Reruns at Campo

It was both odd and nice to leave Yuma and not have to look at a map, for I know the way to the RR museum. Roaming around as I do, this is rare.

I got lots of warm welcoming emails when I said I was coming back, and lots of hugs from those who are up here so far. It seems I am a member of the family, and that getting things done and having some laughs are looked forward to. Very gratifying to be appreciated.

I had wondered if coming here was going to make me really miss Don, and I have had a few moments where I expected him to come around the corner in his striped RR man overalls, and some moments when there was something I really wanted to tell him. But pretty much it’s OK about that.

However, I have returned just about at the time when we left last year, in the middle of the preparations for the dreaded Bunny Train. This is an attempt to build riders on the train, by giving some added value. This consists of an Easter Egg Hunt for plastic eggs (which must be re-hidden twice a day) and then some crafty time (all of which has to be set up twice a day), and all of this cleaned up at the end of the day. This only happens on Saturdays, and Sundays but it is a LOT of work, and then there are the rather half hearted attempts to decorate the big train display building.

Until this year, the riders paid no extra, and quite a bit of money was spent on candy and etc, which we hardly have enough of in any case, and this year especially.

It has been a really hard year for PSRM.

They set some small fires, and put them out, but CalFire decided that the entire way had to be cleared of all vegetation for 25 feet on both sides. This included 40 year old trees and was way more than needed (we suspect someone made a political faux pas to get them so mad at us). The entire broiling summer was spent doing this clearing, exhausting and discouraging the volunteers, and as we could not run any trains, no income came in. The trains began to run again in Sept.

Our monthly trip down into Mexico, which has always been a good money maker, is stopped due to a fire in one of the tunnels. The Mexican gummet says they intend to fix it, but no one knows when.

Right now, we have very few riders, and so on alternate weekends run a small railbus, taking riders to a truck museum and to another history museum. This requires less personnel to run and less fuel. And on top of that, we have fewer and fewer folks who are qualified and willing to run the trains, and a general sense that those who do know how don’t want to train new ones.

My personal problem is with the woman who is president. She has a noisy and unpleasant personality, and generally bad mouths everyone, often to their face. She has run off three very useful workampers with her tactless behavior, and I suspect she is making it less and less fun to be at the museum for all the volunteers. She comes with her 4 children who shriek and smack each other just as she shrieks and smacks them. I can hardly keep my mouth shut. Last year I didn’t after she was complaining about something I did ( some asshole….) and told her off but good. I’m now, after an afternoon with them of decorating for the Bunny Train, feeling much the same way: tired of working too hard, and tired of listening to her, and all for nothing.

Today, Sunday, I had no assigned duties, so I stayed away. And watched as our guests had to walk from the depot to the display building, instead of getting even a railbus ride. The railbus is too balky to use, our small engine is up on blocks until the wheels are unsharpened and replaced, and the big diesel is needing its maintenance. These are all very elderly vintage beasts, so it’s a little to be expected. But it all adds to a general feeling that my beloved museum is at a very low point.

During the week, I will continue to do projects on the rehab of the little depot. So far, I’m priming and painting 40 + sheets of t-111 siding. It is picky, thirsty stuff, so it goes very slow, but it feels useful and mostly I get to do it in peace and quiet.

I drove up to Julian to meet my friends from Tucson, where we shopped and ate lunch, and then wandered and shopped to make room for the famous Julian Apple Pie. (Although I actually had strawberry rhubarb). It is a nifty drive there with mountain views around every curve, and I came back another way that follows the edge of the Anza Borrego desert far below. I have to get there soon, the wildflowers will be amazing after all this rain.

Mostly it is very peaceful here, and the weather is good. I can look out over the big grassy field with the cows and their calves, watch the local feral cats and coyotes hunt in the sage brush. It will be good to stay put for a while, where I know where the bank and the stores are, and where to get a hair cut, and generally what to expect day by day. Although I have referred to this place as our museum, I feel less and less attached to it, and less inclined to worry about its problems. I can’t really do much about them, just paint and fix and clean a little while I’m here. Kind of like a part of my family that has to make its own way.

Lizard

It was so cold and rainy in Campo, that I really could not bear to stay another minute. I had some painting I should have finished, but after 4 days of what would be NE March weather, I’m heading for the desert.

Down out of the wild jumble of boulders , the Laguna Mountains, and out onto the flat, warm desert. I aimed for Yuma to say hi to an old friend of Don’s and meet her new man, but they are off for a summer of RVing the next day, so I spend an hour with them and hit the road the next morning.

It’s in the 70’s, and clear and sunny and windy, just perfect. I pass through the endless flats of rocks and sand with only a few tough creosote bushes, the cocoa colored mountains in the distance. Where the great canals of Colorado River water cut through, there are huge hayfields and huge dairy operations, then it’s back to nothing. It occurred to me that although methane from cow poop worries some folks, they only mention the beef lots, or the pig lots, never these vast dairy herds. There must be thousands of cows at each milk factory, all merrily making cowploppers and methane, but milk is so sacred to our idea of food, that no one says a word. (That I hear, anyway).

Yuma has a lot of growing and packing facilities, once you get back from the highway and the endless snowbird campgrounds and subdivisions. Acres of hay, orange groves with airplane propellers on towers in case of frost. I wonder what it sounds like when they start them all up.

The last week in Campo was sort of a lesson for me. The other workampers left a week ahead of me, and so I was alone on the place during the week. I worked away at my jobs, cooked and ate my dinner, and watched TV. After a few days, I realized that I much prefer to have people around in the day time. I wasn’t scared or really lonely exactly, just missed talking and laughing and working with people. Bishop Berkeley* muttered darkly, “If I can’t see you, you can’t be you”. My mother used to say this. It is sort of a piece with the question:” If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” I mostly know who I am, and mostly like that, but after a few days of solitude I felt sort of indistinct, as though not being seen or heard made me fuzzy around the edges. I think it takes a mighty thinker, or perhaps a lunatic to be all alone for any length of time.

And yet, I’m very happy right here. Here is a place called Painted Rocks Petroglyph Site. It is just west of Gila Bend. Out in the middle of nowhere. A double jumble of basalt rocks had just the right amount of dark desert varnish to tempt the local pre historics into covering the south east side of the boulder pile with lizards and mazes and suns and more lizards and goats and what looks like a roadrunner. There is no minder here, and there are maybe 15 or 20 primitive sites to camp in for $4 with the old age pass.

I climbed around on the rocks taking pictures, and found that the other group looking there was REALLY annoying. There was one woman who was the guide, and spouted all sorts of stuff about the designs and the people who did them. We truly know very little about the people and have NO idea why they laboriously chipped all these creatures and designs into the rocks, but she knew it all, and told about asking a Navaho man about them that had the man in the maze T shirt on which she went on about inventively.

We are not supposed to have our dogs, but she brought hers, we aren’t supposed to climb all over the rocks, but she did and then the last straw, she called her dog and its name is Blessing Way. What a crock. Longing for the Noble Savage.

Anyway, they’re all gone now, and I’m here just soaking up the sun and warmth, and enjoying the quiet. Maybe that’s the difference. I came here for solitude, maybe for solace. I held the idea of being solo in the desert like this close while the bad days of September and November went by. And dreamed of it while I froze in TX, and ran my heater in NM. Last night in Yuma was the first time in what seems like a year that I slept with the windows all open, like a sleeping porch. Just what this camping machine was designed for. I took a nap sprawled on my bed, and have only a minimal amount of clothes on. Perfect. My lizard blood is finally hot enough to flow !

In the morning I squeezed out the last minutes of laptop battery and found there was a Geocache here, so the dog and I trooped off. Away from the “site”, were two more hillocks of basalt boulders, and the cache location showed me more petroglyphs on these “unofficial” hills. Not the crazy, dense concentration of the main site, but there they are. I suddenly started to look at any small hill of basalt rocks with a new eye: are there more petroglyphs there ? Is that where the Rosetta Stone of these mysteries might lie?

Happily back in Tucson now, at the best RV B&B in town, I’ve been in their pool twice, the windows are all wide open. Good!!!

Peeps

Marshmallow chicks, iconic, nearly tasteless, and fun to pull to bits.

I have mixed feelings about the confectionary industry in general and most especially when they high jack a religious holiday. Halloween, St. Valentine’s Day, Christmas and today, Easter.

From my window here at the RR Museum in Campo, I do see signs of rebirth, green green grass, with white calves running and bucking around their mothers. Tiny purple and yellow flowers, and rapturous birds, and best of all a frog chorus in the nights.

I was invited to go to church nearby, at a congregation of local Christians of all flavors. I am feeling perhaps shy to go, as I would only know one person, he has a girl friend and I sense thin ice if I were to turn up unattached. I think my sense of church is scattered and dispersed, I loved the great music filled high mass at St. Paul’s church in Cambridge, and was worn down by the local small church (with a drunken priest)where I raised my children. At St. Paul’s, the congregation is huge, and anonymous and mostly affiliated with Harvard. The congregation all sing with skill and gusto, and the world class mens and boys choirs are backed up by a superb pipe organ in a neo Romanesque church with good acoustics. It is really more concert than service. The sermons are erudite and topical. Partly due to decades of attendance, and partly due to some musical and intellectual snobbery, it is “church” to me, and most others are something else.

Church going is (or more properly was) an enormous piece of stable community life, where you are known, and prayed over and when bad things happen, a source of real and emotional support. Probably it is for some, but as a drifter, and a rather disenchanted Catholic, it is mostly a duty. Done to please someone else, done to conform, done a little in hopes of community and connection, but not a joy or much use to the muscles of my soul.

So, I am here, sitting in the sunshine, and eating Peeps. Instead of Sanctifying Grace, marshmallow. The official website, http://www.marshmallowpeeps.com/, will serve as an introduction to those who haven’t met a Peep, nor eaten one. Be prepared to be horrified. Then, if you dare, google Peeps, and you will find that the madness goes on and on. Folks delight in stop frame animation starring Peeps in costumes. Peeps can be seen in off color video clips, in various forms of massacres, and feeding frenzies. They are so vulnerable and so dumb looking, and so inert, that they incite people to all sorts of silliness. (Peeps jousting: arm two Peeps with tooth picks and set them in the microwave for about 25 seconds to see which one deflates the other. Note that they are not nummy after this and you may get burnt sugar. Google it for more.) For our Bunny Train, one child has a Peeps costume, and there is also a 3’ high inflatable Peep, and as you see, I was given an Easter Basket ( actually a Trader Joe’s reusable shopping bag) containing 4 different color Peeps, a Peeps lip balm (marshmallow scented cotton candy sic.) and Peeps bubbles. And a large stuffed Peep in blue which sort of resembles a large blue dollop of Cool Whip, or perhaps a blue cow plopper. I have finished the purple ones and am now happily working on the blue ones.

I note that an Australian paper has this headline: “Pope skirts paedophile scandal as Christians mark Easter.”

Yet another reason to sedate myself with marshmallow, enjoy the sunshine, and pray in my own quirky way that all those who read this, or who have met me or even seen me or just emailed me, will have a day of renewed hope, of renewed strength, and of peace.

Wet Desert

Wet Desert
This has been a banner year for rain in the Tucson area, and the desert is misty green with tiny plants that have waited years for just this moment. The iconic saguaro cactus, which has to be 65 years old to grow its first arm (!), is fat with stored water, and the first of what promises to be a whopping year for desert blooms are already showing.

I parked in the driveway of friends from the North Rim, in a 1960’s subdivision on the northern side of Tucson. Every yard here looks as though it was carefully landscaped with cacti and agave and palo verde in proper xeriscape manner, but a walk down the right of way for the power lines shows that this is what was here before the houses. Anywhere there is a tiny bit of water, the Sonoran Desert produces this wonderful thick thorny, 7 foot high tangle of prickly pear, palo verde, saguaro, creosote bush and who know who the others are. You can walk along the dry washes, but you can’t see much.

One evening the dog and I were walking at dusk and the local coyotes began their evening sing. I love this wild sound, it reminds me that the wild is right there, hiding under a bush, watching us and hoping we will leave something yummy to eat. Since one favorite snack is small dog, Pepe and I made a retreat.

A day or so later, the pack of 10 or so came galloping down the middle of the road, chasing something. They are tawny and sleek and very fast. Some came back up the road, ran back down again, and it dawned on me that some lovely young thing must have come into heat. Thrilling to see them.

The great sight of Tucson, besides the excellent mountains (you can ski up there!) is the Desert Museum. This is actually a zoo of sorts, with great attention to building natural habitats for the desert creatures that let us see them up close, but with minimal bars. A cougar lies blinking in the warm sun, two bobcats sit side by side peering down from their cliff, a band of javelinas ( NOT pigs says everyone, but well if it looks like…) sleeping in a heap, and a coyote posing in a rock and ignoring the attempts of everyone to get him to turn around for a photo. As humming birds are everywhere in this desert, and Tucson is on their flyway, they are given their own net house where you can walk among them, see a nest sitting mom, and get dive bombed by them as they chirp. The paths and exhibits are along a hillside over looking the Avra Valley, with distant mountains beyond.

This is a do not miss. If you love the desert, you will love it, and if you don’t have time to just go meditate out in the desert, this will give you a taste.

Another local sight, Sabino Canyon, was a great treat with all the water. A CCC built road takes you up the canyon on a tram and back down, with the usual guide remarks. Very scenic anyway, but the road has been designed to become a spillway when there is lots of water, so the tram drives right through the water, and the creek is rushing and leaping while the saguaro look down from the rocky walls. I took the tram up and walked down, taking off my shoes and wading through the water rushing over the bridges, I think there are 7 of them. I took my time, stopping to visit with flowers, and just looking up at the stony headlands above me, like a little kid soaking up sunshine in no hurry.

I found a museum of doll houses and spend a happy time looking at every one. I once had a doll house set up in a lawyers’ bookcase, I made a lot of the pieces, and love tiny foods and flower arrangements. I even sold some in a store back in MA. I sort of miss them, wonder if they are still in the attic of my old house. But what would I do with them now?

Tucson is a vast sprawl of subdivisions, mile after mile of them and every two miles or so another Mall and shopping cluster to serve that area. So the folks who live there don’t have to go far, but when I went to visit friends across town, it took forever, and looked like reruns over and over. The mountains are terrific, and the weather in winter is terrific, but it’s still a city. I will come back, to see my friends and do some other things

The friend in Yuma has company, so I will see her next time, I just spent the night and next day drove to Campo, to the Pacific Southwest Railroad Museum, where Don and I spend two wonderful winters. It seemed odd to set out without planning my route, but this is sort of home.

Petroglyphs

North of Las Cruces is the Three Rivers Petroglyph site. It has been on my radar for a while, and finally I got my truck back after a lot of needed but expensive repairs. I was thinking of leaving that Saturday, but a fellow HFH volunteer has been there before and suggested a trip, and I needed to test drive the truck , so off we went.

Up over the spectacular Organ mountains, still snowy on top, and then into the vast basin of White Sands. Oh look ! We’re at the beach ! And then north.

Three Rivers Petroglyph site is a small ridge of basalt boulders at the juncture of three dry arroyos. The Jornada Mongollon were the folks who made them, between 700 and 1000 A.D. They were a semi-nomadic tribe, hence “jornada”, but beyond that, we know little. They lived in pit houses, hardly more than animal burrows, and did some crop raising. And, for reasons we will never know, they painstakingly pecked designs and figures on the boulders, chipping off the dark layer of “desert varnish” (an oxidized skin) to expose the lighter rock beneath.

We take the low road, a faint path along the base of the hill; we are hoping to find a certain petroglyph, a large face, that is not on the marked path, so we walk the lower slopes.

We see a carving, then another, and then denser and denser clusters of them, until we are almost giddy with the wonder of these ancient pictures.

There are animals, mountain sheep, roadrunners, quail, ducks, turtles, snakes, cranes, fish, mountain lions, and eagles. Although the bodies are sometimes filled with geometric shapes, these wonderful creatures are recognizable, lively, a realistic bestiary.

The human figures are generally smaller, less deft, and sometimes only part of the body is there. Masks glower at us, often set vertically wrapped over the sharp edge of a rock, sometimes they are realistic, some times more of a cartoon. Hands, life size, and feet, and the foot prints of bears and possibly big cats, wander among the other figures on the rocks.

The sun, or at least a circle surrounded by dots or rays, and what look like comets streak by, but there is no decoding the geometric designs. They are, to our eyes at least, pure abstracts, complex patterns that suggest the pottery, rug or basket designs of the tribes that will come later. Linked circles, boxed symbols, and occasionally a figure that might be a hallucination.

It would take hours to make these, and surely we are wandering among the efforts of years and years of work. It must have been very important to them to devote that time and effort, hunter gatherers don’t have any spare time for hobbies. But we have no idea what they mean, or why they did them. Well, we have lots of ideas. Some see the double circle google eyed figures as like Tlaloc, the Mexican rain god and suppose there was a connection of some sort. What were they saying, and to who? These were humans, like us, and maybe what we are seeing is just art, the need to decorate, to mark a place as our own, or to commemorate some event.

One particular design, on an upright rock, with the Sierra Blanca Mountains in the background, looks to me as though it has something to do with rain and thunderstorms over the mountain. Was there once an epic storm and floods, or was the effort to make this complex image a prayer of sorts that rain would come? Is it recorded history or a hoped for future?

I wondered if anyone has mapped them all, to see if there was a pattern in the location of certain signs. Maybe different family groups had their own particular signs, or had their own rocky area to work on. Maybe many tribes and families gathered here for a while to visit and feast and make these astonishing pictures.

They are to me endlessly fascinating. First is the fun of looking for them among the unmarked boulders, then that first sight of them. This initial look is often as powerful as coming around the corner of a museum and being struck by a “civilized” work of art. As I look longer, trying to decode, to understand, it is at once frustrating, humbling, and mystical. So much of the imagery is easy to recognize, and appreciate on a design level, but the pictures are clearly communications and we have no way of knowing what the message is for sure. Even more mysterious, the rock art world wide is disturbingly similar, providing fodder for all sorts of theories: hard-wired images in our DNA?, evidence of common ancestry? (in the Garden of Eden..) and of course rock carving visitors from outer space.

I want more of these cryptic messages and I want to know more about them, although they appear to defy any theories beyond hopeful speculation.

Read more here: http://www.desertusa.com/ind1/ind_new/ind7.html

On Sunday, I sadly pull away from the Habitat for Humanity site in Las Cruces. It was worthwhile on many levels, and now I will fit more builds into my roving plans.

On I-10, whatever angels are on duty paid attention. Apparently, an18 wheeler had rolled on its side and was blocking both westbound lanes, plus spilling fuel. The truckers on the CB were complaining and grousing, and spread the news that we were likely to be here for several hours. The angels saw to it that I stopped right beside the only exit for 20 miles, and so guided by the Border Patrol’s advice I and the rest of the traffic behind me drove around the mess. Unless they backed up, there were at least 2 miles of stopped traffic ahead of me that were stuck.

I navigated my way to friends’ house in Tucson, and will be parked in their driveway for a week or so.

Habitat

http://www.habitat.org/how/default.aspx

In many cites around the US and in many countries, the vision of the Fullers’ provides houses for those who can’t afford them. We the volunteers build, and the homeowners build right along side us. The homeowners pay back into HFH on a no interest loan, which buys the materials for the next house as well as funding the administrative expenses. Many of the volunteers are local people, but someone realized there was a mobile population of retirees that might like something useful to do, and started the RV Care-a-Vanner group. We are given a free (sometimes) full hook up camp spot for 35 hours of work a week and also doughnuts!

I’ve always had a hankering to do this since helping out during some rally at a build site, and when my job prospects all flew away, it occurred to me to give it a try. (or I listened to He who organizes my life…)

The camp spot is a parking lot in the middle of Las Cruces, and all the slots are filled with RV’s. Most of the people here have done many builds, and some in many places. The skill level varies along with the stamina, but everyone is cheerful, and helpful. If you read the website, you know that the Fullers were rich and unhappy in Atlanta and gave it all up for a Christian commune. There they developed the idea, and when Jimmy Carter helped with a build, HFH grew quickly.

Me, I am stiff and sore and my knees are tired of ladders, but I’m having a wonderful time and hope I can stay longer than next Sat. If not, I will be looking to do this again. There is a whiff of protestant earnestness; we begin the day with some sort of prayer. That’s fine, although the first week a woman read a lot from the Bible, and a daily lesson book and then her husband gave a long and hesitant prayer. It seemed too long and made assumptions about the rest of us that I found mildly irritating. So yesterday I jumped in and talked about Jesus, who as God could just make a chair in an instant, having to learn the fundamentals of carpentry from his father. Perhaps a few splinters and bad saw cuts were a way to be more human. This was met with much approval, so I guess others were as tired of too much institutionalized holiness as I was.

The second week is slow, we were way too efficient at putting up the sheet rock, and now have to wait until the professional mudder/taping crew is done, and the wall texture people, and we may get to paint on Friday. I’m sort of hoping someone will cancel so I can stay on.

Las Cruces has a magnificent mountain range to the east, the Organ Mountains. Good toothy profiles and a nice icing of snow. On Sunday I went geocaching on the western side of town where there is a slight rise and I drove up to see the whole city spread out with the mountains beyond. My geocaching was hampered by the recent rains which flooded two caches away, and by Darth Vader’s increasing starting difficulties. He is now at the truck Dr. getting a new alternator and starter motor. Ouch said my wallet, but he is due for these things, and deserves them. Once again, I managed to find a diesel truck lover to fix him

The Rio Grand runs right through here, and has been tamed to water 100’s of acres of pecan trees. (Actually, a lot of the water was taken out up stream already, the Rio Grand in Big Bend only has Mexican water in it.) The trees are planted in strict geometry, so driving through them is a little dizzying, and the ground beneath is swept absolutely clean. Why such tidiness? Harvesting pecans is an amusing process because picking the nuts is done by a giant machine with a giant hand that grabs the trunk of the tree and shakes it! Then giant sweepers drive up and down these tidy lanes picking them up off the ground. After that they go though some sort of sorting and cleaning. All this is done in the late fall, but this year’s rains have made the ground too muddy for the machines. I saw a video of the tree shaking and sweeping, but would love to see it all first hand. I’m a big fan of seeing how machines take over tedious agricultural work, especially when it duplicates human actions in an amusing way.

I have rarely been in a place where everyone is as nice as can be. We are here to do good, not to show off, (although the guys do a little bush peeing over who knows more about construction). Somehow, being warm and polite to each other is in the air, actively in the air. It remains to be seen if this flavor comes from the folks in charge here, this particular set of workers, or if all HFH centers are like this. “Where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day”. It’s good for me, as my tendency towards sailor-like language is in check even with the most stubborn sheet rock screw.

It turns out that I can stay another two weeks. There is a sort of extra spot right by the office that I have squeezed into. I like to think I have been useful, but they may also feel a little sorry for poor Daisy all by herself.

Carlsbad Caverns

This part of west Texas is called the Permian or Delaware Basin, it was surrounded by a coral reef when everything was a warm sea. The sea went away, the reef rose up and left a ring of limestone mountains. The Guadeloupe Mountains, the Franklin Mountains, Glass Mountain, all the remains of this reef, and tucked under the Guadeloupe Mountains are the enormous caverns called Carlsbad.

There are tours, some strenuous, but I took the standard walkway tour, through the Hall of the Giants, Fairyland, the Big House. The interior space is like a Gothic cathedral, sound carries in that cathedral way, and it is dimly lit as though by candles, and everywhere the limestone comes down in drips and sheets. Tiny apses filled with stalactites and straws, and huge columns like cauliflower or the Hindu temple columns that are covered with figures and animals.

Since it is off season now, there were very few people down there, 800 feet below the surface, and it was wonderfully quiet. The recent rains had percolated down through the rock and there were drips everywhere. Starting new columns, filling up the pools with limestone lily pads around the edges, and trying to start cave growths on the tarred walkway. It was most excellent.

After that I drove a loop over this ridge and down into the canyon. The rocks are crumbly, eroded and cracked and lots and lots of cactus and yucca and succulents cover the walls. Desert, dry, prickly, the greens soft and pale, the rocks weathered in browns and umbers.

I would like to come back here and explore more, when it’s not so cold.

Back down to Pecos, I’m still fascinated by the nodding pumps:

“Pump Jack also known as 'nodding donkey, oil derrick, pumping unit, horsehead pump, beam pump, sucker rod pump (SRP), grasshopper pump, thirsty bird and jack pump) is the overground drive for a reciprocating piston pump installed in an oil well. “(Wikipedia)

They are a version of a beam engine, often used for pumping, often run by steam in the old days, and the counterweight, flopping at its feet, extends the power, usually from electricity. I think I remember that they are set to sense when the oil below has seeped back into their shaft, so they can start sucking it up through the complicated system of tubes and valves.

Truthfully, I secretly think they are alive in some somnolent, ancient way. The metal of their bones, cables and tubes distilled from spirits lodged in the ore, and they sip away at the oil that was grasses and seaweeds and ferns long ago. They are the only moving thing in this vast flat place inside the ancient coral reef.

Back at the campground in Pecos, I am getting antsy. I want to be building stuff, to have something to do. I’m heading for NM, one more night and then I pull into the Habitat for Humanity lot and get to work.