A day on the road

The day was already warming up in Roswell when I woke up. It had never really cooled overnight. I took advantage of what might be my last Internet access for a while by checking up on emails and generally goofing around and then it was time to hit the road.

“Be Happy! You’re In Roswell!” proclaimed a billboard along highway seventy. I was happy, not for where I was but where I would be soon. The road. “Where’ve you been, old friend?” she asked as I rolled out of town. “It’s good to have you back.” The sun low at my back I headed out for Alamagordo and White Sands. There is no route between the two towns that is not scenic. I took the simple way, up the Hondo valley, through picturesque if decaying towns, cottonwoods lining Rio Hondo.

Ruidoso, nestled in the mountains, where gusty winds may exist, remains healthy based on income from Quarter Horse racing. I passed through for the first time in memory, waved hello, and on I went, into the Mescalero Apache Reservation. Past a little road called “A Little Road”, and down onto the desert floor. From there, south to White Sands to plunder the gift shop. There were no snow globes, but I found some other stuff to use instead. Then it was back north, to get a look at the inside of Wild Horse Mesa Bar. I was to join Rudolph and the bar owner there.

On the way back north, I stopped here and there along the way a series of pictures of landmarks that the pirates would pass on their trip, in case we needed something for a title sequence. I was late to the meeting, but it turns out the person the producer met with wasn’t the owner anyway. I did take some shots of the interior of the bar.

Once that was out of the way it was time to head north to Laguna Vista, nestled high in the mountains up toward Colorado.

It was a great drive, the air cooling as I climbed, and a small thunderstorm providing shade and color as the sun set – a good chance to return to the tradition of shooting pictures out the window while driving.

stackologist at work

It wouldn’t be a visit to Five O’clock Somewhere without a little rock stacking.

I give you Rock Stack 5.
Night fell, someone whacked a space ship into a comet, and all is well.

12 thoughts on “A day on the road

  1. Excellent rock stack. The July xmas decorations in the the bar photo do it for me. That just says rundown, wildwest class to me.

  2. I agree that #5 is an excellent rock stack. Jer, there is on way to put this delicately, but the rock stack looks better without you. You skill as a photographer is on display when you show the stack as straining to reach the top of the ponderosa rather than top of your knee.

    Jes, isn’t there a line in the song “Red Neck Woman” about leaving the Christmas lights up all year long? I know you know the answer.

  3. Bob, yes —

    “I leave my Christmas lights up on the front porch all night long.”

    Actually, we did that in Albuquerque for a couple of years. The front porch light ceased to function one year right around Thanksgiving, so we just put up the Christmas lights and left them up.

  4. Jer,

    I agree that defiance of gravity is key to a really great rock stack.

    Balance is definitely one factor; I particularly like the v shaped first rock because it increases the degree of difficulty right out of the shoot.

    However, apparent size & height are also important. The second picture of rock stack #5 evokes the spirit of the real Stonehenge; the first picture (work in process) evokes the model of Stonehenge that was crushed by a dwarf during the movie “This is Spinal Tap”.

  5. Speaking of the vertically challenged in film history (weren’t we?), I can’t wait to see Tim Burton’s interpretation of Oompa Loompas in the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

  6. It occurs to me that with all of this practice at defying gravity while stacking rocks, Jer might be difficult to defeat at Jenga.

    OTOH, maybe there’s a Five O’Clock Somewhere version of the game … using irregular rocks rather than regular pieces of wood.

  7. If you look out the east windows of 5 o’clock somewhere you might still be able to see a stack built from irregular wood.

  8. Actually, there are still two stacked structures visible from the east bathroom window. No, this isn’t a dinky skinny widow like most bathrooms have, but a mini-picture window over the Jacuzzi. (Hey, the well water here is full of stuff people pay big bucks to take a bath in, so why not take advantage of it?)

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