCCfSna6uKPhnbHVel9ML8bxdqdKW3_Kcqsw9StN0b9-uYyKoRupr0eNqwMku8X7Zzc8Ju9eBOTPZ1K0n-UkhSgrKgNiN-kuHHAGOw/s1600/037a-cropped.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_mIIKp5XZeOsvgGhpJzCFtmrUDfTcM-OWv8MNsqCCfSna6uKPhnbHVel9ML8bxdqdKW3_Kcqsw9StN0b9-uYyKoRupr0eNqwMku8X7Zzc8Ju9eBOTPZ1K0n-UkhSgrKgNiN-kuHHAGOw/s1600/037a-cropped.JPG" height="281" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Fearless, he sniffs a gift of basil leaf</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTXUEl-Ls7oB3WUzik__zBi5uIBm4aN5URtGChREzx5dn7DYMzXQ76PzjlLN28_zYWE7xdmewjLmvRTJuT8bOF5f2_2NcY0VO1TwBHn3mIVF7tOA2WWS5VXx2w5bhkKlxOmTMryWrNi3s/s1600/039b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTXUEl-Ls7oB3WUzik__zBi5uIBm4aN5URtGChREzx5dn7DYMzXQ76PzjlLN28_zYWE7xdmewjLmvRTJuT8bOF5f2_2NcY0VO1TwBHn3mIVF7tOA2WWS5VXx2w5bhkKlxOmTMryWrNi3s/s1600/039b.JPG" height="365" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">...and claims it for his own</span></i></td></tr>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-69115765277487614872014-07-08T19:24:00.002-04:002014-07-08T19:25:21.133-04:00Much Catching Up to Do<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I </span>am at a small state park campground, Coyote Creek, in Northern New Mexico. It is cooler here than down south. I am camping with a friend, Jennifer, who has her own van, a red Dodge Caravan.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIQ8FUnXhbAfG66QDhzPPNbBcyQmJP_gtJe-vujXiIpsmMgU_-LfBDsS2DN0N4O4QrqPXRwGq34tsANCg0ZtSgjwx8SLnpcwenEmLRHmO-4IrwcqiU77J_L8svRqNN2oFzJmMKKokXUvk/s1600/June+14+022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIQ8FUnXhbAfG66QDhzPPNbBcyQmJP_gtJe-vujXiIpsmMgU_-LfBDsS2DN0N4O4QrqPXRwGq34tsANCg0ZtSgjwx8SLnpcwenEmLRHmO-4IrwcqiU77J_L8svRqNN2oFzJmMKKokXUvk/s1600/June+14+022.JPG" height="157" width="400" /></a>Leaving Minnesota in late June I made a hurried two-day 1500 mile journey back to Truth or Consequences. Didn't see much, but Kansas was green, Texas gold at sunset. Billowy clouds welcomed me at the New Mexico border. It was hot.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span>n TorC dropped off my friend Jeff at his house, took a few days to gear up and pack, and on June 24 left at dawn to meet Jennifer in Las Vegas, NM -- but not before stopping at Walmart to pick up an hydraulic jack. During the trip to Minnesota the bus developed an unpleasant clunking sound from underneath. I needed to do some looking.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2ZOGoNQPhJBrNRcbpaW3-JDriXJIpR3TgRCtT4g_zyMUvTJ7Yy4XxD3ZIF2olQx0gbOSnVBDRLpBEaVvepISVZlafYGT3k_mHv3E6V-9IG8R5dHYL5B7H3M4ZNABGBQfc73eq2qEuBI/s1600/June+14+029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2ZOGoNQPhJBrNRcbpaW3-JDriXJIpR3TgRCtT4g_zyMUvTJ7Yy4XxD3ZIF2olQx0gbOSnVBDRLpBEaVvepISVZlafYGT3k_mHv3E6V-9IG8R5dHYL5B7H3M4ZNABGBQfc73eq2qEuBI/s1600/June+14+029.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas NM</span></i></td></tr>
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Las Vegas NM is overshadowed by its Nevada cousin and namesake. But it is an interesting town with a bloody wild-west shoot-em-up heritage second to none. The town is still fighting -- against gas and oil and fracking. Last week the county commissioners moved forward with a bill to make exploration and drilling here prohibitively expensive -- until they can get a total ban.<br />
It is a rural way of life. They want to keep it that way.<br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span> met up with my camping buddy and we set up camp at Storrie Lake, a state park just outside Las Vegas, open and rolling with, sadly, blood thirsty mosquitoes.One the last night a humongous storm broke. The bus sounded like it was in a fire-fight. For an hour hail the size of moth balls pelted and soaked the park. From there it was on the way farther north to Coyote Creek.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaSLRtKBP4DxOn2LUKA-0z5KVMeI4Fqv-SJHfyqeYPl4Cc4P8T7SLZP2OIlwWfskBUW03wZym_Yh3Vlq0j0p-7pwQ4yqAIjbi1YF8QJMBZ9qN5MLtHsuBR9V6rqgk-QNnhuMHc1zKGlSI/s1600/June+14+084.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaSLRtKBP4DxOn2LUKA-0z5KVMeI4Fqv-SJHfyqeYPl4Cc4P8T7SLZP2OIlwWfskBUW03wZym_Yh3Vlq0j0p-7pwQ4yqAIjbi1YF8QJMBZ9qN5MLtHsuBR9V6rqgk-QNnhuMHc1zKGlSI/s1600/June+14+084.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Jennifer at Coyote Creek</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">C</span>oyote Creek is a very small campground. It used to be bigger, that is to say it had more camping sites but some were washed out in a flood and have not been reopened. We were lucky to find a small site nestled among trees on a busy Fourth of July weekend.<br />
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The weather pattern here is the same every day. Cool nights give way to cool and clear mornings. The sun rises over a mountain to the east and floods the camp with icy white light. The four or four hours of sun charge my batteries. The billowy dark clouds begin to mass.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCbtviJ9J7pi2Tc8PjTyfpXU2UpWlahXFP6Ck7vM-sfa6IZPQhSZLOafYl0swQUfjdMHC5xa7tK8M-5dHbaWNAH9UnHMovAx9KuwmCKtYkus_oC64UwVq9qpMMkUUcFPaPuT4LywnNzZs/s1600/001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCbtviJ9J7pi2Tc8PjTyfpXU2UpWlahXFP6Ck7vM-sfa6IZPQhSZLOafYl0swQUfjdMHC5xa7tK8M-5dHbaWNAH9UnHMovAx9KuwmCKtYkus_oC64UwVq9qpMMkUUcFPaPuT4LywnNzZs/s1600/001.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Billowy clouds begin to mass</span></i></td></tr>
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In the afternoon it usually rains and the clears just before dusk.<br />
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Fortunately the cool temperatures put little demand on my refrigerator.<br />
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While still a Storrie Lake I jacked up the bus. I found a bad right front wheel bearing. Sometimes I think I carry too many spare parts, but this time I was glad to be able to make the repair.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">O</span>n Friday it is off to Taos for a weekend Taos Pueblo Pow-Wow. That should be fun!<br />
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Early today a truck pulled into the park and stocked the creek with rainbow trout. It is difficult to describe the simple beauty. I'll let one photo of the creek at morning speak.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9tuJcmsXOUbG_dDcqluTPQ5WhJPTcjqBrC7UtQQIhlDCEG1CRBV99eqRW4sQaxqvUrd9TVD_miB_zuNBAyzm3VgBYBJlBgRecQ3ThfCndoQ-5CAk1tIv_CKACxtD-1VTIFzGz_N_O6GE/s1600/010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9tuJcmsXOUbG_dDcqluTPQ5WhJPTcjqBrC7UtQQIhlDCEG1CRBV99eqRW4sQaxqvUrd9TVD_miB_zuNBAyzm3VgBYBJlBgRecQ3ThfCndoQ-5CAk1tIv_CKACxtD-1VTIFzGz_N_O6GE/s1600/010.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHSoeYHBwbJjQS-lL70tnFUVaUGT7tZNDTawRZhShyphenhyphenwIOOVkxdiSkwi8qMlGZ6Cm8owQYMKUUf9ysulICjBzG4TqYmJethAixLOBno66uu1wPbnYZs3t2yl6YCacHTAXbcWqyp3qv6uL8/s1600/016b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHSoeYHBwbJjQS-lL70tnFUVaUGT7tZNDTawRZhShyphenhyphenwIOOVkxdiSkwi8qMlGZ6Cm8owQYMKUUf9ysulICjBzG4TqYmJethAixLOBno66uu1wPbnYZs3t2yl6YCacHTAXbcWqyp3qv6uL8/s1600/016b.JPG" height="204" width="320" /></a></div>
Oh, and this little fellow came out of the earth at lunch to say hello.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-17880860134623186732014-06-10T15:31:00.000-04:002014-06-10T18:25:37.806-04:00Well Here I am in Minnesota<br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">W</span>ell here I am in Minnesota, the state with more than 10,000 lakes and at least 10 billion-trillion mosquitoes. The bus did well pulling two 12-hour stints to go 1700 miles.<br />
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Why am I here? Part of the reason is the photo below. The Minnesota United FC soccer team. Not to see the game. That was played on the road Saturday against Tampa Bay, but to be here for the celebration. You see, that handsome looking dude on the right is my son, Nicholas Rogers, president of Minnesota United, affectionately known as the Loons after Minnesota's state bird. He has been working hard these past two years to make the Loons a success, on the field and at the box office and concession stand.<br />
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By playing Tampa Bay to a 3-3 draw, the Loons finished the spring season on the North American Soccer League with 20 points, one ahead of New York, and took the championship.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Springchampsphoto" src="http://www.mnunitedfc.com/di/library/nasl_minnesota_united/41/37/springchampsphoto_17j09q2tnzy711f9rgva4iu1wt.jpg?t=2035446702&w=480&quality=90" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Minnesota United celebrates after winning the NASL spring championship</i></td></tr>
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But there were other reasons to make the trek &ndash a second son, Daniel, also lives in the Twin Cities. He is inolved with SunEdison, a solar power company, and is trying to put together a $100 million solar project here.<br />
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Excuse me for bragging just a little but here are Daniel and Nicholas, left and right.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8moES22kwJWBymWy9pc1cZUdZqNXzUFDbOIvVF42bG4h2x87d9oamX1TWlhETR2yfW0lm2MDONyvD6M_Dmou0Za2cJESrAgbvOAG-yPdEvejzP9moQr1h-g1ZmQ_K77UI_57GwgNbOy4/s1600/nick+and+dan+in+mn+003a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8moES22kwJWBymWy9pc1cZUdZqNXzUFDbOIvVF42bG4h2x87d9oamX1TWlhETR2yfW0lm2MDONyvD6M_Dmou0Za2cJESrAgbvOAG-yPdEvejzP9moQr1h-g1ZmQ_K77UI_57GwgNbOy4/s1600/nick+and+dan+in+mn+003a.JPG" height="300" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Nicholas</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxfQ0yX9tNEluM8k03prvRKAgX9kp88SJQDtAASN8xfLm3GBb_t53fptmby3qSmqdLB9fo5zrPnuzQRpx_wDsspbAG-GxnNNux9fw0GYGs77w2RRXrdDNfUm4c9pjhNcYk0b9tn2Mwicw/s1600/nick+and+dan+in+mn+002a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxfQ0yX9tNEluM8k03prvRKAgX9kp88SJQDtAASN8xfLm3GBb_t53fptmby3qSmqdLB9fo5zrPnuzQRpx_wDsspbAG-GxnNNux9fw0GYGs77w2RRXrdDNfUm4c9pjhNcYk0b9tn2Mwicw/s1600/nick+and+dan+in+mn+002a.JPG" height="300" width="220" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Daniel</i></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">S</span>eeing my sons was not the only reason for the trek north. I drove with a friend, George "Jeff" Loftus, also from Truth or Consequences, who also has family in Minneapolis -- two brothers and a sister. And a cabin on Lake Mille Lacs, a prize 132,000-acre body of fresh water scarcely 40 deep at the most. It is Minnesota's premier fishing lake, so I am told, and a lake the creates its own weather — storms for above the shallow lake and come racing into shore spawning typhoon-like water tornadoes. But for most of the while, and while we were there, it was peaceful, save for the bugs that come out at night in blankets.<br />
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Two views of Lake Mille Lacs — by day and at sunset.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY98uWbM4JOITOvPkdwwEr3gEB-XM4Th3vr3X8zsPYYtwu7gV96fKHN2czeJxt97Ntpwbdx3qkLhVR9olwjNI3f1SHq1Xd4OHCP6XtiBH4RfHOSZNKr0ZXtLIYn06f6LnP71_ghC1kJ0o/s1600/minnesota+1+019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY98uWbM4JOITOvPkdwwEr3gEB-XM4Th3vr3X8zsPYYtwu7gV96fKHN2czeJxt97Ntpwbdx3qkLhVR9olwjNI3f1SHq1Xd4OHCP6XtiBH4RfHOSZNKr0ZXtLIYn06f6LnP71_ghC1kJ0o/s1600/minnesota+1+019.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
I was told there is a small hotel on told there is a small hotel accessible by boat on the small island visible in the photo.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_tQCb4RADqgn_g4nNyKtrwtqN72GsqNnpC-m5fjH32Wbtr9Hn11rQ_nCKD5Hi00kON1ll2WiaPk12rFu5Yc5mw-IfISGTF3vb-VT7JA-LrZw9MGzUfpvNFIwuef2pdY6TR3WtlkKL_us/s1600/minnesota+1+038.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_tQCb4RADqgn_g4nNyKtrwtqN72GsqNnpC-m5fjH32Wbtr9Hn11rQ_nCKD5Hi00kON1ll2WiaPk12rFu5Yc5mw-IfISGTF3vb-VT7JA-LrZw9MGzUfpvNFIwuef2pdY6TR3WtlkKL_us/s1600/minnesota+1+038.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a><br />
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We spent a delightful day and night at the cabin, grilling burgers and watching the sun set. Jeff stayed behind while I returned to spend time with my sons.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">W</span>hat one becomes aware of when one does a trip like this is how great and vast is the country.<br />
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We left the rolling desert hills of southern New Mexico, scooted through bustling Albuquerque, into the high mountains around Santa Fe and then to Denver, turned right and headed east on I-76 to Omaha. On the way we camped at a small state prk, Lake Jackson, in Colorado, and on the second day, by driving until almost two in the morning, reached camp at Lake Benton in Minnesota.<br />
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Miles roll by outside — towns and cities and farms and vast stretches of almost nothing. The bus engine hums and the little refrigerator purrs in our self-contained travel unit.<br />
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Yet the stars that shine down on all this are timeless and all the same.<br />
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Adios!<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-16742119368585223252014-05-03T17:15:00.000-04:002014-05-03T18:12:21.927-04:00I Love a Parade<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">F</span>rom my vantage post two blocks away from Broadway, I made my way in bright sunlight and took a seat at curbside just before the 10:30 parade started. Every year the tiny town of Truth or Consequences celebrates its heritage as the only city in North America and perhaps in the world to be named after a quiz show.<br />
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In 1950 quiz show host Ralph Edwards challenged cities of North America to change their names to Truth Or Consequences, and he would honor the first to do so by broadcasting his show from the show's new namesake. The little town of Hot Springs, New Mexico, accepted the challenge.<br />
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Good as his word Edwards came here. Not once but every spring for half century. He started the Fiesta celebration, riding a big stallion as Grand Marshall leading the parade and kicking off a weekend of festivities. The tradition endures.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPlo15xMoTL3bsZ6J1rAidcbu_1-ZEUlvcTK4tFomNA-UaT3QB5jOvnqDiwUjquUVW701NHnnm6bPSfB-L3iyxS4B__Zab-K5iGFiVXSteUhsibAkFKT98dDXxbJlXVwvaB3G-NCUuyTo/s1600/014a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPlo15xMoTL3bsZ6J1rAidcbu_1-ZEUlvcTK4tFomNA-UaT3QB5jOvnqDiwUjquUVW701NHnnm6bPSfB-L3iyxS4B__Zab-K5iGFiVXSteUhsibAkFKT98dDXxbJlXVwvaB3G-NCUuyTo/s1600/014a.JPG" height="320" width="204" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #0b5394;">Parade Honor Guard</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span>t is a little bit like a laid back Southwest Mardi Gras parade. Is unclear what is and is not permitted. Seemingly most anything. Fire trucks are in great array. And floats.<br />
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About nine years a group of citizens seized the theme of that year's Fiesta, <i>Space</i>, in honor of Spaceport America built nearby, and donned colanders as helmets with weird things woven into them to guard of against alien mind control.<br />
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The group has thrived and expanded and numbers today almost 40. They march at the parade wearing their headpiece adornments.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlwxgxf_PKE6FwRfu6p_wnYcpULNoSwkmR2gxLkVW937IyleKCfBDzp7aodlTu0e0BpqOT0d_fj9nnjklnY8aEONC_bqcFAG0B134QL5yQlfghL4ZOPsxawWNg6l2ipCG99Ti01w1c0jw/s1600/001a800.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlwxgxf_PKE6FwRfu6p_wnYcpULNoSwkmR2gxLkVW937IyleKCfBDzp7aodlTu0e0BpqOT0d_fj9nnjklnY8aEONC_bqcFAG0B134QL5yQlfghL4ZOPsxawWNg6l2ipCG99Ti01w1c0jw/s1600/001a800.JPG" height="320" width="236" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">A Colander Head in TorC</span></i></td></tr>
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Colander Heads are to Truth or Consequence's Fiesta parade as Cheese Heads are to the Packers.<br />
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This year, after some debate, the chosen theme of the 2104 Fiesta was, hmm, <i>Fiesta</i>.<br />
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Party on, dudes.<br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: x-large;">I</span>t comes at a good time. For some reason, perhaps global climate change, it has been a cold and long and drawn out winter. Oh, sure, there is usually plenty of sun in the sunny Southwest but until yesterday night timely temperatures were staying stubbornly stuck in the low 40s. Today was different. The sun did its job and warmed things up.<br />
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In the Happy Belly Deli on Broadway crowds gathered and breakfasted outdoors. Women wore formal attire and cowboy outfits. Anything goes in TorC and usually does.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_sK0ecw4SypmRClFJTvA9_N0ahKnmgsag0n0qujc2qWmsmL0H6KlM2cl1zmD2c1dgv0KhRoxu6bvLhh3kSpGLLBHgPhSqSKoh9Si8oEX_X7beaLHbJsivMIlgBSUDk9oSyBnLyHxYG9Q/s1600/018a800.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_sK0ecw4SypmRClFJTvA9_N0ahKnmgsag0n0qujc2qWmsmL0H6KlM2cl1zmD2c1dgv0KhRoxu6bvLhh3kSpGLLBHgPhSqSKoh9Si8oEX_X7beaLHbJsivMIlgBSUDk9oSyBnLyHxYG9Q/s1600/018a800.JPG" height="282" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #0b5394;">Miss Fiesta, her court and her honor guard</span></i></td></tr>
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Meanwhile the lazy Rio Grande is making a comeback.<br />
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After several years of lower and lower water levels, it now snakes by south of the city a peaceful haven for waterfowl, fish and fishermen.<br />
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How this came about with so much drought no one seems to know but everyone is quite happy.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>The Shriners' float, colorful as always</i></span><br />
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What has all this to do with busing? Maybe not much. But that will be changing soon. With the warmer weather I plan in a few weeks to begin a leisurely northern journey to Minnesota and spend much of the rest of the summer in state parks, her in New Mexico and elsewhere.<br />
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Busing is more than anything a state of mind. It is parades, rivers, seeing things and meeting people. Camping and saying hello and goodbye to friends and acquaintances met along the way.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizd9Cdup0Zm-Aouml80hqk7u2kw952svt3Zh0imqBmqU0h-q9eWjekA4JwhZ6W6ZZVIZHAS5o_rLPk8tzvT9rq4VYei43qVjC88cTOOfQxs_VXG95xywugQIsBGg_6pWkRC_NVJ85GLIQ/s1600/moon+rise+019a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizd9Cdup0Zm-Aouml80hqk7u2kw952svt3Zh0imqBmqU0h-q9eWjekA4JwhZ6W6ZZVIZHAS5o_rLPk8tzvT9rq4VYei43qVjC88cTOOfQxs_VXG95xywugQIsBGg_6pWkRC_NVJ85GLIQ/s1600/moon+rise+019a.JPG" height="242" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #0b5394;">Moonrise over the Rio Grande</span></i></td></tr>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-34542600318224536162014-04-12T20:49:00.000-04:002014-04-12T21:14:18.284-04:00Time to Start Blogging Again<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-size: x-large;">T</span>his is a post about posting, about intent more than content. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I began this blog almost three years ago it followed on the heels of the death of Bus Companion, and much of it was written in the months that followed. Living in the bus was an experience I had enjoyed and wanted to share. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The last year-and-a-half has seen very little travel. I tried my hand at living a more stationary life in a house back east for a while but was drawn back to the bus. I returned last fall to the Southwest. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet I almost stopped traveling. I rooted myself this past winter in an RV park in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Except for living in a bus my life became more and more every day like that of other lives around me -- house dwellers and RVers alike. There was little reason then to write about so mundane an existence. <i>Life in a Volkswagen Bus</i> wasn't much different than any other life, it seemed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That is changing and will I think continue to change. The world is changing. The U.S. is changing. And if my travels on rolling Michelins are fewer, the travels of my mind are greater.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It seems we are headed if not into a great abyss at least toward a critical change point in history. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mankind in the last one hundred years has created a great and complex system that houses, feeds and clothes 7 billion+ people. Only a small fraction of that population today can sustain itself outside of the system.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If and when it falters as it surely must -- for no system built on growth on a planet with finite resources can indefinitely sustain itself -- all chaos will ensue. Some must be prepared and ready for what will follow.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-size: x-large;">I</span> came across a writer a few days ago puzzled by the failure of so many to think critically about the complex issues facing us. Why, he ponders, at a time when critical thinking is most needed do we barricade ourselves behind closed minds? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He calls such obstinate non-think <i>Arrogant Ignorance -- </i>holding to beliefs and opinions without questioning them and reinforcing our ignorance by repeating the arguments that support our views. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the reasons for arrogant ignorance, he suggests, is our comfort. We defend where we stand when we have achieved a place in the system. We stop thinking. We become like horses wearing blinders so as not to be spooked by what is going on around us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is a price to pay for such near-sightedness. The unexamined life, as Socrates observed, is not worth living. It is not fulfilling. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The dreams of youth are locked away, and we live soon forgotten lives.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We seek comfort. We seek security -- from want, fear, sickness, loneliness and death. Real life offers no security. Only joy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Seeking such security makes cowards of all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Life is and should be its own reward. But one has to wake to enjoy it. And that's where the examined life comes in, waking to the power and beauty, before we fall into our final sleep.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">These blog pages will now be renewed with stories along life's mental as well as as concrete highway. The bus is where I wake up mornings to see the sun rising over Turtleback mountain, to the cooing of hundreds of doves -- palomas -- to the flowing of the Rio Grande, to strange characters, men and women, who come and go in my life carrying their thoughts and dreams and puzzling in wonder.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The examined life only gets richer day by day by day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Welcome to Part 2: <i>Life Beyond the Volkswagen Bus</i>. </span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-12642737511217576452013-11-15T14:24:00.000-05:002013-11-15T14:56:38.426-05:00Bosque del Apache<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span> went to Bosque del Apache yesterday,</span> the 57,000-acre wildlife bird sanctuary near Socorro, NM, to watch the migratory birds roosting there lift off from the water at sunrise to feed. They are there in large numbers from November to December. More than 40,000 birds including as many as 17,000 sandhill cranes, ducks, geese and more stop here in the flood planes of the Rio Grande in autumn to rest and feed on their southward migration. They come from as far as Alaska and travel as far south as Mexico. On a frosty November morning with the sun taking its veiled time to rise from behind mountains and clouds they are a sight to behold. More later. For now, photos. (Click to enlarge.)<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-65788894806675389912013-11-11T18:28:00.000-05:002013-11-12T08:41:25.164-05:00Sunscapes, Sanity, and Migratory Birds<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I'</span>ve been lazy lately. The sunsets have been magnificent. Here are a few scenes at a truck stop, as I entered New Mexico last month. (click to expand.)<br />
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Ah, but not just on the highways that the sun plays its tricks with the sky.<br />
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In Truth or Consequences it rises over Turtleback Mountain, lighting the morning, and painting the dawn clouds platinum white and charcoal gray.<br />
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By evening, the sky is red again, as the westering sun ducks behind the Gila Mountains, painting the sky a fiery orange.<br />
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And paints the turtle on Turtleback Mountain gold.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span>t is good to be home. Much has been happening in TorC. hTremayne, almost my next door neighbor, published a book in June — <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Good-Life-Lab-Experiments/dp/1612121012/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?ie=UTF8&qid=1384207210&sr=8-1&keywords=good+life+lab" target="_blank">The Good Life Lab</a></i>, about her and her husband's decision to leave the high-powered, high moneyed life of Manhattan and find a saner and more satisfying way to life.<br />
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They found it here. The book details what and how they worked to learn new skills and make — not buy — a life of plenty. And the philosophies they developed as they lived their dream.<br />
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"I discovered there are two kinds of poverty," said, during a book signing at the Black Cat Bookstore and Cafe here in Truth or Consequences. "There is the poverty of really not having enough, and the poverty of thinking you don't have enough."<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #0b5394;">Wendy gets a hug during a book signing.</span></i></td></tr>
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There is, says Wendy, organic living in which we are one with our instincts that tell us what this world, the natural world, is all about. And there is the artificial world that civilization has created out of the natural world. Wendy believes we are not never really at home in that world and never can be.<br />
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Meanwhile, I've settled in to do some writing here. I've added a small addition to my bus to make things cozy yet more spacious.<br />
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A canopy awning and front panel — a marvel of modern engineering.<br />
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It is getting cold at night, but my bed is warm, and my ancient German Eberspacher gasoline heater still works to warm things up in the morning. When the sun comes out it is marvelous.<br />
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There are many friends in this unique little town of poets, writers, painters, musicians and hippies; where you can soak in 108 degree artesian water, and at night watch Orion climb straight overhead into a jet black, star-spangled autumn New Mexico sky.<br />
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And much to do. On Thursday I am off to Bosque del Apache at dawn to watch the migratory birds — ducks and geese and cranes — already there. When these birds lift off in to he morning sun, I am told, it is a sight to behold.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-39773286697322529792013-10-14T10:59:00.004-04:002013-10-14T11:07:37.392-04:00Tumbleweeds, Sunsets<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span>t was a peaceful and an uneventful 350-mile trip yesterday, south from Topeka to Oklahoma City, where I picked up I-40 and headed west, stopping at the Cherokee KOA Kamp Grounds last night, about 50 miles west of the state capital that rises above the plains. Evening came and so did rain.<br />
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Driving through the open, rolling Kansas countryside I saw tumbleweeds — ghost-like balls of fluff — rolling across open corn fields and darting across the interstate.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #0b5394;">Photo taken from the southern ridge of Monticello Canyon<br /> looking toward Mount Caballo and Turtleback Mountain.</span></i></span></td></tr>
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The Oklahoma rains continued overnight and made for good sleeping.<br />
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I am about 600 miles from Truth or Consequences—two easy days.<br />
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Birds are singing in the soft morning. It is pleasant to take things easy.<br />
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This is not my photograph but one published in the local Truth or Consequences Herald newspaper. It is worth sharing. <br />
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Somehow the skies are taller, clouds catch play in the light in ways unimaginable elsewhere, as if God has a unique pallet on display in the southwest heavens.<br />
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<i>Special thanks and welcome to MonaLisa Acuna, the latest member to join this blog!</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-77299894680224818642013-10-10T08:17:00.000-04:002013-10-10T09:33:46.582-04:00On The Road Again <span style="color: #3d85c6;">Topeka Kansas</span> — After a year back east in North Carolina I am on the road again. The days are sunny and warm, the nights cool. It is heartland America. On Sunday There was a fall pumpkin festival here with hay rides, a corn stalk maze, food, and pumpkins and squash for sale. Dark clouds loomed but it did not rain.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAlLEGwWEqAgU_f4dws3YM-gQxEmajk_mZ5t-IMvUz_tt3uj_R4_nEZ7rdkaUJAmndiyCdEgXNj3O16Lh_Y-ry8zpmeL904ANg3UXOUmstdY9H85_tL4Tm28dH3RXWDpzqftFwXzxE7Eg/s1600/butterfly+005a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAlLEGwWEqAgU_f4dws3YM-gQxEmajk_mZ5t-IMvUz_tt3uj_R4_nEZ7rdkaUJAmndiyCdEgXNj3O16Lh_Y-ry8zpmeL904ANg3UXOUmstdY9H85_tL4Tm28dH3RXWDpzqftFwXzxE7Eg/s200/butterfly+005a.JPG" width="200" /></a>I've been visiting a friend. The bus ran well after some exhaust repairs in Gettysburg where I visited family. Now with colder weather only weeks away or maybe closer it is time to head southward. Next stop, Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.<br />
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I've picked up a few friends along the way. One was a butterfly that visited every day and explored my living quarters and often would perch on my hand.<br />
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Plus many more two-legged friends.<br />
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Leaving my brother and sister behind in Pennsylvania was the hardest sacrifice. I have a feeling that it will be long before I see them again. Leaving my friend Patricia and her son Richard in North Carolina was another loss. Yet that is the way of the world — there are constant losses and constant gains. All under a constant sky. And on a open road.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-67427516292679533462013-07-01T11:12:00.000-04:002013-07-01T11:18:34.374-04:00Wake Up Or You Will Miss the Revolution !!<br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">M</span>illions — perhaps the largest political demonstration in the history of mankind — are gathering in Egypt. Size matters ! As in Brazil, once a political uprising gains critical mass it becomes too large to stop, even with police, tear gas, tanks and water canons, it cannot be put down.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Millions gather in Egypt</span></i></td></tr>
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We have never seen this before! And we have no idea where it is going ! But it can — and probably will — spread like wild fires. <br />
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The world is a beautiful and marvelous place too long controlled by tyrants, kings, governments, businesses that do not represent the true beauty and potential of humankind. We do not know what is coming next. Some will be fearful. Yet this kind of movement like burgeoning grass cannot be stopped.</div>
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We are living in genuinely exciting times with genuinely unprecedented opportunities for this planet and its inhabitants.</div>
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We didn't — and never did — need the systems that controlled and separated us one from the other. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-86998087504499145522013-06-08T23:05:00.000-04:002013-06-09T08:53:29.715-04:00The Garden In June<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">N</span>ow that it's June, the garden plot that in April that was a desolate patch brown dirt and red clay is now a teeming sea of green!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHMF1wCP6go7RQ02wHwmtOxELCnVLMrueoiokGaD8dmY48Xe6CBOIVOi1gTnWv3PrsK-FFQ04UMExBNPv5Rx_OZ7saIUFna7dLrzp9svlPnKfN3bT7IQQuBptJY-z-w_Tj8kZLSFN7-ME/s1600/stuff+067.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHMF1wCP6go7RQ02wHwmtOxELCnVLMrueoiokGaD8dmY48Xe6CBOIVOi1gTnWv3PrsK-FFQ04UMExBNPv5Rx_OZ7saIUFna7dLrzp9svlPnKfN3bT7IQQuBptJY-z-w_Tj8kZLSFN7-ME/s400/stuff+067.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Potatoes in sunshine</span></i></td></tr>
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Potato plants three feet tall, tomato plants taller still, and laden with fruit, thrive. There are beans and peppers. Squash and asparagus. It is all very rewarding.<br />
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But the reward comes only partially comes from the success of growing things.<br />
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Perhaps a deeper reward derives from a mystical sense of being one with the garden.<br />
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Jerry Garcia remarked after concert that it was not the band that played the music but the music that played the band.<br />
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And so I think it is with gardening. The garden works its own magic. I know almost nothing about gardening but somehow when I am working in it it is the garden that tells me what to do. For a few hours I am at one not only with the plants and soil but with the universe.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjmb1WTtDBG0XS8J4bURf-ibmdwAJgST0L-XFtch5V7S2pUqNUcIx61y_76K4DTB-JhMM12pwe7GW6GUV0CCyMSAJnhmfi6BaK5j5H7SAz2Y88lfg9gmCxlqsGClkJUrruO9m-8bQrPBk/s1600/001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjmb1WTtDBG0XS8J4bURf-ibmdwAJgST0L-XFtch5V7S2pUqNUcIx61y_76K4DTB-JhMM12pwe7GW6GUV0CCyMSAJnhmfi6BaK5j5H7SAz2Y88lfg9gmCxlqsGClkJUrruO9m-8bQrPBk/s320/001.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Potatoes fresh from the earth</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span> dug up a few potatoes yesterday. It's early, and the plants still have a way to go, but the results are promising. To the right, my harvest from two plants.<br />
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We've been lucky. There has been abundant rain and enough sunshine to make things happen. Still it seems a miracle. The magic of nature bestowing gifts,<br />
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We fool ourselves if we think we play any more than a handyman's roll. Water from the sky falls to the earth, goes into the ground, and magic happens. Beautiful things that did exist — hundred of pounds of them — are miraculously created while we stand on the sidelines in awe. It is truly amazing. And how beautiful. Tiny tomato seeds become huge plants five feet tall and more weighted with ripening fruit. Again it is not our doing.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVBuMIrzmBy0tUqlhVkcINzZhvhneGRPH1gbb4s5S_tE8zipvHpK16I8aT98yLt0yoBHMv40MGyWCw9a1VU5ZylkBVY4xtLiqu5d5HodXokx7EZQ6p0WNiyVurdGmGBV6-lcJG8_N-w78/s1600/stuff+061a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVBuMIrzmBy0tUqlhVkcINzZhvhneGRPH1gbb4s5S_tE8zipvHpK16I8aT98yLt0yoBHMv40MGyWCw9a1VU5ZylkBVY4xtLiqu5d5HodXokx7EZQ6p0WNiyVurdGmGBV6-lcJG8_N-w78/s320/stuff+061a.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><i>Tomatoes on the vine</i></span> </td></tr>
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Sure, we help things along.<br />
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But that's what we are here for. And not just for gardens but to help each other.<br />
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What the garden teaches with its dirt and soil and microbes and worms, nutrients and moisture, minerals and compost, weeds and bugs, is interdependence.<br />
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For a while, working and weeding, digging and planting, I am not the gardener. I become the garden.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-7849303849042596002013-04-15T16:08:00.002-04:002013-04-28T18:38:15.482-04:00Doing the garden, digging the weeds ...<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">...who could ask for more ?</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzQS1v_5zD17VB9kOK-jyk-d6GGcTuFKtTcbK-HFld2icl9i5CZnUNY_5_kDOGQiRj7xXi-GJB87AgnvCLxIiSBX_ovViVUEWXakLMYHb21wxXyksBQ00btsdh4fSXnyeuAY91-9v5RZ8/s1600/spring+071a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzQS1v_5zD17VB9kOK-jyk-d6GGcTuFKtTcbK-HFld2icl9i5CZnUNY_5_kDOGQiRj7xXi-GJB87AgnvCLxIiSBX_ovViVUEWXakLMYHb21wxXyksBQ00btsdh4fSXnyeuAY91-9v5RZ8/s320/spring+071a.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Looking over the potato patch at my bus</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> have </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">stopped traveling for a while and found roots in North Carolina and in the soil. It's spring. Butterflies and blossoms are everywhere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is a different kind of a journey, planting potatoes, and in a few weeks tomatoes and many, many other things. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is a journey that is hard to describe and harder still to photograph. It is a journey back to the beginning — the garden.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As attuned as one becomes to nature living in the desert or the mountains or the forest, there is a different attunement that comes from working the soil.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">W</span>eather also takes on a different feel. Whether the sun shines or the rains come, the wind blows, the earth freezes or heats up matters in a different way. Will the potatoes have enough water? Will the spinach grow? Is it warm enough for tomatoes? Cool enough for peas?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Over all this there is little control. It is easy to over romanticize gardens. But farming is not romantic. It is hard work. It is a very unnatural thing we do to the earth, dig and plant and make it work for us. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyykN8GFP254hsgGnJBaf0F3dz8Ufv8RvRueFX5WPfqmedG-slCdNnZjdQggxiFxC6JhHjU25YkB8gu9cgQw1SR8MdPYRjwPoHpVvA1sJ_p9UO6vyjvckdvD1QaNO0Up5ceBuOCuCSku8/s1600/spring+041.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyykN8GFP254hsgGnJBaf0F3dz8Ufv8RvRueFX5WPfqmedG-slCdNnZjdQggxiFxC6JhHjU25YkB8gu9cgQw1SR8MdPYRjwPoHpVvA1sJ_p9UO6vyjvckdvD1QaNO0Up5ceBuOCuCSku8/s400/spring+041.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">Y</span>et you cannot spend hours with a shovel turning red clay, breaking the clods and seeing the worms, hearing the buzz of bees in the fruit tree blossoms, the sounds of frogs at night without beginning to feel peacefully at home in the cycle of things that grow.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If farming is unnatural, how much more unnatural is getting in a car and going to an office or a factory to earn a paycheck that in the final analysis allows you to buy a life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That is what we are becoming, too many of us, men and women who sell our time to buy our lives; and what artificial lives we end up buying when we do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">O</span>n the cherry trees and apple trees and plum trees, on the peach trees and redbuds, and soon the magnolias, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of the most intricate blossoms of the most beautiful and delicate hues, all for the gazing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They won't be around long. Only a few weeks. And that's the beauty of it! What a parade they make decked out in their finest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5L57K-qx_DexHaE3GqGO7Lhh59rW_-rQkGFO0cnf4GcHD2SyFSRJuBwHcWGXGOe0F96V0rA1le0T6mOhSmyx49Wjfm-zs38lhCShRgSIdB5KHNrY1FlVPVE013QoQmw9vI35IbgB6YCI/s1600/spring+073a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5L57K-qx_DexHaE3GqGO7Lhh59rW_-rQkGFO0cnf4GcHD2SyFSRJuBwHcWGXGOe0F96V0rA1le0T6mOhSmyx49Wjfm-zs38lhCShRgSIdB5KHNrY1FlVPVE013QoQmw9vI35IbgB6YCI/s320/spring+073a.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Pink cherry blossoms, bud and bloom</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And what a lesson they have to impart. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">They will not be around long and neither will we.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So when spring comes, and the soil melts, and the shovel turns, and the seeds sprout, the birds sing, it is a feast, a festival, a joyous dance of renewal. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It is life taken in through the pores, the nostrils, the ears, the eyes, the taste buds. It is clouds in a blue sky, a hundred shades of green and yellow leaves and grass.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">D</span>igging the garden, doing the weeds who could ask for more?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At the moment as I put the rake down and look at the upturned earth I cannot think of asking for much more than this.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-56934206041170776442013-03-02T13:12:00.002-05:002013-03-09T22:37:11.004-05:00Political Problems; Hiking the Mountains<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I </span>had lunch this week with a businessman and local politician. He has written a book. In it he details his experiences and frustrations in politics. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">His observations are keen. He says money plays the dominant role in who gets elected. "Without money you can't get elected. And money put up against you will defeat you."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Three days later I was hiking in a state park. I was stilling thinking about what my friend said. </span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUtVEYYkKMEqx5qcuc8xpSI_pidk1waLNOpjqfb_LwX39gyK3CIqbAh-dNTdpWa12NSWAPCyc0JoDFyfGwNe9NpTysZ1MQbTSheXZL1cLwGDVwqkc7OVJg6E6NCSPO8auI219CEtEUZnw/s1600/hike+to+hanging+rock+001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUtVEYYkKMEqx5qcuc8xpSI_pidk1waLNOpjqfb_LwX39gyK3CIqbAh-dNTdpWa12NSWAPCyc0JoDFyfGwNe9NpTysZ1MQbTSheXZL1cLwGDVwqkc7OVJg6E6NCSPO8auI219CEtEUZnw/s200/hike+to+hanging+rock+001.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">The tower at Hanging Rock</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The other problem is indifference. Except at election time few people pay attention to the issues, he says.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The combination of money and indifference works to benefit those in power. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; text-align: center;">Rockingham County, NC, he believes, is a microcosm for the nation. Political power gets auctioned off. Those with power seek short-term gains at the expense of long-term goals — </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; text-align: center;"> fracking; c</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: center;">lear-cutting; environment degradation; deficit spending. Our children will suffer</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5XUaixMZWvwi7CzK4rLOePBF4WAHOMfXugiUlW8bGI5wjSm6q8GHMsHjVLmp2f64MvlbdIwafao9WsggKSBjci9AMGShDfXsI648TADMUW5shT-aGu3d6RmBbdvZL4vTLZdkzSQIISb4/s1600/hike+to+hanging+rock+012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5XUaixMZWvwi7CzK4rLOePBF4WAHOMfXugiUlW8bGI5wjSm6q8GHMsHjVLmp2f64MvlbdIwafao9WsggKSBjci9AMGShDfXsI648TADMUW5shT-aGu3d6RmBbdvZL4vTLZdkzSQIISb4/s400/hike+to+hanging+rock+012.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Looking west toward Pilot Mountain</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We agree that in these terms the future looks kind of grim. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But at a certain point we part company. He believes we are wedded to the old way of thinking. I don't.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I've lived in a small world too long not to know the world we live in is what we make it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You can stop the music at any time and get off.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
----</div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span>t is beautiful in the mountains where I an hiking. Low clouds hang over a landscape of soft blue, a quilt of rolling hills, farmland and forest stretching to the horizon. All is quiet. On the trail I come upon fresh coyote scat. There is wind in the pines and hemlocks. In the distance, geese. It is a place to think.</span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/Pilot_Mtn_Knob_2.JPG/280px-Pilot_Mtn_Knob_2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Pilot Mtn Knob 2.JPG" border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/Pilot_Mtn_Knob_2.JPG/280px-Pilot_Mtn_Knob_2.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The monadnock atop<br />Pilot Mountain </span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Across the way is Pilot Mountain, part of the Sauratown mountain chain named for the Saura Indians who once lived here centuries ago.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The timeless perspective assures me nothing important changes. T</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">he rocks, trees and skies remain. So too the rains, plants and animals. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Human nature is good even if the system that we function under isn't.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We are on a journey together, you and I. And it's</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> a heck of a lot of fun. We don't have to be part of the grim.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">----</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For VW bus fans who have not seen the Oscar winning movie, Argo, check out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdelmR6dkA" target="_blank">this VW bus clip</a>.</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-36117131553471408182013-02-22T10:16:00.002-05:002013-02-24T19:11:43.655-05:00Confessions of a Minimalist — Storage<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Ajz-JMSnRqDCiENmu4Yz_lmT8bDmWpdm2kqyCIuYD5bLnmbvCE8mRGnu4moUgy4LPXvhJEGdjB9I93z2zC3jo1brtMb7GjLdSaANEn8o8TFpjnCA0I4Z-wpq1LtWBbXu7ViuJiu6BM4/s1600/bus+in+winter+008bw.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Ajz-JMSnRqDCiENmu4Yz_lmT8bDmWpdm2kqyCIuYD5bLnmbvCE8mRGnu4moUgy4LPXvhJEGdjB9I93z2zC3jo1brtMb7GjLdSaANEn8o8TFpjnCA0I4Z-wpq1LtWBbXu7ViuJiu6BM4/s320/bus+in+winter+008bw.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>The bus in winter</b></span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-size: x-large;">A</span> few words about storage: Know where things are. Ziploc bags.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Having stuff can be burdensome. But everyone has some stuff. In the confines of a small space even a very modest amount of stuff can be a problem. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am not going to suggest I know how to store your things better than you do. Or what your storage space looks like. I'm only going to suggest a golden rule or two of storage. Know where everything is. Use Ziploc bags.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Knowing where everything is lets you find what you need quickly. It keeps you from making a mess looking for it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The other golden rule is use plastic air-tight sealable bags. Everything from food to small electronics, to folded clothes and cosmetics, can go inside. They nest, small ones inside big ones. They tuck, they squeeze and go almost anyplace you want. You can write on them. They keep things clean. They do not take up more room than what they contain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Unlike other containers they shrink as what is inside gets used.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Organize what you use everyday so it is close at hand. What you seldom use can be tucked away. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For extra storage, a suitcase. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">An organized home is not only neat and clean and easier to live in. It makes you feel good about yourself and keeps clutter from cluttering up your life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>A few tips</b>: Shoes take up a lot of room. Minimize. So do bulky coats. Consider layering. Store like things together. I store cooking utensils inside a Coleman stove. They are there when I need them, out of the way when I don't. Always clean and straighten right away. Carry a rope or clothes line. Air things like linen and sleeping bags. Consider rooftop storage when traveling. Use folding chairs. When at a campsite think of the outdoors as your home. Set up camp accordingly. Have a system for laundry. Either washing a few things daily or a trip to a laundromat weekly. Practice cleanliness around your campsite, for your sake and the sake of others. Recycle. Share. Love. You want you life to work for you. Not the other way around.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-16225057522340368132013-02-19T18:21:00.001-05:002013-02-22T10:17:21.821-05:00Confessions of a Minimalist — Stuff<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">O</span>ne thing years of living in a bus taught me: You don't need much to be happy — food, shelter, love and companionship is about it. Anything else isn't gravy. It usually just gets in the way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now that I am not living in a bus, and taking time to write about it, I'm finding how easy it is to slip back into old ways.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Take CD's and DVD's, for example, Or books, or jeans and T-shirts. Or shoes. Another here, another there. Soon clutter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Living in a bus imposes strict limits on almost everything. My rule of thumb has been if I get something new, like a new book or CD, I get rid of an old to make room.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's easy. Just give it away, or leave it to be found. Someone will want it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">T</span>his rule not only keeps clutter from accumulating. It upgrades what you do have by forcing you to keep only what you really love and need.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another rule is: If you haven't used it, worn it, eaten it or cooked with it in six months get rid of it. Obviously this does not apply to spare parts. It applies to almost everything else.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I could go on but I think the point is made. Having only what you need and nothing more simplifies your life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">NEXT: Storage.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-54300178418702056612013-02-13T13:37:00.001-05:002013-02-16T15:11:51.993-05:00Differing Visions of Life in America<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large;">L</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ike millions of Americans, I heard the president address the nation in his State of the Union address to Congress last night. I was impressed. He seemed relaxed and at the top of his rhetorical game. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet the speech also troubled me.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="President Barack Obama addresses the nation during the 2013 State of the Union in Washington D.C." height="212" src="http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/642/cache/obama-state-union-2013-climate-change_64249_600x450.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">President Obama</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If I heard him correctly he called for preschool for all children beginning at age four.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He called for high school education more closely tied to job placement, more akin to an associate degree from a community college.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>"To grow our middle class," the president said, "our citizens must have access to the education and training that today's jobs require</i>."</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He also made a pitch for an increase in the minimum wage, to $9 an hour, a boost for the working poor.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was about jobs and work — tailoring people to fit the world of work rather than tailoring the world of work to fit people.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Those at the top prosper; those below perspire.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Wandering Wolf</b></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If Mr. Obama was offering a vision of utopia based on rewards, benefits and confinements of corporate America, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Wakatel Utiw—Wandering Wolf—a Mayan elder who has been walking the Americas, see things a little differently. </span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">F</span>ive hundred years of rule by occupiers, colonialists and corporate interests has not created paradise in the Americas or the world, he says. It is a system based on greed. Its legacies are division, distrust, poverty and war.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="181" src="http://www.el-camino-blanco.com/images/Fotos/Don_Alejandro.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Wandering Wolf </span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Don Alejandro Cirilo Perez Olax,</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Wandering Wolf, is at the heart of the movie, <i><a href="http://www.shiftoftheages.com/" target="_blank">Shift of the Ages</a></i>, exploring the meaning of the Mayan and other indigenous peoples' visions for a better way of live. For more than seven years he has traversed the </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Americas from Guatemala to Peru and Bolivia, meeting with elders and speaking speaking of a coming change<i> </i>foreseen by his people as long count calendar comes to a close and a new epoch begins. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Although the time is now for a new era, he says, mankind must end its divisions and we must work together to make it happen—to end the fouling of our air and water, to end poverty, to end war and greed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> “The new Sun will come, but if we don’t change our destructive and disharmonious ways, many may not see it. We are not powerless over something happening to us," he says. "We are happening to the Earth and to each other.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He points to 500 years of occupation, colonial rule and corporate oppression. The lessons of the old order are manifest in a world that has turned its back on the human spirit and preached a world of material plenty and spiritual poverty.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">His words contrasted with the focus of the president's address stirred something in me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Why should it be that in a world of plenty there is so much want? Why should we begin preparing the young for a lifetime of work at the tender age of four? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For what reason? To get ahead? Who profits? Who loses?</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A Theft of Tender Years</span></b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.bragg.army.mil/directorates/dpw/envdiv/wildlife/PublishingImages/misc/coyote11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="275" src="http://www.bragg.army.mil/directorates/dpw/envdiv/wildlife/PublishingImages/misc/coyote11.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">One of nature's preschool instructors.</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Taking four-year-olds, sparkling and spiritual and at an age when imagination should be free to explore and to play, and putting them on the treadmill that feeds the maw of the corporate machine seems a crime against them and against all humanity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Using education not to enlarge the spirit and expand the mind but to hone workplace skills seems not so much an exercise in developing human potential as it does in crushing it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The rewards are the material gee-gaws and gadgetry that fill our empty days and overflow our landfills.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">One thing that nights looking at stars and mornings watching a sun rise over mountains has taught me is that the stars and the moons and the mountains and the sunrise belong to all of us. And so too the Earth. And that </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">there is no more beautiful sight than a free human cast in his or her own mold and not in the mold of others or the machine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">W</span>e should be careful what we ask when we seek to grow our economy, and wary of the price we may pay and the fuel we are putting into the fire, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The four-year-old sitting by the campfire beside her mother, hearing the conversations of coyotes in the hills, the rustle of wind in the grass, the screeches of owls and chirrups of insects and frogs, dreaming of life unfolding before her in her vivid imagination, will not be so happy in an air-conditioned preschool where she may learn keyboard skills but not know the scent of a pine forest.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Even if it does one day lead to a job.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-86447521078336735202012-12-29T11:53:00.000-05:002013-01-01T09:52:19.527-05:00What Fiscal Cliff ?Reading the news you would think we were all about to tumble over some steep precipice down into a ravine never to be seen or heard from again — the dreaded <i>Fiscal Cliff</i>. Well I just got gas, a cup of pretty good coffee for 89¢, looked out the window at the road ahead and it looks pretty smooth and flat.<br />
<br />
There's a different perspective when you are driving a bus and living in a smaller world. Now if you raise the rates of camp sites, double the price of rice and beans, or if there are three straight days of rain I might complain.<br />
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But let's face it, folks, a few percentage points increase in SSI and taxes is not a catastrophe. Suck it up, America! You've been there before. Remember the 1990s ? Not so bad !<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><i>As you start to walk out on the way, the way appears. -- Rumi.</i></span></td></tr>
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So, what are folks so upset about? The image of a cliff is telling. What we as a nation seemed to be obsessed by are end-of-the-world, doomsday scenarios. The Mayan calendar thing. Global warming. Economic collapse. Social upheaval.<br />
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Maybe with good reason.<br />
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The complex world that the majority of us live in seems increasingly scary and morphing beyond our ability to control. Will I have a job tomorrow? Will the cost of living double? Will a medical disaster strike?<br />
<br />
Life was not always so complicated nor did we see ourselves as part of a large machine that seems to be becoming increasingly unstable.<br />
<br />
I close the door, turn the key, music kicks on floating above the sounds of the engine and the tires on the road.<br />
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Up ahead the sky is blue and flecked with December clouds and the mountains have been where they have always been.<br />
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Fiscal cliff? Not that I see, or in the rear view mirror either. In a simpler world you don't go over a cliff.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-23077184511926249202012-12-26T13:16:00.000-05:002012-12-26T20:28:13.446-05:00Book Review — The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span> have just come from reading on line The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein. The <a href="http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/" target="_blank">online version I read</a> was completed in 2006, therefore before the fiscal crisis of 2007 and much of what was to follow. It will be interesting to see what changes, if any, Eisenstein will have made in the final published version due out in February, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Ascent-Humanity-Civilization-Human/dp/1583945350/ref=tmm_pap_title_0" target="_blank">available from Amazon</a>.<br />
<br />
The book is big both in scope and size — 600 pages. It is uneven but perhaps it could not have been otherwise given the vast landscape the author attempts to cover, and the destination he has in his sights — namely a new and enlightened world and humanity, but only after the old order collapses.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charles Eisenstein</td></tr>
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We have been living, says Eisenstein, since the dawn of agriculture in a linear world of cause and effect; of separation of from ourselves, each other and nature; of yours and mine; and marching to the drumbeat of a technological view of the world. Much has been achieved, but at great cost and ultimate peril to the planet and to ourselves.<br />
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Lost, he argues, is the instinctive recognition that all is sacred. That life is a holy web. And that we are, in our finest moments, all connected — not pawns in a dog-eat-dog capitalist/Darwinian jungle struggling for survival.<br />
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How do we get out of the mess we are in and onto higher ground?<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">E</span>isenstein gives no guarantees but argues it will happen. The foundations on which the industrial/ technological worlds have been built–material, economic, social and political–are unsustainable and failing. From the ashes of the old will arise the new. This is a big leap, an act of courage as much as an act of faith.<br />
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He points to small but important green shoots, of ecology, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, spiritual searching, not as answers themselves to our plight but as pointers to what my lie ahead and grow — a new world of beauty and plenty when we cease its destruction and share in its bounty.<br />
<br />
There is defiant optimism afoot here. Rewarding insights into many of our foibles. And some fresh thinking.<br />
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"The process (of our confusion and separation from the world) started eons ago with the development of symbolic culture, which mediated direct perception of reality with an abstract map of reality. Since then," says the author, "the fall from wholeness has accelerated."<br />
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In other words, says Eisenstein, when we put a label on a tree and call it a tree we no longer see it as a unique and sacred thing. We have defined it, labeled it, and now can clear cut a forest without remorse.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">V</span>iolence is at the heart of a world we try to control. "From the weeding of a strawberry bed to the coercion of a child to the elimination of enemies in the name of national security, the cultivation and control of the world inherently requires violence," he writes.<br />
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We need not control the world or ourselves. We need to see it whole again and ourselves not separate from it or each other.<br />
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It is a book that when you put it down you wish the author were there so that you might ask: "Well, Charles, all well and good, but how do we bring 7 billion souls and thousands of years of history around to a new way of seeing things?"<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-46751799136342007682012-11-27T12:42:00.001-05:002012-12-03T18:46:56.215-05:00New Leg of the Journey<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I </span>no longer am living full-time in my bus. That does not mean the journey is over.<br />
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One of the benefits of minimalist living is that it strips away the value that we too often place on material goods and possessions. Often we do not even understand why we are so caught up in owning things that in end end up owning us. For anyone who has not seen it I recommend watching PBS's Scott Simon's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7_w3w9VLIw" target="_blank">Affluenza</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE_FruilI0fe9oPgjzXLKiNgMaHdHUyfEXkzBce43IUj3DkDlfLRgZyVIwRuaYL9HdRRifT8ur8BF5AzicD2GehvudfvCiyD3Qa6lo2dxDxO9SPfLC2_IiXc3FnSBiUCMaT-Dhsys7boo/s1600/Colorado+Monument+016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE_FruilI0fe9oPgjzXLKiNgMaHdHUyfEXkzBce43IUj3DkDlfLRgZyVIwRuaYL9HdRRifT8ur8BF5AzicD2GehvudfvCiyD3Qa6lo2dxDxO9SPfLC2_IiXc3FnSBiUCMaT-Dhsys7boo/s400/Colorado+Monument+016.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Colorado Monument </i></td></tr>
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I spent two weeks at Colorado Monument outside Grand Junction, coming down from the mountain only once for groceries and never tired of the experience – of waking up to a different dawn each day and being overwhelmed by the majesty I saw all around.<br />
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Nor did I tire of the other campers who came there.<br />
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One was a couple from Canada who brought with them a nephew and a powerful telescope and software that helped them find and zero in on planets and stars.<br />
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Another was a man fighting lung disease and breathing the clear air to get better. And he did. In just a few weeks' stay he was able to take long walks.<br />
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A third was a couple from Toronto, also in a Volkswagen, who came there "to find ourselves." They were lost, they said, in their marriage and in the world until one day they realized they could wake up "without care or worry." And so they hit the road.<br />
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And the hodge-podge gang from Brooklyn – five guys who pooled their resources and bought a beat-up RV determined to make it to San Francisco and drink beer all the way. We laughed until it got dark at night and the stars came out.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">W</span>hile I was travelling many asked what I was doing to fill my days. Nothing, I replied. The days fill themselves. It is remarkable how little there is that needs to be done once you let go of the internal need for doing, as if your productivity somehow mattered to the world. It doesn't.<br />
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What you get as a life-long gift, just as happened with the couple from Toronto, is your sanity back.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAjwyAB-L_ip4T03OPza4cjL4U0FCxKZqCSW4KCmhoqPjcBrT1_TZwGLlHb-6_OxpCRuKe1iOqB2QUnJ8aYUZW0qs-Huen_o8KnGmCFvHgHbIWtSMBRqleFXm24C8HDPGcst7xOScKY70/s1600/Thursday+Nature+Walk+June+10+016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAjwyAB-L_ip4T03OPza4cjL4U0FCxKZqCSW4KCmhoqPjcBrT1_TZwGLlHb-6_OxpCRuKe1iOqB2QUnJ8aYUZW0qs-Huen_o8KnGmCFvHgHbIWtSMBRqleFXm24C8HDPGcst7xOScKY70/s320/Thursday+Nature+Walk+June+10+016.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A desert cactus flowers.</i></td></tr>
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Viewed from the grandeur of rugged peaks where artists come to paint, the world looks a lot bigger and we experience ourselves a lot smaller.<br />
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You can spend an hour watching an ant or a flower or a bee, and no time is lost at all, and what is gained is greater love of life. And maybe a little more understanding too – though not in a way that can be put into words.<br />
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A park ranger told me there that there is no shortage of water even in the semi-desert. "We get the right amount of water for everything that lives here," she said. For the junipers and the pi<span style="background-color: white;">ñ</span>on pines, and the desert bluebirds that feed of the juniper berries, and the bees that visit the flowers, there is enough. And for scurrying mice and the hawks overhead. It's there.<br />
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It struck me that there was a lot of wisdom in that observation, and it had more to it than just an explanation of thriving desert life.<br />
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The riches of this planet whether sparse or lush are what they are. There is enough for everything and everyone that lives on this planet if we understand and ask only what we really need.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhiqLPyenFB_abJgkg9FjwbnYTudXSA4oj0A2_kFMRZT2joh05PXPR0H0IhRyzE8GMrx0__2cgfDdQnXsAgxDestRUYeqhoigNANspjtNhmKex6JRmoWE4YtF-RN1kgoyF1XiJs40DNk/s1600/Sunday+evening+009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhiqLPyenFB_abJgkg9FjwbnYTudXSA4oj0A2_kFMRZT2joh05PXPR0H0IhRyzE8GMrx0__2cgfDdQnXsAgxDestRUYeqhoigNANspjtNhmKex6JRmoWE4YtF-RN1kgoyF1XiJs40DNk/s320/Sunday+evening+009.JPG" width="488" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Colorado mountains viewed in westering sun from Monument.</i></td></tr>
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And maybe that was what was so inviting in the song sung to me by the breeze up there are night: that you have enough when you have enough, and you don't need more. Just a place to lay your head and sing your own song until the sun comes up again tomorrow as it always will.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-13388101406368168202012-11-19T18:06:00.000-05:002012-12-08T20:19:35.331-05:00Chimayó — Father Roca, Short Legs and a Long Life<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span>t has been called the Lourdes of America. Since 1810, when the first chapel was built on the site, stories abound of miraculous cures.<br />
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Today, thousands of photographs, a hundred or more canes and crutches and wheel chairs left behind and no longer needed attest to cures said to have taken place at El Santuario del Chimay<em style="background-color: white; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">ó</span></em><em style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"> </em><em style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">8 miles North of Santa Fe</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">.</span></em><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_jdo69FoZWUv61rT3nXns8XIz3KF85aFALZ50ZaITjgHeur1njGE8Hgw41_rTJEQ1Gwm_MgppyROX8uESmiUtTNhio3HkFFegrawWnlPija6DOGQgW5oa83D4d1fu5JmnoOixv9zkfCA/s1600/Taos+018a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_jdo69FoZWUv61rT3nXns8XIz3KF85aFALZ50ZaITjgHeur1njGE8Hgw41_rTJEQ1Gwm_MgppyROX8uESmiUtTNhio3HkFFegrawWnlPija6DOGQgW5oa83D4d1fu5JmnoOixv9zkfCA/s400/Taos+018a.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>El Santuario del Chimay</i><em style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: left;">ó</em><i>. </i></td></tr>
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The present chapel was built in 1816. The original six years earlier.<br />
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Stories of how the first chapel was built, and the second was brought back from oblivion, are stories of little miracles in their own right.<br />
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The story of the original chapel dates to 1810 when Bernardo Abeyta saw a strange light coming from a hill above the Santa Cruz river. When he went to the site and dug he uncovered a buried crucifix.<br />
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Three times the crucifix was taken to the local village. And three times it disappeared only to be found again at the original site.<br />
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Se<em style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px;">ñ</em>or Abeyta got the message. A chapel should be built there. And it was. Almost immediately word spread of the healing power of the little church, and in 1813 Abeyta asked permission to build a bigger chapel. The chapel that now stands was completed in 1816.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">F</span>or more than a hundred years the chapel remained in the private hands of the Abeyta family. By pilgrims continued to come and make offerings. But by 1929 the chapel had fallen into disrepair. To preserve the little chapel it was purchased by preservationists and given to the Archdiocese of Santa Cruz to preserve and protect it.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw7dj5Z47isQq-VrO9OKiTsmG_ZIMFDw4ebDJnjNQi9EBjytjB2RdeD6d9YYEjlqul5odEDLsy7wO8CYV0UDUXaaZyYhbBplCFzEaG8pXhWLpJFAfmu5bppBbnrFsBTEsIxNcgi1FWGiU/s1600/Father+Roca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw7dj5Z47isQq-VrO9OKiTsmG_ZIMFDw4ebDJnjNQi9EBjytjB2RdeD6d9YYEjlqul5odEDLsy7wO8CYV0UDUXaaZyYhbBplCFzEaG8pXhWLpJFAfmu5bppBbnrFsBTEsIxNcgi1FWGiU/s200/Father+Roca.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Father Casimiro Roca at 94.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
That same year, 1929 a small, 11-year-old boy in Mura, Spain, asked his parents to let him enter the seminary. The family was poor butthe seminarians agreed to let him study with paying. The boy was Casimiro Roca. Times were hard. His two brothers were killed during the Spanish civil war and Casimiro Roca fled to Italy where he completed his studies and took his vows in 1945.<br />
<br />
"It was," he recalls, "the happiest day of my life to become a priest."<br />
<br />
Meanwhile across the ocean in America, the Archdiocese of Santa Cruz in New Mexico was trying to figure out what to do with the rundown little chapel now in its charge — wellspring of so many legends and tales of healing, now fallen into disrepair.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">B</span>ut somewhere the wheels of divine providence were busy turning. Following a traumatic illness in 1950, Fr. Casimiro Roca decided to come to America to get a new start. In 1954, the archdiocese sent him to go to Chimay<em style="background-color: white; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">ó to</span></em> revive the little parish. There, he says, he fell in love with the people and the mountain. Several times he left but always come back. In 1984 he returned for keeps.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK0zOnLethCKWqXVO3cbSfv7YP3XwXsTD1f-suhYVHTylr6_1F9NyllsUJbLzaGDH5cVN5345tVXyrafQ1fJ2MWl4enQZHv7Y86LJvcbVGPRMHTd44vgYRkBBcWSPT1tZc8C5mX8QIlWQ/s1600/Taos+024a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK0zOnLethCKWqXVO3cbSfv7YP3XwXsTD1f-suhYVHTylr6_1F9NyllsUJbLzaGDH5cVN5345tVXyrafQ1fJ2MWl4enQZHv7Y86LJvcbVGPRMHTd44vgYRkBBcWSPT1tZc8C5mX8QIlWQ/s320/Taos+024a.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Courtyard conversation.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Over the more than 60 years that he has shepherded the small parish much has been done.<br />
<br />
"We bought land. We planted trees. We buttressed the walls. We patched. We repaired," he recalls.<br />
<br />
And he got a few breaks. In 1970 El Santuario del Chamiy<em style="background-color: white; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">ó</span></em> was designated a National Historic Landmark. Soon the trickle of pilgrims coming each year became a flood. coming. Today, more than a quarter million visitors come to Chamiy<em style="background-color: white; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">ó each</span></em> year &mash; as many as 30,000 during Holy Week alone. Some walk the 90 miles from Albuquerque.<br />
<br />
Father Roca at 94 says he keeps busy but is slowing down. There is pride mixed with annoyance as he recounts the years of hard work. "I did all this," he says with a sweeping gesture. "Now I am tired."<br />
<br />
But the church, he says, will not let him retire. He talks about going back to Spain.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span>t is probably in the church's interest — as well as the chapel's — that he stays on. He has become a legend ass much as the sanctuary itself.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsZqa2qfWLUg2YJPWucechSTpDtZrah88oIoQHg9_dSJunqtbQ-n-uyqz2ae_pskHGn5lkb3LPYGfZZDQ71siG2ibAvinsUpGiMgpjiyIBtCa4gSgiA4SIU7djeCoGNLOeN797ksjIDo8/s1600/Taos+036.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsZqa2qfWLUg2YJPWucechSTpDtZrah88oIoQHg9_dSJunqtbQ-n-uyqz2ae_pskHGn5lkb3LPYGfZZDQ71siG2ibAvinsUpGiMgpjiyIBtCa4gSgiA4SIU7djeCoGNLOeN797ksjIDo8/s400/Taos+036.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Wildflowers outside the sanctuary at Chimay<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: left;">ó, </span></i><i>New Mexico.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
He speaks castilian Spanish and comports himself with the dignity befitting a man of God.<br />
<br />
He says he thinks his place was destined to be here and wonders how much longer the Church, or God, will keep him.<br />
<br />
He has no regrets, he says. "None. And I thank God for that. I have my way of life here."<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">W</span>e say good-bye and head back to our bus in the chapel parking lot and pass wildflowers along the way. The short priest — all four feet, ten inches of him — seems as native to the soil as the desert flowers we see thriving around us.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-77949925122882383042012-11-14T12:42:00.000-05:002013-03-18T18:53:14.191-04:00Barbara<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span>t was a few minutes before 5 o'clock when we turned off New Mexico 68 that runs from Espanola to Taos, and down a winding road paralleling the Rio Grande, through the Orilla Verde federal recreation area where the Bureau of Land Management maintains seven campgrounds in the mountain-flanked gorge.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWOBkZpe3qy18dl3Fswf2kbwK8b8lUk2pB5ZPJhApDZwiDjb3nnn3Kw-40982i_7YsKdcqth4dWUceckN2KhYRBvmZMRBaQ2QcqL9xnZwZLktbiV6Un0bc-42v4xkAoouZaS6yW3OEtD8/s1600/Barbara1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWOBkZpe3qy18dl3Fswf2kbwK8b8lUk2pB5ZPJhApDZwiDjb3nnn3Kw-40982i_7YsKdcqth4dWUceckN2KhYRBvmZMRBaQ2QcqL9xnZwZLktbiV6Un0bc-42v4xkAoouZaS6yW3OEtD8/s320/Barbara1.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A 1968 VW — red fading to rust.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In summer the campgrounds are crowded with white water rafters. In September when we were there they weren't.<br />
<br />
An hour before we had been sitting in sunshine at a picnic table munching burritos Now the sky had darkened, the wind had picked up, foreshadowing rain..<br />
<br />
We chose the second campground, Rio Bravo, and pulled in. There were only about a half dozen or so others there — a few tent campers, an RV or two, and down by the river a beat up VW, red fading to rust, draped with plastic. It looked abandoned. It wasn't.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">W</span>hen the rain stopped and late afternoon sun came out, bathing the camp in golden light, so did Barbara, a woman in her early 60s who has been living in her car for more than twenty years. Out of respect for her privacy I am not showing her picture.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6eP2ITP1zyrwRozIdbNmpR-7_Z8haPnKNXWDBi_Bv8TqEoT3VPWcspqNCfOblD9GQPymnKkCjnHE_npgxZHsCxM-3117ryLdd3BUN6SdMl9Qb1WkJG4Xl_Pr-iL949g6JgZh91U89x0Q/s1600/Rio+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6eP2ITP1zyrwRozIdbNmpR-7_Z8haPnKNXWDBi_Bv8TqEoT3VPWcspqNCfOblD9GQPymnKkCjnHE_npgxZHsCxM-3117ryLdd3BUN6SdMl9Qb1WkJG4Xl_Pr-iL949g6JgZh91U89x0Q/s400/Rio+1.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Rio Grande as it passes the Rio Bravo campground south of Taos.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
All her possessions are stuffed in plastic bags inside the car where she sleeps nights curled up on the front seat.<br />
<br />
The Rio Bravo campsite where we were, and other campsites as well, has toilet facilities and heated showers.<br />
<br />
As she unfolded and stretched getting out of her car, she smiled at her new neighbors. We talked. There was no bitterness or self pity in her conversation, or any trace of self-consciousness. Her dignity was intact. Life, she said, looking at the clearing sky, was good, although she said she had heath problems.<br />
<br />
There are many Barbara's out there today who have chosen the freedom of the road rather than the supervision of a shelter, and the unfiltered grandeur of a river gorge instead of the concrete confines of the city.<br />
<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-26498271404096586782012-11-11T14:42:00.000-05:002012-11-12T11:40:19.218-05:00Sorghum Molasses — The North Carolina Way<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">J</span>ames Isaacs was hoping to get 15 gallons of sorghum molasses this year. Instead he got just 7.5. He can't be sure of the culprit but he suspects the DEA.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDchuDPCpVItoGhaPvbY2zJmJn4NvDHc1doIhEj2DX6WCl2rKQd2Su7vNvPRBkUpHzx_nvVRr8bx_-nmI0c_GxvoAHA8BabUGaxeb99CpB78vkjhlN7-ePHSuUDmSzFXUanJhLAd5lhw4/s1600/molasses+025a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDchuDPCpVItoGhaPvbY2zJmJn4NvDHc1doIhEj2DX6WCl2rKQd2Su7vNvPRBkUpHzx_nvVRr8bx_-nmI0c_GxvoAHA8BabUGaxeb99CpB78vkjhlN7-ePHSuUDmSzFXUanJhLAd5lhw4/s400/molasses+025a.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Frank Hopkins feeds cane-like stalks of sorghum into the press.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This year when he went to inspect his two-acre field he found half of his crop had been blown down and was broken, much of it dead.<br />
<br />
The damage was in different places — not uniform like storm damage.<br />
<br />
Isaacs looked skyward.<br />
<br />
"About the only thing that I can think of that could do this sort of thing," he said, "are helicopters.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">O</span>ther than that, though, Saturday morning turned out to be a great day to make molasses in Rockingham County.<br />
<br />
Dawn came gray and cloudy, just as a trailer loaded down with the cut sorghum was drawn up near an old tractor powered cane press, the engine turned on, and 81-year-old Frank Hopkins took his seat to begin a seven-hour stint of feeding in stalks one at a time.<br />
<br />
As the press did its relentless work the juice flowed, first into a bucket, and then down a pipe and into a large vat above a wood burning fire where it was constantly stirred and skimmed as it thickened.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRSszS7L2chZZunPFjqWRARDmdR3dgLvNjBG9A0cO9rZYMZ2ztfUuy2xpUWusEG4HIC3j3Ym1sbbv_3z1I0ghdMbRCOWX3P1dRVTytj4WFjrktEBiL8LypyLTom2NL9TsiMTAYKJa557s/s1600/molasses+054.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRSszS7L2chZZunPFjqWRARDmdR3dgLvNjBG9A0cO9rZYMZ2ztfUuy2xpUWusEG4HIC3j3Ym1sbbv_3z1I0ghdMbRCOWX3P1dRVTytj4WFjrktEBiL8LypyLTom2NL9TsiMTAYKJa557s/s400/molasses+054.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steam rises from the vat of molasses. Care must be taken to prevent<br />
the thickening syrup from scorching so it is constantly being stirred</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Steam rose into the cool air. Gradually 75 gallons of sorghum juice boiled down to a creamy smooth brown syrup.<br />
<br />
Sorghum molasses — especially the<br />
slow-cooked kind like Isaacs and his partner, Jimmy Jones, were making — is subtler in flavor than the sugar cane molasses found in stores. It is also lighter in flavor and more suited for pouring on pancake and waffles — and is especially good on fresh-baked hot-buttered biscuits.<br />
<br />
And like wine it gradually changes as it ages, developing a more complex taste and is said to reach its peak only after about three to four years.<br />
<br />
While it's cooking, judging when the syrup is ready to be pulled and canned is tricky. Too soon and it will have a "green" taste and will never fully ripen in the jar. Cooked too long and it can lose the subtle flavor that distinguishes it from its more robust cousin, sugar cane molasses, or scorch if the fire is too hot.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">F</span>or some reason this year Isaacs' batch is taking a long time to cook.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDPHqe1cUTH9Tq45H4w5xLX9q6RI5pmjkswhfN9eODagp0Sd2nsuvNRTQrB-Fgg4Iq_zpGBFHQVTpKcsw3MdYeXcnTThRX-z6qtYTaoplUxjeU2JF84heIJDcX3CyiDYA2IWafYyNMNAk/s1600/molasses+048.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDPHqe1cUTH9Tq45H4w5xLX9q6RI5pmjkswhfN9eODagp0Sd2nsuvNRTQrB-Fgg4Iq_zpGBFHQVTpKcsw3MdYeXcnTThRX-z6qtYTaoplUxjeU2JF84heIJDcX3CyiDYA2IWafYyNMNAk/s320/molasses+048.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A curious bystander watches.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
"Last time we were done by three o'clock," he says. Now it is almost five and the light is fading from the sky.<br />
<br />
There are reasons for the inconsistencies. Everything from how much rain fell during the year, to how much sun, to when it was harvested go into making each batch unique.<br />
<br />
But finally, after much sampling it is pronounced ready.<br />
<br />
From the cooking vat it is drawn off into a larger container with a spigot, and from there canned sterilized pint, half-pint and quart jars. Samples are passed around.<br />
<br />
"Good," is the verdict. "Worth waiting for," is another.<br />
<br />
Isaacs smiles. Next year, he says, if the Feds don't terrorize his crop again maybe there will be more.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-7173265424552790462012-11-05T21:21:00.000-05:002012-11-06T12:57:30.104-05:00Blows of the Hurricane<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">T</span>oday the sun shone brilliantly in a clear sky, warming the bus and making it comfortable to write. But I am not comfortable. It has been a week now since Sandy battered the Northeast causing untold destruction. Each day as millions continue without power, and many without heat, it seems the world has been turned upside down. This is the kind of devastation you only expect in war, and even then rarely so much all at once.<br />
<br />
The question is not will the Northeast recover? Cities, towns and neighborhoods always recover — eventually.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEN-7wSQLj6YIpl3w-jX9kkzPmGM3tW71WboJWXD58s5OSfS8L8HBLBSntR3ZDP9zkhkrNyaoDrN61zicztHlrwTJ9bpo2eaMZzrDtrCmYJtQOK3_SsyER-KBMct0qA72qa3cDaMuBRcM/s1600/007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEN-7wSQLj6YIpl3w-jX9kkzPmGM3tW71WboJWXD58s5OSfS8L8HBLBSntR3ZDP9zkhkrNyaoDrN61zicztHlrwTJ9bpo2eaMZzrDtrCmYJtQOK3_SsyER-KBMct0qA72qa3cDaMuBRcM/s320/007.JPG" width="320" /></a>The question is will life ever be the same again? And for many the answer is likely no.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span> drove through New Orleans a year and a half ago, more than five years after hurricane Katrina walloped the Big Easy, and was shocked to see how many buildings remained empty and boarded up, and how many neighborhoods remained nonfunctioning.<br />
<br />
Now the Big Apple, like the Big Easy, has been pounded and knocked to the canvas; and many, many small towns and communities, like trees in the storm, have been torn up by their roots.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5JUV8xQQtnmIu0o-Hnp1Q-c9Fix_0VqQGG6NLjOtcahw9Tm5EWfa2O_JWZs_Zoi5IdeiOFuQSXQ0ks1qnczIvFQhvO-i8RE0qiwm_2_TiwrGpAzxNah1YiCQ9w8fQ1PjzKRLz2_CJgf0/s1600/008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5JUV8xQQtnmIu0o-Hnp1Q-c9Fix_0VqQGG6NLjOtcahw9Tm5EWfa2O_JWZs_Zoi5IdeiOFuQSXQ0ks1qnczIvFQhvO-i8RE0qiwm_2_TiwrGpAzxNah1YiCQ9w8fQ1PjzKRLz2_CJgf0/s320/008.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">A</span>s I write a sparrow flies inside and seems not to notice as I type. He flits from perch to perch before flying out.<br />
<br />
I am reminded months before how a damselfly flew inside and stayed the whole of the day. When I reached out to her she landed on my finger.<br />
<br />
There is a connection we all have, each to the other, even to sparrows and insects.<br />
<br />
To paraphrase the poet, ask not on whom the blows of the hurricane fall. They rain down on all of us.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06411954902917229743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5542022772372496450.post-50432024128220816462012-10-31T22:55:00.002-04:002012-11-13T10:32:20.819-05:00The Bus Stops Here<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">I</span>t's no longer August. Or September. Or October. Fall leaves garnish the trees and wisps of wood smoke curl out of chimneys and into the air.<br />
<br />
My bus now is parked beside a grove of trees in North Carolina following a long trip across the country. Winter is coming. It is time to take a break. Time to write a book.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Rdgdu1Y8ApdRHOnyM6gtMeUobfct6qm3IqEq_Nn8cWdF4vhOBOsIcelr6iUY3lJAR5nVHbNZdwkfDxtWf1CLygAxZTMVOrXEhvfDm1GCj9Ea1lcfTCx_YENmMBTrNqpO7A3lQOEWyg8/s1600/bourguignon+dinner.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Rdgdu1Y8ApdRHOnyM6gtMeUobfct6qm3IqEq_Nn8cWdF4vhOBOsIcelr6iUY3lJAR5nVHbNZdwkfDxtWf1CLygAxZTMVOrXEhvfDm1GCj9Ea1lcfTCx_YENmMBTrNqpO7A3lQOEWyg8/s320/bourguignon+dinner.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #3d85c6;">My brother Will hosts a beef bourguignon dinner at his<br />home near Gettysburg on the eve of his 70th birthday.</span></i></td></tr>
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The two-week journey from New Mexico to North Carolina, by way of a family birthday and reunion in Pennsylvania, was a good one without incident — except for leaving my gas cap at a Shell station in Santa Fe and smelling fumes at night trying to sleep under the stars.<br />
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The country in September had an hushed tone prelude to melancholy autumn, as though it sensed the coming of a bitter election and a rampaging storm that would savage the east.<br />
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There were complaints In Dodge City, Kansas, Mike Casey, owner of Casey's Cowtown Steakhouse and Club sat down at our table.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_gR_xabqD46Ctf9hU9WdEp3TG-bqfW_lrHukmHeUVSj2YGjF5TDfoaIjlo7_cH2l5BDV2jHJQo3d31Lc1WN-iLngTKuddd5KUm-11eWgOAoIzAQ5WYuX6RzepXDSfJMkbzW7Dicw8DZM/s1600/mike+casey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_gR_xabqD46Ctf9hU9WdEp3TG-bqfW_lrHukmHeUVSj2YGjF5TDfoaIjlo7_cH2l5BDV2jHJQo3d31Lc1WN-iLngTKuddd5KUm-11eWgOAoIzAQ5WYuX6RzepXDSfJMkbzW7Dicw8DZM/s200/mike+casey.jpg" width="80" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike Casey </td></tr>
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"I lost $14,000 last year just staying open. People are still coming but not spending like they used to . Now everyone watches pennies." It's Friday night at the steaks are good but the mood inside is sober. Mike shows off the art he collects and sells on the walls. <br />
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Back at the Gunsmoke Trav-L-Park at the edge of Dodge where we are staying two roustabouts from the booming oil fields of North Dakota pull in.<br />
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"Good pay and a lot of work up there," one says. "But no place to stay or even park an RV. Crazy."<br />
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They were at Casey's the night before and will try Montana Mike's, another steakhouse, this night. Although the RV park is almost full we find it is for sale.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Sv4_1OKAIlKUs6MmjXDutI8qxMydNm6QIgQ0j5r1daZJjXtaejwatrqj1ocVs7ptfbqOQvv8CfsaL4Eatp2lc_gN3MeR-UWwD_CoPAfQokiPmYYq8rISVITdKOuUJVjzKvdf9IMzoZg/s1600/for+sale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Sv4_1OKAIlKUs6MmjXDutI8qxMydNm6QIgQ0j5r1daZJjXtaejwatrqj1ocVs7ptfbqOQvv8CfsaL4Eatp2lc_gN3MeR-UWwD_CoPAfQokiPmYYq8rISVITdKOuUJVjzKvdf9IMzoZg/s320/for+sale.jpg" width="320" /></a> It seems everyone wants to get out of Dodge these days, a city that in six years, from 1872 to 1878, shipped 3 million buffalo hides on the railroad that ran through and gave it birth. Later it became a shipping center for beef as ranchers moved in and replaced the bison with cattle. For miles in all directions today are feedlots, some stretching almost to the horizon.<br />
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America has a beef habit and Kansas feeds it. In the morning we start our little four-cylinder engine and push on.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9juGP47x0TiiCwjP4M1uLCN4bCfE4co2VYn7C-3VroLl36WEbLaGjH73H6xDH-fPz2C8WRC4CG6kYpKjUj2nL-y4TDcWtwXxXejNw-RjjF4zzfSPdCDycs3a3ohcZd9eameiWqQW6Tic/s1600/Santa+Fe+020a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9juGP47x0TiiCwjP4M1uLCN4bCfE4co2VYn7C-3VroLl36WEbLaGjH73H6xDH-fPz2C8WRC4CG6kYpKjUj2nL-y4TDcWtwXxXejNw-RjjF4zzfSPdCDycs3a3ohcZd9eameiWqQW6Tic/s320/Santa+Fe+020a.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Bosque del Apache -- the bus stops here</i></td></tr>
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Getting to Kansas required some doing and some sightseeing and discoveries along the way. Leaving Truth or Consequences New Mexico our first stop was Bosque del Apache to the north, one the the nation's premier waterfowl watering holes for migratory birds on their way south. We were too early for the bird traffic, which peaks in mid November, but enjoy the peace of early fall under magnificent New Mexico skies.<br />
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There we meet a volunteer full-timer arriving early to work at the large preserve. At Bosque grains are planted to further aid the birds on their journey south. This year the Festival of Cranes is November 13-18. <br />
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During the night the desolate sound of trains passing by, sounding their horns as hey carry coal southto El Paso.<br />
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We leave early the next day en route to Santa Fe. We feast at a Mexican restaurant on Cerrillos Road, Tortilla Flats, drink dark beer and go to bed exhausted.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsbk4KbJnuYVvLawv5S6BywX14hMAhBj4z2QIAMJmtkwO5DzMQZjQfGnvqdhZjroQxmTwP0TxDkVm1nhOvByO86lvH4u8VRLO3txkU_Em4LasIJEBiICFuPp0nkzTUjOW90CrMxB_JDE0/s1600/more+birds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsbk4KbJnuYVvLawv5S6BywX14hMAhBj4z2QIAMJmtkwO5DzMQZjQfGnvqdhZjroQxmTwP0TxDkVm1nhOvByO86lvH4u8VRLO3txkU_Em4LasIJEBiICFuPp0nkzTUjOW90CrMxB_JDE0/s320/more+birds.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Cranes, like airborne origami, at sunrise.</i></td></tr>
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We spend two days visiting Santa Fe and touring art galleries on Canyon Road. We find a gem. Mirador Gallery owned by David Bau who began bringing in contemporary Tibetan art — some of it smuggled out of the country under the noses of Chinese overlords — and putting it on display.<br />
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Please see <a href="http://www.miradorgallery.com/tibetan-contemporary-masters/" target="_blank">Tibetan Contemporary Masters</a>.<br />
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Bau is an easy-going guy who sits on the window sill and talks not about art but about living.<br />
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"I can't believe this is what I am doing every day, coming here. This isn't work. This is life as I thought life should be." <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Tibetan Mickey</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCLNk7di74E6-NRYTgi0etcVtElYAwfFPvuz9mDNA0ZTl7dzPQ3ylwytrYTDnvpXEiXSzoRSdIANP4gILTIYWa397cnGnwuvnem8NIf9JGf5AoAkD7WNrPOG0zEOMReItaOwfSmrgh9eA/s1600/Taos+004a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCLNk7di74E6-NRYTgi0etcVtElYAwfFPvuz9mDNA0ZTl7dzPQ3ylwytrYTDnvpXEiXSzoRSdIANP4gILTIYWa397cnGnwuvnem8NIf9JGf5AoAkD7WNrPOG0zEOMReItaOwfSmrgh9eA/s200/Taos+004a.JPG" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>David Bau</i></td></tr>
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In the back is a small restaurant. No high pressure sales here as is some galleries. The owner, art and gallery are as one.<br />
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There is much to see and do in Santa Fe — and we do. But there is a long journey ahead. Almost 2000 miles. So we head north to El Santuario del Chamiyo halfway on the way to Taos where miracles are said to have happened. And where we meet Father Casimiro Roca, a 94-year-old priest, who says the church will not let him retire.<br />
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