Blog Archives
enforcement
We planned an entire trip (eight nights on the road) that was built around someone telling us that there was a great little restaurant in Burlington, Colorado. We’re up for a trip and thought we could drive up one day, eat dinner that night, and come home the next.
Only…then we added Oklahoma City because I had to be there anyway. Then we tacked on a few nights in Santa Fe for reasons that mostly dealt with another place to eat and added some other nights in places and before you knew it, we’d turned it into The Most Random Trip Ever (with food)™.
Really, why do anything the normal way when you can make it complicated?
Burlington, Colorado
photographed 9.4.2024
PS: Burlington has about 3,000 residents; one of them is the fancy chef over at the Dish Room who’ll make you a delicious dinner.
planning ahead can be helpful
I’ve seen a lot of things in cemeteries, but this was the first “reserved” sign I’ve ever noticed.
I found a book called Spanish Surnames, Older Baptismal First Names and the Origins of the Spanish Language at a tiny grocery store in New Mexico earlier this month. I bought it because it seemed like the right thing to do (it’s less a book, honestly, than it is some photocopied pages stapled together) and because it seemed like the sort of thing that might come in handy. And that’s why I can tell you that the name “Rael” previously appeared “as the name of a soldier, Real de Aguilar from Lorca, Murica, Spain, at paso del norte in the lower Rio Grande in 1689.” My new book further notes that as a surname, “Rael” is of Jewish-Greek origin.
And that concludes today’s lesson. Please carry on.
Truchas, New Mexico
photographed 9.3.2024
four eyes
I’m not saying that on a four-day visit to Tesuque I ate at the Tesuque Village Market four times. But even though I am not saying it, that is precisely what I did.
Tesuque Village Market
Tesuque, New Mexico
photographed 8.31.2024
also sort of a shrine
Yesterday’s photo was from a shrine, and so is this one, though it presents in a different fashion than a church-on-a-hill does.
These rocks – made up of fossil-rich Niobrara chalk – rise from the Kansas plains in a way that seems unreal, yet also inevitable. No one goes there unless they mean to: it’s a long-ish drive on unpaved roads (which are unpassable if it’s rained), but of course that’s part my attraction to going there.
But, as luck with stuff like this goes, a van-load of noisy people drove up, parked exactly between me and my camera, and blocked* my view. Ack. So rude. I was about done anyway but still: a little awareness of surroundings and a dab of respect means something.
Monument Rocks Natural Landmark
Oakley, Kansas
photographed 9.5.24
*Another word to use would be “ruined.”
hilltop shrine
If you drive into town from the south, you’ll see this place high on a hill way before you see the town. And then, if you’re like us, you’ll spend kind of a long time trying to figure out how to get there. (Hint: not the way you think.)
And once you get there, you can see this chapel and also enjoy a magnificent view of the San Luis valley.
Shrine of the Stations of the Cross
San Luis, Colorado
photographed 9.3.2024
One Day | One Image 