I think I'll try to turn over a new leaf for this series and show a few more pictures than usual and perhaps not write quite so much as usual. I said I'll try, so we'll have to see how it goes. I left Austin on May 14th and returned the evening of May 23. I spent the first night in Socorro, New Mexico, about 70 mi south of Albuquerque, and the second night in Barstow, California, a little more than half way between Las Vegas and Bakersfield.
These two pictures of the New Mexico landscape were taken about half way between Roswell and Socorro as I entered Lincoln County. . . you know, the Lincoln County Wars? Pat Garret and Billy the Kid? The view above is looking towards Albuquerque and the one below towards Socorro. I really just stopped for a few minutes because I was tired of driving. Austin to Socorro is 665 mi and took about 11 hrs.
I left Socorro at 4:20 AM, headed for Arizona, and sunrise was about 6:06. The shot above (looking ENE) was taken at 4:30, shortly after I got out of Socorro. I still haven't figured out why it was so bright, even in that direction. It was much darker ahead and to either side of the highway, but my eyes were accustomed to the dark and I started noticing cattle here and there as I drove.
It slowly started to lighten with the coming dawn and magically the cattle turned to elk. This picture was brightened a fair amount in post processing and it's a little lighter than it appeared to me when I took it. From the time I realized the critters in the dark were elk (just east of Datil) till I reached the Arizona border (about 90 mi), the countryside seemed to be hosting an Elk convention - one or two here, half a dozen there, and as many as eight or ten some places deeper in the mountains.
My first drive through this area a few years ago, I was heading back to Texas and took a couple sunrise shots as I approached St John's, Arizona. I took this shot headed the opposite direction in approximately the same place, looking NW towards Holbrook. I hadn't slept very well in Socorro, so I took about an hour's nap when I got to Holbrook, then joined I-40. That set me right for the rest of my drive. Traffic was heavy from east of Flagstaff through Kingman, where everybody else seemed to veer off to Las Vegas. I crossed the Colorado River on I-40 south of Needles and stopped in town for a burger and a tank of gas.
An hour west of Needles I turned north into the Mojave National Preserve to see what I could find off the beaten track, as it were. Well, I found just about what one would expect really. That's a Cholla cactus taking up about a third of the frame width - they're a lot bigger here than they were in the Big Bend a couple months ago.
Another Cholla or two here and a typically rocky ridge line for the area, the color of concrete and looking like a dumping area for broken up foundations collected from derelict buildings all over the state.
The picture above shows my first large sand dunes on the trip. They're the Kelso Dunes, named for a
very small community about 8 mi farther north. In fact, Kelso is a ghost town that started life as a train depot , blossomed to about 2000 people in the '40s (mostly borax, iron, gold, and silver miners) , and lasted about a decade before most of the residents left.
This is the Kelso train depot, built in the California Mission style in 1923 and operated as such till 1986. It was pretty dilapidated and the railroad was planning to demolish it in the '90s, when it was instead saved by preservationists. Outside the depot there's a strap iron jail brought in by the railroad in the '40s to accommodate local drunks - mining and drinking was about all there was to do, I guess. The only other building there now is the defunct Post Office. The reason the depot looks so terrific is that it's been re-purposed and renovated as the Mojave National Preserve Visitors Center.
The drive north from Kelso to Baker was pretty much what I'd seen south of the town but having a well maintained road almost to yourself is absolutely wonderful. You can slow down without annoying anyone and study the scenery you're cruising through, and that's worth a lot. From Baker to Barstow I-15 traffic was much heavier, but most of it was heading to Las Vegas, not back to LA.
No comments:
Post a Comment