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desert bones
Hey, does anyone feel like a quick trip out to White Sands National Park to look at dead stuff?
I am not actually heading that way myself, but I guess I was just gauging interest. Or something.
Anyway, here’s a photo that I made when I DID go there at the end of last year. And, yes, I was lying flat on my stomach in the sand.
Pushing aside the personal concerns I had about actually being able to get up from that position, I had the idea that the sand felt wet. Not damp, like the packed sand at a beach. But there was a coolness to it that gave me the impression of water lurking somewhere below me. I later learned that the water table at White Sands is only one to three feet below the surface of the sand, which reinforced my initial (weird) thoughts about it.
Also, here’s a Fun Fact: the sand, which is actually tiny eroded particles of gypsum, never gets hot in the sun because gypsum does not absorb heat the way silica or quartz sand does.
White Sands National Park, New Mexico
photographed 12.13.2025
this is how my tale begins
This is not the first time I’ve not broken any photographic ground by making a short depth-of-field photo of this same white picket fence.
And you know what? I bet the next time I visit, I’ll not-break that same ground. I can’t help myself.
National Ranching Heritage Center
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 3.8.2026
by a white-baked wall
This is the first historic building visitors to the National Ranching Heritage Center see; there are tons of pictures of the front of it.
So – you know how I am – I headed down the path and behind a berm to try to catch a different angle on a place that’s familiar to me. The windmill that’s nearly obscured by the trees was a bonus.
National Ranching Heritage Center
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 3.8.2026
in this rosy light
An oil lamp. A cowboy hat. Rough stone walls. Unmatched chairs.
(A summation of the development of ranching in Texas.)
National Ranching Heritage Center
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 3.8.2026
look how far the light came
The exact light that landed on those beds was the exact light I needed. It was never precisely like this before and will never be this way again.
Or, as Bruce Cockburn says “Look how far the light came/to paint you this way.”
National Ranching Heritage Center
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 3.8.2026
One Day | One Image 