Traveling Alone: Let them know where you are

I am nearing 16 years as a traveling guy for a Fortune 500 and the side benefits are out of this world.  I personally have managed to visit all 50 states as probably many of of you all have.

Most of us have a little spot in us that gives that drive to do that special interest that appeals to you deeply.   I believe there's one TFA whose soul purpose is to visit a Starbucks in every state and there's one I know that can't pass up a chicken and waffle restaurant.  One of us out there collects Harley Davidson pins and visits a US National Park every chance he gets.  All these penchants are fun and usually do not expose you to any inherent dangers.

For me, it's photography and when I get that call for a new assignment, I start hitting google maps trying to figure out where and what I want to shoot.  However, I seem to sometimes get in a jam with my avocation.  You just need to think about your surroundings and be careful.  Things and situations can change quickly.

Case(s) in point:
Years ago, the HQ Team Leader called and sent me to Oregon.  Being from Louisiana, I was just mesmerized at the mountains as I drove south to Roseburg stopping often to snap a picture thinking I'd eventually run out of mountains.  Once there, I began to hear about Crater Lake so that was all I could think of until the weekend came.
 

When Saturday arrived, I pulled out my maps (no GPS for me then) and struck out on my quest.  Riding along, I noticed a waterfall coming off the side of a steep hill so I pulled over, grabbed my camera and began climbing a pile of rocks to get that perfect and up close shot of the cascade but as I began to make my way down,  my foot slipped on a mossy rock and found myself bouncing off a half dozen boulders before I came to a rest in a heap 15 feet below.

My camera was OK but I managed to break an elbow.   In pain, I continued on to Crater lake and took a couple of pics before getting back to the room and dosing up on ibuprofen until I could see a doctor the next day.


Then there was the time at an annual conference in Saint Louis that I got the brilliant idea to go downtown and take a picture of the Gateway Arch at night.  It was a full moon.  I parked my car and made my way to the plaza, wandered around a while to choose how I was going to do my shot.  Not having a tripod, I had to lay down on the concrete,  propped the front of my lens on a book and sited through the viewfinder and squeezing off a dozen or so different shots with various exposures. 

As I fidgeted with my settings, I caught the glimpse of a very large foot next to my head.  Now, if you're lying prostrate on the ground in an unusual place, there are just not many options for a quick escape if there's trouble.  While there were people off at a distance, I was pretty much alone.

Not wanting to make any sudden moves, I slowly turned my head to the direction of the pair of well worn boots and traced the image with my eyes upward to reveal the face of a guy bigger than me with lots of hair and big nasty beard.

"Something I can help you with?", I asked.  It sounded pretty dumb but I was at a loss for words and I was making a vain attempt at appearing cool and not appearing as a victim here.

"Got a buck?", he grunted.

Without a word, I slowly reached into my left jeans pocket, felt a bill and slowly pulled it out and handed to him.  I have no idea how much I gave him.  It could have been a buck or it could have been a twenty.  I didn't know or care at that point and was hoping he wouldn't produce a knife, hammer or screwdriver.

"Thanks!", he said and wandered off into the dark as I pondered if I needed that one more shot of the fountain and arch.   Things could have gone so wrong.


Once while in New Mexico, I thought stopping off at a turn out near Cloudcroft and climbing down into a canyon in search of a small waterfall might be a grand idea.  There was one other car so it had to be safe, right?  Anyway, I took a cell phone pic of the license plate of my car along with the GPS tagging and emailed it to my brother letting him know where I was in case I really didn't come back.

Finally, after crawling down lots of boulders and not encountering rattlesnakes, I reached the bottom of the arroyo and began get my photo groove on.  Somewhere in the distance, I heard thunder.  How nice, it might rain and be cool.  Then I notice a log lodged in the middle of a tree limb about 8 feet above my head.  Yikes, his could become a flash flood in minutes!   I quickly gathered up my camera bag and began crawling back up the boulders not so careful this time.  As an old guy 20 years away from being in shape, I began to wheeze and pant for breath.   I could hear someone coming up the canyon behind me and they were moving fast.  Not to appear in trouble I quickly sat under a mesquite bush and played like I was taking pictures of the surroundings, just as this 30 something local and a couple of teenage kids scurried by me.


The older asked, "You OK, Sir?  You need help?"  I'm certain he noticed the bright red complexion of my face and felt sorry for me.  I tried to appear non-nonchalant and said, "Oh no, I'm fine. Thanks for asking."  I was such a liar.

After they left I took another 20 minutes to get a few more feet to my car.  I called my brother to let him know I was back to my rental.  He said he would have been calling the cops in another 30 minutes if I hadn't called.  As it turned out, I'd injured my knee and developed an infection with a lot of pain that took weeks of meds to cure.

I've got a ton of similar tales but the important thing to remember (particularly for me) is to be aware of your limitations, let someone else know where you are and if possible, don't travel alone in unknown places.   Nowadays, I have an app on my phone that my wife can tap into that will reveal my whereabouts within 100 feet.  I'm long past caring about that kind of privacy and still email my family the license plates of my rental cars.

Thanksgiving in New Mexico

I've been working in Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico again so instead of flying home for the holidays, Ms Darlene flew out so we could cruise around from Albuquerque through Santa Fe and Taos.



Our first night (Wednesday) was in Santa Fe where we wandered around the Old Town sector and eating at a local restaurant called The Shed.

It's quite common for people to put out luminaries during holiday seasons.  Luminaries originally were paper bags with a candle in them.  We saw newer versions in store that amounted to a plastic version of the bag with battery powered candles in them.

For Thanksgiving Day, we made our way up to Taos and the Taos Ski Valley which had just opened for the season after receiving a bit of snow.  Unfortunately, Angel Fire was not due to open until later on in December.

Instead of taking the quick way up, we took the scenic route stopping often for the views.

  We were amused at how tame the deer seemed to be as we rode around the homes at Angelfire.

Our memorable Thanksgiving meal was a chicken sandwich from the ski shop but that's OK, we didn't over eat. 

We sat and watched the skiers for quite a while, marveling at the age of some on the slopes.



One little girl we talked to was only 4 and already quite the enthusiast.

Friday after Thanksgiving we drove around the Enchanted Circle through towns like Eagles Nest, Red River, Sipapu and Questa.  Red River and Sipapu had small ski slopes open and seemed to attract families on a budget.



 On past Questa, we drove across the Rio Grande Gorge bridge just north of Taos.  Now, that's a deep ditch.  After a walk halfway across it and back again, we enjoyed the sundown in the square in Taos.






The last night in Taos found us shopping for....well, just the sake of shopping but eventually wound up in El Prado and had dinner at Orlando's.

 Orlando's is pretty popular and located in an older, bright colored home with a fire pit outside. The only problem I had was while we waited outside at the fire pit, they would call people's names to be seated and the speaker was so loud, when it went off I nearly threw my cell phone in the fire...twice.







 Saturday we removed ourselves from Taos and headed back to Santa Fe in time to wander a bit more in the Old Town.

Visiting the cathedral there.
 

We had been advised to check out the crepes at a French bakery.

 Just as it began to darken, they lighted up the trees in the square where local musicians sang and drummed.

Over all we really enjoyed our 5 day weekend and ended it by driving back to Albuquerque to meet up with one of Darlene's long lost cousins.  The best part was we didn't have to eat Mexican food and enjoyed ourselves at Pappadeaux's cajun restaurant of all places.

So, Monday morning I put Ms Darlene on the plane and headed back south for Truth Or Consequences.

Yeeeeeeee.....haaaa!!!

I've been in Alamogordo for four months now and any assignment, good or bad, has to end.  Due to news I've heard from the home office, this could very well be my last weekend here.  However, that's not a definite.

This is the Otero County Fair weekend and I'm a fan of fairs, especially in small towns where everyone tries to get involved.  Aside from the usual handicrafts, jellies and photos there's the livestock competitions.  For anyone never going to one like this, they have missed out on all the elements involving the senses.  Temperatures have cooled some but this place is dry so when there is any movement,  the dust is stirred and hangs in the air.   With that and the smoke from barbeques, there is a light haze over everything.

As for smells, it's a unique combination of the charcoal smoke and the livestock.  Every other ride has music blaring, bingo callers yelling "G 19!", pigs squealing, chickens squawking and throngs of unlovely people laughing and talking.

My particular interest was the rodeo so I climbed up into the bleachers and sat on some of the hardest wood I've had my backside on in years.  As I sat around a wide mixture of young and old, I could hear part of conversations begin in English, merge into local Spanish and back again into English. I suppose that's Spanglish.

As for the rodeo itself, it was run by a small rodeo company that provided the bucking bulls, horses and calves.  It was complete with two rodeo clowns that cracked some of the most corny politically incorrect comments and jokes I've heard in ages.  I loved it.

Enough with the ramblings.  Here's some pictures.  Clicking on the photos will enlarge them some.

The usual Ferris wheels and rides

 

The Merry-Go-Round had seen better days

 Rodeo Queens (also contestants)

 Saddled Bronc Busters

Some went the full 8 seconds

Women's Calf Roping

 

Bareback

Then there were the Bull Riders

I'm pretty certain there were no qualifications in this.

At any rate, it was a very pleasant evening and everyone

had a good time.......except maybe for some of the horses, 

calves and bulls.

Birds and Bees Weekend

There's not much story to tell, other than riding around hoping to take pictures of smaller things this weekend.

The first part was Friday afternoon south of town at a local state park, where I was continually watching for rattlesnakes.  Thinking (maybe my imagination was going wild)  I heard a light rattle, I changed directions and in doing so, a large Jackrabbit hopped across the trail and scared me.  I believe I've seen deer that size in south Texas.  Anyway, the only slinking thing I positively saw was a couple of lizards.

In a small cluster of flowers, there were quite a bit of honey bees gathering pollen.

Saturday afternoon, I rode up into the mountains east of town near Sunspot.  Way out in the boondocks, I was attracted to a small waterfall near where a group of ATV enthusiasts were camping.  This time, I figured if I fell off the side of the thing, somebody might be able to rescue me.

The best part of the whole thing was a patch of gypsum weeds and thistles growing in the delta of the falls.  Dozens hummingbirds of a couple of different varieties battled for the choice flowers.  I was totally absorbed it it and shot birds until it was really too dark to be doing so.

All of these pictures were taken with a Nikon D7000 with a Tamron 60mm prime lens.  As for the bird pictures, I was not able to get very close so most of the pictures have been cropped from a larger shot, as much as 400%.

Here's a few.

 

 

 

I am not sure what this was.  It was much larger than the Hummers 

and looked quite a bit like a parakeet.

 

 

 This is not a bird but some kind of huge insect.

 

As I mentioned before, dark came much earlier than I wanted, so I left and drove slowly, being careful not to hit any of the several deer that stood on the edge of the road.

Beautiful sundowns as usual.

 

Beautiful day in the neighborhood

OK, I'm gonna have to 'fess up here.  A couple of weeks ago, I may have overdone it a bit climbing around in the canyons, causing an old knee injury to reappear.  That with the added stress of moving this past weekend rendered me down to virtually incapable of getting around without the aid of a cane.  However, with the aid of some nice meds from my doctor back in Baton Rouge, the swelling has significantly dropped but there is a little pain left.

That being said, sitting around in the hotel room is pretty boring.   Looking out the window and seeing the mountains to the east, I thought maybe I could ride up to Sunspot and perhaps see some wildlife along the way.

I did just that but larger animals were elusive today and saw only flowers, birds, bees and the occasional squirrel along some of the small roads.

Today, I decided to be amazed at God's creations in macro mode.

Bigger is not always better, especially looking up close at some of the flora.

My Secret Is Out....

...I'm not 21 anymore. 

It looks like my tenure in New Mexico may be coming to an end and this could be my last weekend here for a while.  No promises but there are elements out there that are pointing in that direction.

So, to take in the a few more sights, I drove up toward Ruidoso Saturday just to see anything that might spark my interests.

About half way up, passing through the Indian Village of Mescalero, I happened up on a local parade celebrating something of what I know not.  I stopped for a while to look but unfortunately, wasn't able to get close enough before the parade was over.

Sunday afternoon found me out scouting for sights again when I remembered someone telling me about some waterfalls in the canyon going up to Cloudcroft.

With a backpack full of extra water, some emergency supplies and my camera, I gingerly made my way down the edge of the canyon.  The canyon was about 250 feet deep and 300 feet wide with sharp cliffs  along the way.  On the side next to the road, there was more of an opportunity to crawl down and many people had done so.

I emailed (GPS enabled) a cell phone photo of the back of my rental car to my brother, telling him to send the calvary if I didn't call or text him back in 2 or 3 hours, then started descending.  I won't say this was mountain climbing but the grade was loose small rocks that slipped from under my feet, making me grab larger boulders and small trees on the way down and use my tripod as a walking staff.

Getting to the bottom a small stream flowed over the rocks causing several little waterfalls.  It was cool there and gave quite a relief from the 100° temperatures down in the basin.  I snapped a few photos and talked to a few young people who came down as well.

Within 30 minutes, I felt a few drops of rain and noticed the clouds darkening and thought being in a narrow canyon might not be the best place to be. 

The trip up was entirely different than coming down.   Now, the backpack seemed twice as heavy and the rock that I had slid on coming down, now required crawling up on all fours.  It had taken me 20 minutes to get down but now, I was stopping every 5 minutes to catch a breath in the 6,000 ft altitude.

Others had started coming up too and teenage boys scrambled past me trying to get to their cars before the rain and lightening became worse.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped to let my pounding heart catch up, catch a breath and ponder what in the world made me think going down there was a good idea.  At one point, I sat and pondered what I would do if I could not continue and no one else came along.  The cell phone showed no signal available and the ground was not flat enough to sleep on.

Finally, I mustered up enough energy to get to the top where I sat in the car for a good 10 minutes with the air conditioner blowing hard while I recovered.

I confess, the reason it was hard on me was,

•  I'm not in shape, 
• the altitude was 6,000+ and........
•  I'm just not 21 years old anymore.