Subject: Two months ago
Date: Mar 24, 2011 7:47 AM
It is almost incomprehensible to me that Joe has been dead two months now. Up here in Santa Fe, alone in this empty house, I have had to confront my grief in ways I never did in the hustle and bustle of Albuquerque. Yesterday was the first day I got through without crying. Three tears while on the phone with my sister offering to send me the photos of Joe’s last birthday party, when I’m strong enough. I’m not strong enough yet but she’ll save them for me.
I do look forward to the Border Book Festival on April 8 and my plane flight out of the country on the 27th. Everything is new now, the van remodeled for one, new dishes, new cups, I just can’t look at the old stuff. I even bought new underwear. Most of the time I have spent up here crying and shopping.
I was invited into a women’s writers group in Santa Fe, we meet on Mondays. I sob as I read. Joe’s friend Mona came down from Taos, she has lost a son at 23, she and I both sobbed at the table at Whole Foods as we tried to eat our lunch. I cry when I get up, cry when I go to bed and try to fill the hours productively in between.
But I’m not asking for pity. Grief is simply work that must be done. I have had so much support from all of you. The pace will really pick up in April. I’ll go back to Las Cruces for April, got a place to stay. My van will be painted while I’m gone, so I am ecstatic about that. After three years of restoration this will be the final thing to do. When I get back from Mexico I see myself driving around the Southwest hitting all the open mics and selling Joe’s book out of the back of my van, just like so many others I have known.
I’ll get there, I will be happy again, I know it, Joe would want it for me. I believe I have dwelt too long on remembering him there at the last. I made some more chapbooks of poetry taken from the book and working on a project always makes me feel better. I get so much satisfaction from my artistic endeavors. I went to a bead shop and restrung my pearls. It’s a long necklace, then I added a giant cross to the pearls and now I look like a nun with a pearl rosary. All these images comfort me. I’ll get there.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Editor's Note: Beatlick Joe Speer's book Backpack Trekker: A 60's Flashback is available at Amazon.com.
Showing posts with label Beatlicks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beatlicks. Show all posts
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
BEATLICK JOE: The Last Goodbye.
When you come of a certain age as I have, death becomes a part of life. No longer an abstraction, a mystery of time and space, but a reality of everyday life. We grow numb to death as a means of survival.
But every so often death moves too close. It taps our shoulder and inhabits our conscious lives. The death of a child, whose innocence offends our sense of justice, or a promising youth who never reached fulfillment, or the death of a brethren spirit, someone who exemplified the kind of person we always admired and strove to be.
Beatlick Joe Speer has waved his last goodbye on this journey through life on the planet earth. He has gone to a place where only memories and spiritual messaging can reach him. He was an artist in the purest sense, a master carpenter in the medium of words, a fellow traveler in search of wisdom and inspiration and possessing more than his share of both. Along with his longtime wife and partner, Beatlick Pamela Hirst, he cultivated art and artists, provided a forum for voices longing to be heard, and transformed the world he encountered into a more interesting and better place.
It was my pleasure to share the stage in a recorded production of perhaps my most inspired and least understood work: Dark Underground. I can still hear his Ornette Coleman riffs, rising, falling, punctuated pauses and elongated phonemes, hammering a beat only he could feel. Not only words, which he possessed in abundance, but a master of sound as well.
No one will ever take the place of Beatlick Joe Speer. He leaves behind friends, family, a legacy of prose and poetry, and his masterwork: Backpack Trekker: A Sixties Flashback. It is a work that stakes a place in history, literature, sociology and psychology. It is an exploration of the soul of an artist and stands alone as a chronicle of both the sixties and human evolution. It is a work that will live forever.
“Books are like angels that move between the living and the dead.” Joe Speer.
Adios, my friend, you will be missed.
See you on the next run.
Jazz.
But every so often death moves too close. It taps our shoulder and inhabits our conscious lives. The death of a child, whose innocence offends our sense of justice, or a promising youth who never reached fulfillment, or the death of a brethren spirit, someone who exemplified the kind of person we always admired and strove to be.
Beatlick Joe Speer has waved his last goodbye on this journey through life on the planet earth. He has gone to a place where only memories and spiritual messaging can reach him. He was an artist in the purest sense, a master carpenter in the medium of words, a fellow traveler in search of wisdom and inspiration and possessing more than his share of both. Along with his longtime wife and partner, Beatlick Pamela Hirst, he cultivated art and artists, provided a forum for voices longing to be heard, and transformed the world he encountered into a more interesting and better place.
It was my pleasure to share the stage in a recorded production of perhaps my most inspired and least understood work: Dark Underground. I can still hear his Ornette Coleman riffs, rising, falling, punctuated pauses and elongated phonemes, hammering a beat only he could feel. Not only words, which he possessed in abundance, but a master of sound as well.
No one will ever take the place of Beatlick Joe Speer. He leaves behind friends, family, a legacy of prose and poetry, and his masterwork: Backpack Trekker: A Sixties Flashback. It is a work that stakes a place in history, literature, sociology and psychology. It is an exploration of the soul of an artist and stands alone as a chronicle of both the sixties and human evolution. It is a work that will live forever.
“Books are like angels that move between the living and the dead.” Joe Speer.
Adios, my friend, you will be missed.
See you on the next run.
Jazz.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Beatlicks: Fighting off Death
I fought off death last night
Actually night before last. I suppose this was an hallucination. I have been working on editing Joe's book proof, setting up his new facebook page and reediting the website with the latest newsletter. I was working on the website all day and night and was shocked to see it was almost three o'clock in the morning. I went to bed. As I lay in bed, very sad and crying, I looked up in the dark at the ceiling. There was a faint glimmer of light. I began to see spinning and whirling entities fill the top of the room. Everything was rotating, smoky like giant white moths. These little whirls began to come towards me and Joe. I had no doubt that this was death, horrible furries, swirling around and trying to suck up Joe's soul. Evil horrible things. I stared at them and they flew close to my face taunting me, but I just kept my eyes wide open challenging them and leaned over Joe as he lay in the bed so they couldn't get at him. This went on for quite a few minutes. Finally they began to come together up in the ceiling and reshape into something more like clouds. It seemed I had been able to repel them but they were not leaving by any means.
I thought to myself this is working but I don't know how long I can keep my eyes wide open like this for the whole night. And then I realized they would never tolerate the light. So I merely got out of bed and turned on the light. Problem solved. But I tell you with ever fiber of my heart I believe I fought off death last night as it came to take Joe.
The next day new medication to help his nausea worked and he was able to eat just a little bit but at least something. He has been literally starving to death for two weeks. So I can get some food in him, he has rallied enough to sit in on the editing sessions and I do believe he will make it to The Source on Thursday here in Albuquerque for a little tribute celebration in his honor. It's at 1111 Carlisle SE here in Albuquerque.
This is the only good thing that has happened in such a long time. Joe won't have long for this world, but at least I hope he will live to hold the final edition of his book. The editing is going on fast and furious, six of us at a time sitting around the table editing the proofs.
Love and peace
Beatlick Pamela
Actually night before last. I suppose this was an hallucination. I have been working on editing Joe's book proof, setting up his new facebook page and reediting the website with the latest newsletter. I was working on the website all day and night and was shocked to see it was almost three o'clock in the morning. I went to bed. As I lay in bed, very sad and crying, I looked up in the dark at the ceiling. There was a faint glimmer of light. I began to see spinning and whirling entities fill the top of the room. Everything was rotating, smoky like giant white moths. These little whirls began to come towards me and Joe. I had no doubt that this was death, horrible furries, swirling around and trying to suck up Joe's soul. Evil horrible things. I stared at them and they flew close to my face taunting me, but I just kept my eyes wide open challenging them and leaned over Joe as he lay in the bed so they couldn't get at him. This went on for quite a few minutes. Finally they began to come together up in the ceiling and reshape into something more like clouds. It seemed I had been able to repel them but they were not leaving by any means.
I thought to myself this is working but I don't know how long I can keep my eyes wide open like this for the whole night. And then I realized they would never tolerate the light. So I merely got out of bed and turned on the light. Problem solved. But I tell you with ever fiber of my heart I believe I fought off death last night as it came to take Joe.
The next day new medication to help his nausea worked and he was able to eat just a little bit but at least something. He has been literally starving to death for two weeks. So I can get some food in him, he has rallied enough to sit in on the editing sessions and I do believe he will make it to The Source on Thursday here in Albuquerque for a little tribute celebration in his honor. It's at 1111 Carlisle SE here in Albuquerque.
This is the only good thing that has happened in such a long time. Joe won't have long for this world, but at least I hope he will live to hold the final edition of his book. The editing is going on fast and furious, six of us at a time sitting around the table editing the proofs.
Love and peace
Beatlick Pamela
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Prayers for Beatlick Joe
[Editor Note: Those of you who have from time to time checked the contents of this web log are familiar with the adventures of the Beatlicks (Joe Speer & Pamela Hirst). Along with my friend wZ they are artists of the first order (art for art's sake) and members of a vanishing tribe: The Troubadours. I recently learned (see below) that on their latest adventure Beatlick Joe was diagnosed with cancer. At last word they were in Texas on their way back to New Mexico from Florida. Our prayers go out to them both. They are one of a kind. I will always remember my days in Nashville where the Beatlicks were King and Queen of the poetry scene. It was my pleasure to stand beside him in a recorded production of my radio play: Darc Underground. Joe would begin his usual readings with "Page#..." from his work in progress. What followed was a day in the life, an anecdote, or a recounting of literature and history, and was always compelling. In my various encounters with him, I would always ask him if he finished the book, perhaps knowing that he had no intention of doing so. Now, as the sunset may be nearing, it may be time to finish it up and post it as a legacy to a singular life worth living. A blessing on you both. You will have a lasting place in the hearts, minds and souls of all you have touched. Peace.]
From: Pamela Hirst
Subject: Pray for Beatlick Joe
Date: Nov 19, 2010 3:47 PM
As most of you know Beatlick Joe and I have been traveling cross country visiting old haunts. He has been having some indistinct pains on his left side and when his leg swelled up alarmingly this morning I took him to an emergency room in Panama City, or near there.
Joe has deep vein thrombosis, blood clots in his lungs and legs, and lesions on his liver. He also has a mass on his pancreas about half the size of my thumb. He was hospitalized and will be given blood thinners in the morning. We will see a cancer specialist on Monday.
Joe has insurance in New Mexico. We have to get back as quickly as possible but Joe will not be able to sit for long stretches at a time so it will take some time. I will be injecting him with blood thinners once a day.
He does have insurance in New Mexico, thank god.
We will have to find some kind of affordable housing in Las Cruces. We have to find a cancer doctor to decide whether to cut out the growth on his pancreas or use radiation. I have asked his doctor in Las Cruces to recommend a cancer doctor, I think they are called oncologists.
In Las Cruces we will have to find a cancer doctor who will decide whether to treat the mass in his pancreas with radiation or surgery.
If you know others who have gone through this, hopefully successfully, please let me know, suggest some websites for me.
Pray pray
Beatlick Pamela
From: Pamela Hirst
Subject: Pray for Beatlick Joe
Date: Nov 19, 2010 3:47 PM
As most of you know Beatlick Joe and I have been traveling cross country visiting old haunts. He has been having some indistinct pains on his left side and when his leg swelled up alarmingly this morning I took him to an emergency room in Panama City, or near there.
Joe has deep vein thrombosis, blood clots in his lungs and legs, and lesions on his liver. He also has a mass on his pancreas about half the size of my thumb. He was hospitalized and will be given blood thinners in the morning. We will see a cancer specialist on Monday.
Joe has insurance in New Mexico. We have to get back as quickly as possible but Joe will not be able to sit for long stretches at a time so it will take some time. I will be injecting him with blood thinners once a day.
He does have insurance in New Mexico, thank god.
We will have to find some kind of affordable housing in Las Cruces. We have to find a cancer doctor to decide whether to cut out the growth on his pancreas or use radiation. I have asked his doctor in Las Cruces to recommend a cancer doctor, I think they are called oncologists.
In Las Cruces we will have to find a cancer doctor who will decide whether to treat the mass in his pancreas with radiation or surgery.
If you know others who have gone through this, hopefully successfully, please let me know, suggest some websites for me.
Pray pray
Beatlick Pamela
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Beatlick TR: Grand Canyon 2 & 3
Date: May 23, 2010 3:09 PM
Our first full day here in Tusayan we popped for an expensive IMAX movie about the Grand Canyon. After that we were pumped. It is so much fun to wander in the Visitor’s Center and listen to all the languages spoken. I heard Germans, British, a few other Western European accents I can’t identify and a swirl of Orientals. I can’t tell the Japanese from the Chinese, I’m ashamed to admit, but a line of about 30 folks, let’s say they were from Japan, were in a double line along with Beatlick Joe and I heading into the IMAX theater. I really go out of my way to smile big at people and give them eye contact. So I shot off a few smiles.
All of the folks I did give a friendly grin to looked beyond me with their shy eyes as if not to notice me at all. Oh well. As we all entered the theater, with ample seating I want to emphasize, all the people therein filtered out past the front seats to access the aisles on the left and right of the theater. There was no middle aisles.
In the upper rows there were about five more Oriental people waving to their friends below. At this point two of their lady friends in the lower level decided to make a beeline up to them and commenced climbing over the seats through the middle of the theater. It was over a dozen rows to the top. I don’t know if they were afraid other people would sit by their friends and leave them out, or what, as I said there were plenty of seats. Everyone else was using the aisles.
But at that moment when the two ladies started climbing over those seats like they were scaling Mount Fugi, their entire contingency of friends followed them. Every single one of them put the seat down, stood on it and hoisted a leg up and over the top to the next level, a dozen times each until they were all recongregated as a single unit at the top of the theater. It was the darnedest thing I’ve ever seen.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Date: May 26, 2010 11:23 AM
You see so many people at the Grand Canyon, it’s a game to try and figure what language is being spoken, what country someone is from.
Our young British friend Sam just fell into step with us and we enjoyed his company so much. He’s lucky, too, and extremely observant, as any good traveler should be. When he moved to our campground and wanted to heed the call of nature, Beatlick Joe handed him our Boy Scout shovel, some toilet paper and pointed him up the hillside. Up there he found a huge stash of beer and other flavored alcoholic beverages – almost a hundred dollars worth of drinks – all stashed behind this big log. We split the cache up between the three of us and me being “Miss Know It All” speculated “Somebody stole all this and then got caught after stealing something else and never got to come back for their stash.”
After Sam had left, on Saturday night and well after dark, a string of about five cars circled our campsite and formed a circle like a wagon train. Half a dozen teenagers started up the hill in the dark and I knew immediately what they were doing there. They had come for that stash of alcohol. Well, of course, they came back empty handed. Everybody just jumped back into their vehicles and peeled out of the camp. Thanks kids! Honor your elders!
The wind is really beginning to pick up and it’s harder to enjoy the Canyon trails. We walked down the South Kaibab Trail about one mile just to soak up the trail experience. One woman passed us with those hiking poles, dressed in little more than a swim suit. She said she had hiked from the North Rim, about 20 miles. She was obviously an accomplished athlete by the appearance of her body, but she was breathing hard.
“Oh come on,” she gasped, when she saw the last tiers of switchbacks still ahead of her. “You’re only five more minutes away,” I encouraged her.
“Finally!” she exclaimed.
We spent about an hour on the trail and then headed up to the Yavapai Observation Station for a lecture from one of the rangers. The wind got so cold and strong that I opted out and waited for Joe at the observation point there. That’s when I learned that someone jumped off of Mather Point yesterday. Apparently it’s becoming a popular place to commit suicide, like Niagara Falls, I assume. A park worker also fell to his death this week also and the flags are flying at half mast this week. The ranger had a black ribbon on her badge as well to honor a fallen park worker.
Such a pity, but the hustle and bustle of the park never stops and apparently the park never closes. We hope we have our definitive shot of the van by the Canyon. I sneaked in a restricted road early on Sunday morning to get the best shot and skedaddled out quick before we got caught.
It’s truly a dream come true for many to get here and at $500 a pop the helicopter are constantly competing with the condors for air space. On the tarmac over at the airport about five out of seven keep their rotor blades going as the passengers shuffle in and out.
The huge old log hotel, El Tavor, seems packed and the buses are certainly packed bringing in large group tours. Mostly I have seen Orientals and Germans; I guess they have the most money these days to travel. East Indians pull a close third, Brits, Mid-Easterners next and I haven’t really heard any French spoken or seen many Africans, but a small percentage of African Americans.
The lodges inside the park by the rim seem to attract some really dead-serious athletes. A number of hikers crash around us on the ancient leather seats in the lobby of the El Tovar Hotel along with a wedding party. All manner of taxidermed animal trophies line the upper reaches of the big lobby, their glassy eyes rest upon us all.
Happy Trails,
Beatlick Pamela
Our first full day here in Tusayan we popped for an expensive IMAX movie about the Grand Canyon. After that we were pumped. It is so much fun to wander in the Visitor’s Center and listen to all the languages spoken. I heard Germans, British, a few other Western European accents I can’t identify and a swirl of Orientals. I can’t tell the Japanese from the Chinese, I’m ashamed to admit, but a line of about 30 folks, let’s say they were from Japan, were in a double line along with Beatlick Joe and I heading into the IMAX theater. I really go out of my way to smile big at people and give them eye contact. So I shot off a few smiles.
All of the folks I did give a friendly grin to looked beyond me with their shy eyes as if not to notice me at all. Oh well. As we all entered the theater, with ample seating I want to emphasize, all the people therein filtered out past the front seats to access the aisles on the left and right of the theater. There was no middle aisles.
In the upper rows there were about five more Oriental people waving to their friends below. At this point two of their lady friends in the lower level decided to make a beeline up to them and commenced climbing over the seats through the middle of the theater. It was over a dozen rows to the top. I don’t know if they were afraid other people would sit by their friends and leave them out, or what, as I said there were plenty of seats. Everyone else was using the aisles.
But at that moment when the two ladies started climbing over those seats like they were scaling Mount Fugi, their entire contingency of friends followed them. Every single one of them put the seat down, stood on it and hoisted a leg up and over the top to the next level, a dozen times each until they were all recongregated as a single unit at the top of the theater. It was the darnedest thing I’ve ever seen.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Date: May 26, 2010 11:23 AM
You see so many people at the Grand Canyon, it’s a game to try and figure what language is being spoken, what country someone is from.
Our young British friend Sam just fell into step with us and we enjoyed his company so much. He’s lucky, too, and extremely observant, as any good traveler should be. When he moved to our campground and wanted to heed the call of nature, Beatlick Joe handed him our Boy Scout shovel, some toilet paper and pointed him up the hillside. Up there he found a huge stash of beer and other flavored alcoholic beverages – almost a hundred dollars worth of drinks – all stashed behind this big log. We split the cache up between the three of us and me being “Miss Know It All” speculated “Somebody stole all this and then got caught after stealing something else and never got to come back for their stash.”
After Sam had left, on Saturday night and well after dark, a string of about five cars circled our campsite and formed a circle like a wagon train. Half a dozen teenagers started up the hill in the dark and I knew immediately what they were doing there. They had come for that stash of alcohol. Well, of course, they came back empty handed. Everybody just jumped back into their vehicles and peeled out of the camp. Thanks kids! Honor your elders!
The wind is really beginning to pick up and it’s harder to enjoy the Canyon trails. We walked down the South Kaibab Trail about one mile just to soak up the trail experience. One woman passed us with those hiking poles, dressed in little more than a swim suit. She said she had hiked from the North Rim, about 20 miles. She was obviously an accomplished athlete by the appearance of her body, but she was breathing hard.
“Oh come on,” she gasped, when she saw the last tiers of switchbacks still ahead of her. “You’re only five more minutes away,” I encouraged her.
“Finally!” she exclaimed.
We spent about an hour on the trail and then headed up to the Yavapai Observation Station for a lecture from one of the rangers. The wind got so cold and strong that I opted out and waited for Joe at the observation point there. That’s when I learned that someone jumped off of Mather Point yesterday. Apparently it’s becoming a popular place to commit suicide, like Niagara Falls, I assume. A park worker also fell to his death this week also and the flags are flying at half mast this week. The ranger had a black ribbon on her badge as well to honor a fallen park worker.
Such a pity, but the hustle and bustle of the park never stops and apparently the park never closes. We hope we have our definitive shot of the van by the Canyon. I sneaked in a restricted road early on Sunday morning to get the best shot and skedaddled out quick before we got caught.
It’s truly a dream come true for many to get here and at $500 a pop the helicopter are constantly competing with the condors for air space. On the tarmac over at the airport about five out of seven keep their rotor blades going as the passengers shuffle in and out.
The huge old log hotel, El Tavor, seems packed and the buses are certainly packed bringing in large group tours. Mostly I have seen Orientals and Germans; I guess they have the most money these days to travel. East Indians pull a close third, Brits, Mid-Easterners next and I haven’t really heard any French spoken or seen many Africans, but a small percentage of African Americans.
The lodges inside the park by the rim seem to attract some really dead-serious athletes. A number of hikers crash around us on the ancient leather seats in the lobby of the El Tovar Hotel along with a wedding party. All manner of taxidermed animal trophies line the upper reaches of the big lobby, their glassy eyes rest upon us all.
Happy Trails,
Beatlick Pamela
Beatlick TR: On the way to the Grand Canyon
Date: May 21, 2010 9:17 PM
Well we sped out of Organ, NM, with the most power I guess I have ever had in this engine. I blew a valve, whatever that means, right in Michael’s driveway. Convenient. So he broke down the whole engine and things are up and running again.
We made a stop in San Rafael to visit Andrew again. He is an old friend from my days in Alaska. Old friends are such luxuries. He took one look at my hair and put me in his chair and gave me a much needed haircut. We wined and dined each other and laughed unceasingly for two days. Then it was time to head out to the Grand Canyon.
We retraced I40 and saw big changes as soon as we crossed the state line to Arizona. Back in 2003 we came this way and visited a new state park for the Homolovi Ruins. Now it is already closed down. Plus all the rest areas on the interstate are closed and barricaded. What a mess.
We drove straight to Flagstaff and pulled off some awesome “urban camping.” It was a Sunday afternoon and we wound up parking high on the hill downtown by the courthouse. We ignored the 2-hour parking signs because it was Sunday and left the van parked right there on the corner all day.
Later that night we backed up a few spaces to get out of the glare of the street lamps so we would blend in a little better in the shadows. Then we pulled all the curtains and settled in for the night. Joe’s clairvoyance woke him up about 2:30 am. He punched me and said, “Look.”
Through the curtains we could red lights flashing outside. I got up to step outside and volunteer to move along, but Joe said, “Wait, maybe it’s not us they are looking at.” So still as little church mice we waited and sure enough the cops passed us on by. So we went back to sleep but I was wide awake at 6 am so went on and found another spot for a few hours more.
Flagstaff is a great little town reminding me of those other picturesque small Arizona mining towns like Jerome, Globe and Bisbee, which harken back to another era. It was especially fun to see an AmTrac train station too, see all the passengers disembarking, scurrying off to the loud clanging of the signals.
We went to the old Monte Vista Hotel for internet access and again somebody asked Joe if he was Willy Nelson. I guess it’s that headband he’s been wearing. This guy was really drunk and soon after the bartender rescinded his drinking privileges.
On Monday we headed to Williams to stock up for the Canyon. Lord knows I still have plenty of beans from that 20 pound bag I bought back in Fort Stockton. We drove to the town of Tusayan where the Grand Canyon bus stops are located and found an awesome place to park in the forest nearby. We can walk to the bus stop and into town.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
[Note: The Beatlicks are Pamela Hirst & Joe Speers.]
Well we sped out of Organ, NM, with the most power I guess I have ever had in this engine. I blew a valve, whatever that means, right in Michael’s driveway. Convenient. So he broke down the whole engine and things are up and running again.
We made a stop in San Rafael to visit Andrew again. He is an old friend from my days in Alaska. Old friends are such luxuries. He took one look at my hair and put me in his chair and gave me a much needed haircut. We wined and dined each other and laughed unceasingly for two days. Then it was time to head out to the Grand Canyon.
We retraced I40 and saw big changes as soon as we crossed the state line to Arizona. Back in 2003 we came this way and visited a new state park for the Homolovi Ruins. Now it is already closed down. Plus all the rest areas on the interstate are closed and barricaded. What a mess.
We drove straight to Flagstaff and pulled off some awesome “urban camping.” It was a Sunday afternoon and we wound up parking high on the hill downtown by the courthouse. We ignored the 2-hour parking signs because it was Sunday and left the van parked right there on the corner all day.
Later that night we backed up a few spaces to get out of the glare of the street lamps so we would blend in a little better in the shadows. Then we pulled all the curtains and settled in for the night. Joe’s clairvoyance woke him up about 2:30 am. He punched me and said, “Look.”
Through the curtains we could red lights flashing outside. I got up to step outside and volunteer to move along, but Joe said, “Wait, maybe it’s not us they are looking at.” So still as little church mice we waited and sure enough the cops passed us on by. So we went back to sleep but I was wide awake at 6 am so went on and found another spot for a few hours more.
Flagstaff is a great little town reminding me of those other picturesque small Arizona mining towns like Jerome, Globe and Bisbee, which harken back to another era. It was especially fun to see an AmTrac train station too, see all the passengers disembarking, scurrying off to the loud clanging of the signals.
We went to the old Monte Vista Hotel for internet access and again somebody asked Joe if he was Willy Nelson. I guess it’s that headband he’s been wearing. This guy was really drunk and soon after the bartender rescinded his drinking privileges.
On Monday we headed to Williams to stock up for the Canyon. Lord knows I still have plenty of beans from that 20 pound bag I bought back in Fort Stockton. We drove to the town of Tusayan where the Grand Canyon bus stops are located and found an awesome place to park in the forest nearby. We can walk to the bus stop and into town.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
[Note: The Beatlicks are Pamela Hirst & Joe Speers.]
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Beatlick Travel Report: Astor Park Survival Camp
Subject: Astor Park, Beatlick Survival Camp
Date: Mar 18, 2010 12:59 PM
Another hot dusty day out here at Astor Park. Neil showed up with his four teens and a friend. So we had a population explosion. I am learning how to work with cement as we are all trying to help Neil get his first shelter set up. You know I call this survivor camp but truly we could never survive out here if it wasn't for Henry, Neil's brother, bringing us water almost every day, plus all those rides into town for beer and ice.
One policy I have initiated here is to cut Joe some slack. He is so serious about his reading and writing and I want to be supportive so we have set up days or parts of days where I cannot ask him to do something for me. I have to do it myself. He has me so spoiled that it is a real revelation to realize how much easier he makes the day go by with his constant help and attention. So as I say I am cutting him some slack.
The coyotes are getting more numerous and louder. I don't think they are coming into the camp but their yipping keeps me on my toes. Haven't seen any snakes or spiders but I imagine the season is coming upon us soon. We take the arroyos and trails to town. We named them streets from Nashville and the old neighborhood: Kipling Dr., Briley Parkway, 440. We get a real kick out of that.
The spring break really loaded up the RV parks around here. As much neglect and off business as we have seen in so many other places, there is nothing like that going on around here. The place is hopping all around Terlingua and Study Butte. We headed down to the little ghost town of Terlingua and sat out on the porch. It is loaded with tourists. Neil started playing somebody's new guitar and a crowd gathered around him in no time. His kids stood by in admiration as well. He is quite the character.
People were coming in from all over and taking pictures of Neil as the crowd grew around him. It was a hot day and the beer was cold, before I knew what was happening I had gone into the store with a big buzz on and mailed my sister a very expensive birthday present. I will have to learn to check my enthusiasum when I head into the big city of Terlingua.
Everytime we go to the RV park to use the Wi-fi I look a little worse. Today I have dirt, dust and cement all over me. Haven't had a bath in two days and didn't even attempt to comb my hair. My, my: attractive.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Date: Mar 18, 2010 12:59 PM
Another hot dusty day out here at Astor Park. Neil showed up with his four teens and a friend. So we had a population explosion. I am learning how to work with cement as we are all trying to help Neil get his first shelter set up. You know I call this survivor camp but truly we could never survive out here if it wasn't for Henry, Neil's brother, bringing us water almost every day, plus all those rides into town for beer and ice.
One policy I have initiated here is to cut Joe some slack. He is so serious about his reading and writing and I want to be supportive so we have set up days or parts of days where I cannot ask him to do something for me. I have to do it myself. He has me so spoiled that it is a real revelation to realize how much easier he makes the day go by with his constant help and attention. So as I say I am cutting him some slack.
The coyotes are getting more numerous and louder. I don't think they are coming into the camp but their yipping keeps me on my toes. Haven't seen any snakes or spiders but I imagine the season is coming upon us soon. We take the arroyos and trails to town. We named them streets from Nashville and the old neighborhood: Kipling Dr., Briley Parkway, 440. We get a real kick out of that.
The spring break really loaded up the RV parks around here. As much neglect and off business as we have seen in so many other places, there is nothing like that going on around here. The place is hopping all around Terlingua and Study Butte. We headed down to the little ghost town of Terlingua and sat out on the porch. It is loaded with tourists. Neil started playing somebody's new guitar and a crowd gathered around him in no time. His kids stood by in admiration as well. He is quite the character.
People were coming in from all over and taking pictures of Neil as the crowd grew around him. It was a hot day and the beer was cold, before I knew what was happening I had gone into the store with a big buzz on and mailed my sister a very expensive birthday present. I will have to learn to check my enthusiasum when I head into the big city of Terlingua.
Everytime we go to the RV park to use the Wi-fi I look a little worse. Today I have dirt, dust and cement all over me. Haven't had a bath in two days and didn't even attempt to comb my hair. My, my: attractive.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Beatlick Travel Report/Astor Park: Survival Camp
Beatlick Joe and I took our first three-mile walk to the wi-fi cafe down a long dirt road and around a few mountains. We have been at Astor Camp, courtesy of Neil Astor, for about five days and I have dismantled the whole campsite and put it back together every single day since we got here. We were so excited when we arrived on Friday that we put up our custom tent that attaches to the van. Then I attached a tarp to the tent and we raised up the van roof to access our sleeping quarters. With all that we had some serious square footage.
I spent the second day, all day, figuring out how to build a fire pit. It seems like it would be simple, but getting all those irregular stones into some semblance of order and important to me balance and appeal, took hours. At first I had a big, huge really, stone flush to the ground for a base. I had rolled it uphill myself. This is exactly the kind of grunt work in which Joe Speer has absolutely no interest. It didn't look right so I started all over and dug a hole to build up a bit of a firewall and put the rock into it. I hauled a bunch of large stones needed for circling the pit. But by the time I was finished fussing with all the rocks and moving them around, the peculiar soil out here full of Bentonite had all blown away and the stone was back flush to the ground again. Where did my hole go? I kept asking Joe.
Inside the tent I put up a shelf and stacked all the canned goods, we had a table and chairs, all the kitchen utensils, water and wash basin, it was like an apartment. I was ecstatic. Outside we have a 20-gallon jug, a 5-gallon jug, inside a 3-gallon jug with spicket and about five more gallon jugs. We were great for about 36 hours. Then the wind kicked up. At one point I was leaning against the tent like those actors on the prow of the Titanic. It was between something like that and wind surfing. I could lean the entire weight of my body back against the tent rigging the gales were so strong. After a few hours of that we decided we had to take our irreplaceable custom tent down rather than damage it.
So on the third day I had to load everything I had taken out of the van back into it. That day I attached the tarp straight to the van and had a little awning. That was a real comedown after all the spaciousness of the day before. On the fourth day Joe suggested we put the tarp up on the tent frame. And THAT has been the answer. We can sit outside under a nice large tarp and move the chairs, table and a futon Neil left behind all in the appropriate shade provided as the sun rotates around the panorama.
We cook on the fireplace except in the morning. We have coffee in the van first thing, check out the landscape and see what the sun and wind are doing. There is not a single telephone pole to be seen out here. The only cars on the private road are other property owners. And it is quiet. And still. We often cook with Henry, our neighbor, who is Neil's brother. Only once was I ever able to pick up the Marfa NPR station so only music on the renegade Terlingua station Cayote Radio 100.1. It's good, really good, but I do miss the news.
We've watched a few movies on our DVD using Henry's solar equipment. We spend a lot of time reading, hiking and setting up camp for now. The sky is just becoming overwhelming to me. I see more up there than I can figure out. I'm not even that interested in sitting out there watching the stars right now because I can't always wrap my head around what I see. Neil is coming soon and we hope he approves of our camp design.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
I spent the second day, all day, figuring out how to build a fire pit. It seems like it would be simple, but getting all those irregular stones into some semblance of order and important to me balance and appeal, took hours. At first I had a big, huge really, stone flush to the ground for a base. I had rolled it uphill myself. This is exactly the kind of grunt work in which Joe Speer has absolutely no interest. It didn't look right so I started all over and dug a hole to build up a bit of a firewall and put the rock into it. I hauled a bunch of large stones needed for circling the pit. But by the time I was finished fussing with all the rocks and moving them around, the peculiar soil out here full of Bentonite had all blown away and the stone was back flush to the ground again. Where did my hole go? I kept asking Joe.
Inside the tent I put up a shelf and stacked all the canned goods, we had a table and chairs, all the kitchen utensils, water and wash basin, it was like an apartment. I was ecstatic. Outside we have a 20-gallon jug, a 5-gallon jug, inside a 3-gallon jug with spicket and about five more gallon jugs. We were great for about 36 hours. Then the wind kicked up. At one point I was leaning against the tent like those actors on the prow of the Titanic. It was between something like that and wind surfing. I could lean the entire weight of my body back against the tent rigging the gales were so strong. After a few hours of that we decided we had to take our irreplaceable custom tent down rather than damage it.
So on the third day I had to load everything I had taken out of the van back into it. That day I attached the tarp straight to the van and had a little awning. That was a real comedown after all the spaciousness of the day before. On the fourth day Joe suggested we put the tarp up on the tent frame. And THAT has been the answer. We can sit outside under a nice large tarp and move the chairs, table and a futon Neil left behind all in the appropriate shade provided as the sun rotates around the panorama.
We cook on the fireplace except in the morning. We have coffee in the van first thing, check out the landscape and see what the sun and wind are doing. There is not a single telephone pole to be seen out here. The only cars on the private road are other property owners. And it is quiet. And still. We often cook with Henry, our neighbor, who is Neil's brother. Only once was I ever able to pick up the Marfa NPR station so only music on the renegade Terlingua station Cayote Radio 100.1. It's good, really good, but I do miss the news.
We've watched a few movies on our DVD using Henry's solar equipment. We spend a lot of time reading, hiking and setting up camp for now. The sky is just becoming overwhelming to me. I see more up there than I can figure out. I'm not even that interested in sitting out there watching the stars right now because I can't always wrap my head around what I see. Neil is coming soon and we hope he approves of our camp design.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Beatlick Travel Report: Truth or Consequences
Date: Feb 25, 2010 3:40 PM
“There’s more consequences than truth” is the saying around here, especially when water and real estate might be the topic. Like the elephant bone yard this town is the bone yard for vintage Airstreams and they speckle the landscape. We’ve pulled into the Artesian RV Park and Bathhouse for a month. The Black Cat Bookstore has poetry readings twice a month. There is a radical underground radio station FM 96.1, political rant website (www.desertjournalonline.com/underground_truth.htm), a good library, grocery store, and cheap diners. A population of mature citizens, young upstarts ready to make a fortune when the Spaceport project of Virgin Airline’s Richard Branson’s gets off the ground, and a constant trickle of bathers and tourists all pass each other in a dusty gauzy throwback to the 1950s.
This is the closest I’ve ever come to living in a trailer park. There are 36 units here with the basic hookups then a laundry room, freezer (where we keep freezing water jugs instead of buying ice) and half-off the soaks. Plus wi-fi so we can just lay around and watch online movies all day if we want. I have a small electric heater we can use at night, plus I got a Mr. Heater portable stove that runs on propane canisters. I LOVE IT. It’s just like sitting around a little hearth. We’ve got the tent attached to the van and have received three visitors since we got here. Once we went to the Pinch and Swallow on Broadway to see Las Cruces’s favorite bluegrass band man Steve Smith. Apparently “Dr. Bob” of T or C hosts these musical soirees in the bar that served him as therapeutic exercise during a stressful time in his career. I don’t have last names or all the facts because this is just what I picked up hanging around the stage. You have to bring your own refreshments, it’s not a commercial operation. There is an enormous mural on the wall, must be forty feet long, tripped out, that the good doctor painted himself as a de-stressor. Steve Smith’s band is fabulous and much of the “mature” audience members broke into groups just like junior high. I don’t know what they put in the water around here but there is a really unique congregation of very cheerful, well-satisfied elders here.
The women danced mostly with each other in the back while the men hopped around in a mild version of a mosh pit up front. Some of their outfits were “which-way-to-the-festival-man style," layers of long and short skirts, odd hats and plenty of jewelry. The men were a little more subdued but most had long beards and looked like old Civil War soldiers. There are a lot of wheelchairs around town, there’s a nearby VA hospital, and many old-timers on their scooters going up and down the street with their flags furling dune-buggy style. I eavesdrop on the conversations around me. A group of residents down at the thrift store agree this winter has been one of the worst for longevity. “You can tell things are changing,” one ancient said, “everybody I know has a cold.”
I guess they are recalling the glory days when all the bath house cottages were new and the WPA had just laid down the town’s concrete sidewalks. Everything is out of an old black-and-white movie now. One voyager up the street who passed by on his scooter told me his parents lived here way back when and he moved here permanently in the early 90s. “Nuthin’s really changed too much around here, but the price of real estate.”
There is this boom town talk that does make me leery. All the young folks are speculators and all the old folks are skeptics. A lot of the promises of glory sound so much like the stories we’ve heard about in New Mexico’s history of boom and bust. The whole town is for sale just about and that lends a real ghost town feel to the place. Too bad somebody doesn’t come in here and set money on fire like they have done in Marfa, Texas.
The trip to T or C has been a good practice run before we turn around and go back to Study Butte. I had to interrupt our plans to have a root canal redone in El Paso. But we are back on track for Survival Camp at Astor Park in Study Butte, Texas, by the Big Bend National Park. They call it Far West, Texas, out there but I call it Far Out West Texas.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela Hirst
“There’s more consequences than truth” is the saying around here, especially when water and real estate might be the topic. Like the elephant bone yard this town is the bone yard for vintage Airstreams and they speckle the landscape. We’ve pulled into the Artesian RV Park and Bathhouse for a month. The Black Cat Bookstore has poetry readings twice a month. There is a radical underground radio station FM 96.1, political rant website (www.desertjournalonline.com/underground_truth.htm), a good library, grocery store, and cheap diners. A population of mature citizens, young upstarts ready to make a fortune when the Spaceport project of Virgin Airline’s Richard Branson’s gets off the ground, and a constant trickle of bathers and tourists all pass each other in a dusty gauzy throwback to the 1950s.
This is the closest I’ve ever come to living in a trailer park. There are 36 units here with the basic hookups then a laundry room, freezer (where we keep freezing water jugs instead of buying ice) and half-off the soaks. Plus wi-fi so we can just lay around and watch online movies all day if we want. I have a small electric heater we can use at night, plus I got a Mr. Heater portable stove that runs on propane canisters. I LOVE IT. It’s just like sitting around a little hearth. We’ve got the tent attached to the van and have received three visitors since we got here. Once we went to the Pinch and Swallow on Broadway to see Las Cruces’s favorite bluegrass band man Steve Smith. Apparently “Dr. Bob” of T or C hosts these musical soirees in the bar that served him as therapeutic exercise during a stressful time in his career. I don’t have last names or all the facts because this is just what I picked up hanging around the stage. You have to bring your own refreshments, it’s not a commercial operation. There is an enormous mural on the wall, must be forty feet long, tripped out, that the good doctor painted himself as a de-stressor. Steve Smith’s band is fabulous and much of the “mature” audience members broke into groups just like junior high. I don’t know what they put in the water around here but there is a really unique congregation of very cheerful, well-satisfied elders here.
The women danced mostly with each other in the back while the men hopped around in a mild version of a mosh pit up front. Some of their outfits were “which-way-to-the-festival-man style," layers of long and short skirts, odd hats and plenty of jewelry. The men were a little more subdued but most had long beards and looked like old Civil War soldiers. There are a lot of wheelchairs around town, there’s a nearby VA hospital, and many old-timers on their scooters going up and down the street with their flags furling dune-buggy style. I eavesdrop on the conversations around me. A group of residents down at the thrift store agree this winter has been one of the worst for longevity. “You can tell things are changing,” one ancient said, “everybody I know has a cold.”
I guess they are recalling the glory days when all the bath house cottages were new and the WPA had just laid down the town’s concrete sidewalks. Everything is out of an old black-and-white movie now. One voyager up the street who passed by on his scooter told me his parents lived here way back when and he moved here permanently in the early 90s. “Nuthin’s really changed too much around here, but the price of real estate.”
There is this boom town talk that does make me leery. All the young folks are speculators and all the old folks are skeptics. A lot of the promises of glory sound so much like the stories we’ve heard about in New Mexico’s history of boom and bust. The whole town is for sale just about and that lends a real ghost town feel to the place. Too bad somebody doesn’t come in here and set money on fire like they have done in Marfa, Texas.
The trip to T or C has been a good practice run before we turn around and go back to Study Butte. I had to interrupt our plans to have a root canal redone in El Paso. But we are back on track for Survival Camp at Astor Park in Study Butte, Texas, by the Big Bend National Park. They call it Far West, Texas, out there but I call it Far Out West Texas.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela Hirst
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Beatlick Travel Report 2010: Marfa TX
Date: Jan 30, 2010 11:18 AM
Marfa, Texas
While we were visiting in Fort Stockton Beatlick Joe and I were really impressed by Marfa’s public radio station KRTS 93.5 “radio for a wide range,” so we decided to stop for the weekend and check out some of the activities mentioned on the air. We had spent a cold night in Marathon with freezing rain that left the van coated in ice so we were grateful to see clouds in the vast sky break up and the temperature rise as we drove the 60 mile stretch into the Marfa Plateau.
We have passed through Marfa a number of times traveling down Highway 90 on our destinations elsewhere. Staying on that route the place looked like so many other hard-luck scenes in Texas, we really thought it was a little one-trick pony town touting its mystery lights, not unlike Roswell, cashing in on a local phenomenon.
We passed by the Marfa Lights Viewing Center nine miles from town. We judge that a good place to park overnight sometime. Native inhabitants were aware of Marfa’s mysterious lights long before the first recording of them back in 1883. The whole concept is so popular now that the town provides this accommodating viewing station and a festival on Labor Day weekend.
It was only after we pulled off of 90 and ventured closer into the heart of town that we saw how truly unique and interesting Marfa is. We urban camped right beside the Paisano Hotel which had a great bar, fireplace and wonderful big old bathrooms off of the lobby where you can lock yourself in for complete privacy and enjoy a big sink with lots of hot water. We haven’t had it this good since the Bisbee library in Arizona. The hotel hosts a large display of memorabilia from the movie “Giant.” Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and Rock Hudson all spent time there and left behind their autographed photos.
We strolled around and enjoyed the beautiful buildings, coffee shops and art galleries all looking neatly spruced up and tidy. Our itinerary included KRTS, the Marfa Book Company, and Ballroom Marfa where an international film project was holding a reception. What an interesting crowd showed up. There seems to be a large draw of young people from Sul Ross University less than 30 miles away in Alpine. The art scene is huge here and we spoke to so many young people who have moved here from Boston, Austin , Berlin, you name it.
Apparently Donald Judd laid the foundation for the town’s heavy art scene in the mid-1970s when he established the Chinati Foundation, which today houses a permanent collection of contemporary art as well as temporary exhibits by artists in residence. One night on Marfa Radio they were interviewing two Germans who came to Marfa and created an art installation by taking apart an entire automobile and reconstructing it into two bicycles.
The “Art in the Auditorium” at Ballroom Marfa is a global collaboration between museums and art spaces in Italy, Norway, Turkey, Argentina, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. There were two large rooms with short films by seven up and coming filmmakers. One of the film directors was in attendance, Aida Ruilova. Her seven-minute short “Meet the Eye,” was filmed on a sound stage in Los Angeles and featured Karen Black of “Easy Rider” fame and LA artist Raymond Pettibon.
Black is expressing her anxieties to the male lead about her futile struggle to remember something. Pettibon is secretly carving a peephole in the wall. When Black does look through the hole she sees a scene of death, which ironically is the thing she is trying to remember. It’s pretty abstract as Truelove’s work is critiqued to be. The plot could be deciphered as the actor meeting herself in that dreamlike dimension. The petite former punk rocker said to her knowledge Marfa was the only town in America hosting the international collaboration.
“Dead Forest (Storm) by Charley Nijensohn of Buenos Aires was my personal favorite, totally surreal and I couldn’t figure out how in the world it was shot. Filmed in the Amazon Basin where the plight of the area’s deforestation is well documented a man is standing unprotected on a small floating craft, not much bigger than a log. It is pouring down rain and all you hear is the downpour with the visual of the man floating through a flooded landscape of blackened dead tree stumps. The relentless rain robs the scene of any color and the man drifts so precariously perched on his tiny craft, pummeled by the precipitation, as endangered as the rain forest.
We will stay the weekend and head on to El Paso. I have an appointment with an endodontist to get a root canal. Apparently I am such a unique and special person that I have grown four roots from my problem tooth instead of the usual three. So it is this fourth one which requires a root canal. I wish I could use these odds to work in my favor in Las Vegas.
So we completely changed our plans and won’t be back at Astor Park in the Big Bend area until March and April. Then we will continue our ultimate survival camp experience. In the meantime we will go to Truth or Consequences where we hope to park at the Artesian Hot Springs for a month. You can do that for only $125 with a discount on the hot baths and access to electricity. That sounds pretty plush to us.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Marfa, Texas
While we were visiting in Fort Stockton Beatlick Joe and I were really impressed by Marfa’s public radio station KRTS 93.5 “radio for a wide range,” so we decided to stop for the weekend and check out some of the activities mentioned on the air. We had spent a cold night in Marathon with freezing rain that left the van coated in ice so we were grateful to see clouds in the vast sky break up and the temperature rise as we drove the 60 mile stretch into the Marfa Plateau.
We have passed through Marfa a number of times traveling down Highway 90 on our destinations elsewhere. Staying on that route the place looked like so many other hard-luck scenes in Texas, we really thought it was a little one-trick pony town touting its mystery lights, not unlike Roswell, cashing in on a local phenomenon.
We passed by the Marfa Lights Viewing Center nine miles from town. We judge that a good place to park overnight sometime. Native inhabitants were aware of Marfa’s mysterious lights long before the first recording of them back in 1883. The whole concept is so popular now that the town provides this accommodating viewing station and a festival on Labor Day weekend.
It was only after we pulled off of 90 and ventured closer into the heart of town that we saw how truly unique and interesting Marfa is. We urban camped right beside the Paisano Hotel which had a great bar, fireplace and wonderful big old bathrooms off of the lobby where you can lock yourself in for complete privacy and enjoy a big sink with lots of hot water. We haven’t had it this good since the Bisbee library in Arizona. The hotel hosts a large display of memorabilia from the movie “Giant.” Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and Rock Hudson all spent time there and left behind their autographed photos.
We strolled around and enjoyed the beautiful buildings, coffee shops and art galleries all looking neatly spruced up and tidy. Our itinerary included KRTS, the Marfa Book Company, and Ballroom Marfa where an international film project was holding a reception. What an interesting crowd showed up. There seems to be a large draw of young people from Sul Ross University less than 30 miles away in Alpine. The art scene is huge here and we spoke to so many young people who have moved here from Boston, Austin , Berlin, you name it.
Apparently Donald Judd laid the foundation for the town’s heavy art scene in the mid-1970s when he established the Chinati Foundation, which today houses a permanent collection of contemporary art as well as temporary exhibits by artists in residence. One night on Marfa Radio they were interviewing two Germans who came to Marfa and created an art installation by taking apart an entire automobile and reconstructing it into two bicycles.
The “Art in the Auditorium” at Ballroom Marfa is a global collaboration between museums and art spaces in Italy, Norway, Turkey, Argentina, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. There were two large rooms with short films by seven up and coming filmmakers. One of the film directors was in attendance, Aida Ruilova. Her seven-minute short “Meet the Eye,” was filmed on a sound stage in Los Angeles and featured Karen Black of “Easy Rider” fame and LA artist Raymond Pettibon.
Black is expressing her anxieties to the male lead about her futile struggle to remember something. Pettibon is secretly carving a peephole in the wall. When Black does look through the hole she sees a scene of death, which ironically is the thing she is trying to remember. It’s pretty abstract as Truelove’s work is critiqued to be. The plot could be deciphered as the actor meeting herself in that dreamlike dimension. The petite former punk rocker said to her knowledge Marfa was the only town in America hosting the international collaboration.
“Dead Forest (Storm) by Charley Nijensohn of Buenos Aires was my personal favorite, totally surreal and I couldn’t figure out how in the world it was shot. Filmed in the Amazon Basin where the plight of the area’s deforestation is well documented a man is standing unprotected on a small floating craft, not much bigger than a log. It is pouring down rain and all you hear is the downpour with the visual of the man floating through a flooded landscape of blackened dead tree stumps. The relentless rain robs the scene of any color and the man drifts so precariously perched on his tiny craft, pummeled by the precipitation, as endangered as the rain forest.
We will stay the weekend and head on to El Paso. I have an appointment with an endodontist to get a root canal. Apparently I am such a unique and special person that I have grown four roots from my problem tooth instead of the usual three. So it is this fourth one which requires a root canal. I wish I could use these odds to work in my favor in Las Vegas.
So we completely changed our plans and won’t be back at Astor Park in the Big Bend area until March and April. Then we will continue our ultimate survival camp experience. In the meantime we will go to Truth or Consequences where we hope to park at the Artesian Hot Springs for a month. You can do that for only $125 with a discount on the hot baths and access to electricity. That sounds pretty plush to us.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Beatlick Travel Report 2010: Survival Camp
Date: Jan 16, 2010 3:11 PM
Fort Stockton:
The Beatlicks are in a small holding pattern in Fort Stockton before we can set up our winter camp in Study Butte, out where the coyotes howl and the wind blows free. We are in Neil’s trailer, heading to Neil’s 40 acres, but first I’m going to have to attend to a dental problem and get a passport photo and application off.
We anticipate at least six weeks in the wild so to speak and I am stocking up. My Mama is laughing so hard at me right now, up in heaven. I just bought a 20-pound bag of pinto beans. I used to turn my nose up at my mother’s beans and now I’m going to live on beans and oatmeal. I am ashamed of myself now for the snooty way I would criticize her beans, called them “peasant food.” I guess now I am a peasant.
The trailer in Fort Stockton doesn’t offer many creature comforts so it makes a good transition for outdoor camping. There’s no running water so we have to haul buckets of water in from a spigot outdoors, we have to fill the toilet up every time we flush. We are also cooking on the camp stove. We are in a small bedroom with a bed, the cook stove, two chairs, DVD, computer, MP3 player, and plenty of books and movies from the Fort Stockton Library.
We have seen the property in Study Butte and it is great, we can’t wait to get out there. But I will have to find some dental assistance first, I can’t imagine sticking myself out there for six weeks with no access to help if I should need it.
One friend has asked me why in the world we are doing this. One reason is to save money. We are trying to save money for plane fare to Ouxaca. A friend in Las Cruces has told us where he stays for $250 a month. That is a serious goal for us this year if we can keep down expenses and save.
Plus I think it’s a fun experiment to blog about being out in the wilderness camping. I am spending more time with survivalists and this is a group of people who genuinely believe something catastrophic is going to happen to our country and we will have to fend for ourselves. That peaks my imagination.
Neil’s brother Henry lives out in Study Butte already and works in a Bentonite mine. That is what some Kitty Litter is made of mostly. It clumps up around moisture. Neil’s whole property is just about Bentonite. So if it rains there is a real problem, as it did a few days ago we heard. Henry has to park two miles out by the road and walk to his camp if it rains. So we will make sure it is all dried out back there before we head out.
So our Survival Camp is all about getting in a situation where we don’t need to spend much money and testing ourselves against the elements. We have this wonderful friend who can offer us such a unique opportunity. Why not go for it?
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela (publishingpamela@yahoo.com)
Fort Stockton:
The Beatlicks are in a small holding pattern in Fort Stockton before we can set up our winter camp in Study Butte, out where the coyotes howl and the wind blows free. We are in Neil’s trailer, heading to Neil’s 40 acres, but first I’m going to have to attend to a dental problem and get a passport photo and application off.
We anticipate at least six weeks in the wild so to speak and I am stocking up. My Mama is laughing so hard at me right now, up in heaven. I just bought a 20-pound bag of pinto beans. I used to turn my nose up at my mother’s beans and now I’m going to live on beans and oatmeal. I am ashamed of myself now for the snooty way I would criticize her beans, called them “peasant food.” I guess now I am a peasant.
The trailer in Fort Stockton doesn’t offer many creature comforts so it makes a good transition for outdoor camping. There’s no running water so we have to haul buckets of water in from a spigot outdoors, we have to fill the toilet up every time we flush. We are also cooking on the camp stove. We are in a small bedroom with a bed, the cook stove, two chairs, DVD, computer, MP3 player, and plenty of books and movies from the Fort Stockton Library.
We have seen the property in Study Butte and it is great, we can’t wait to get out there. But I will have to find some dental assistance first, I can’t imagine sticking myself out there for six weeks with no access to help if I should need it.
One friend has asked me why in the world we are doing this. One reason is to save money. We are trying to save money for plane fare to Ouxaca. A friend in Las Cruces has told us where he stays for $250 a month. That is a serious goal for us this year if we can keep down expenses and save.
Plus I think it’s a fun experiment to blog about being out in the wilderness camping. I am spending more time with survivalists and this is a group of people who genuinely believe something catastrophic is going to happen to our country and we will have to fend for ourselves. That peaks my imagination.
Neil’s brother Henry lives out in Study Butte already and works in a Bentonite mine. That is what some Kitty Litter is made of mostly. It clumps up around moisture. Neil’s whole property is just about Bentonite. So if it rains there is a real problem, as it did a few days ago we heard. Henry has to park two miles out by the road and walk to his camp if it rains. So we will make sure it is all dried out back there before we head out.
So our Survival Camp is all about getting in a situation where we don’t need to spend much money and testing ourselves against the elements. We have this wonderful friend who can offer us such a unique opportunity. Why not go for it?
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela (publishingpamela@yahoo.com)
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
2010 Beatlick Travel Report: Survival Camp
Date: Jan 12, 2010 10:21 AM
We hit the road for Fort Stockton and our good friend Neil Astor's house last week. We will be moving onto his forty acres in Study Butte as soon as this polar front moves out of town. We got to go see the property on Sunday and it is pretty spectacular in its starkness. Windswept, open land amidst the Chisos Mountain range and many more I don't know by name yet. The sunsets are absolutely spectacular. The goal is to go in and survive for six weeks off the grid.
It's an experiment just to test our mettle and save a few bucks. Imagine, if you got off work one day and someone told you you can't go home. Imagine everything you knew and understood was taken from you - electricity, gas, water. What would you do?
Well we're about to find out. I was comforted to know that Neil's brother is already living on the property. He works in a mine 30 miles away and has a campsite with a travel trailer. I think I would be a little more intimidated if he weren't there. At least he knows the ropes.
Once I get my van in there, if I get my van in there, for there is one really step hill and more than a few intimidating ravines to cross, then it will stay parked till we come out. One time in, one time out, is the plan. The store three miles away has wi-fi so we can stay in touch but the prices on food are prohibitive. The best grocery store is five miles away, but hopefully Neil's brother Henry will give us a ride from time to time.
Now on this imaginary doomsday scenario that I am modeling after I do have a few obvious advantages. I have the luxury of preparing and tomorrow, the 13th of Jan., we will be stocking up on dry goods. I have a shopping list and more survival tips coming to the third page of my website. It's not up yet but will be soon. I'm having fun thinking about what to buy and how to make it all last. The basics are coffee, oatmeal, powdered milk, pinto beans, rice, trail mix, crackers, raisins, boullion, brown suger, and peanut butter all in bulk. So much for the low-carb diet that helped me lose 40 pounds. But I guess if the store is five miles away that might prove itself to not be a problem!
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
We hit the road for Fort Stockton and our good friend Neil Astor's house last week. We will be moving onto his forty acres in Study Butte as soon as this polar front moves out of town. We got to go see the property on Sunday and it is pretty spectacular in its starkness. Windswept, open land amidst the Chisos Mountain range and many more I don't know by name yet. The sunsets are absolutely spectacular. The goal is to go in and survive for six weeks off the grid.
It's an experiment just to test our mettle and save a few bucks. Imagine, if you got off work one day and someone told you you can't go home. Imagine everything you knew and understood was taken from you - electricity, gas, water. What would you do?
Well we're about to find out. I was comforted to know that Neil's brother is already living on the property. He works in a mine 30 miles away and has a campsite with a travel trailer. I think I would be a little more intimidated if he weren't there. At least he knows the ropes.
Once I get my van in there, if I get my van in there, for there is one really step hill and more than a few intimidating ravines to cross, then it will stay parked till we come out. One time in, one time out, is the plan. The store three miles away has wi-fi so we can stay in touch but the prices on food are prohibitive. The best grocery store is five miles away, but hopefully Neil's brother Henry will give us a ride from time to time.
Now on this imaginary doomsday scenario that I am modeling after I do have a few obvious advantages. I have the luxury of preparing and tomorrow, the 13th of Jan., we will be stocking up on dry goods. I have a shopping list and more survival tips coming to the third page of my website. It's not up yet but will be soon. I'm having fun thinking about what to buy and how to make it all last. The basics are coffee, oatmeal, powdered milk, pinto beans, rice, trail mix, crackers, raisins, boullion, brown suger, and peanut butter all in bulk. So much for the low-carb diet that helped me lose 40 pounds. But I guess if the store is five miles away that might prove itself to not be a problem!
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Beatlick Travel: Final Report 2009
Date: Oct 15, 2009 5:59 AM
Beatlick Travel Report #12
It has taken a full year to really become comfortable with our new van. I felt so connected to my old 71 VW and transferring emotionally to my newer 77 has been like taking on a new lover. When in Albuquerque last month the transmission hung up on me twice in one day in downtown traffic. I panicked at first then thought this van is officially blessed by the Ukranian Orhtodox Church, me too and Joe. This can’t be happening. The painful learning curve. All this time I have been shifting in a lazy X pattern when I should have been using an H pattern. So now I know and that is last bit of trouble I have had with the van. Coming back from Taos was one of the most pleasant experiences I have had, stress free driving now.
We are also in a new era with Beatlick News. We’ve changed over to a new publishing program, more compatible than our old Quark documents. I also took the front page picture with my Tracphone and emailed it to my new laptop computer, which is Wifi compatible. Publication is becoming much more streamlined and less stressful, too. And the house-sitting gigs are really starting to stack up so no new trips planned until January.
Here are some final thoughts which will be my Live For Art column in our upcoming issue. Check out beatlick.com in about a week or look for a hard copy in the mail if you are a subscriber.
The Red River and Rio Grande come together at the Wild Rivers Recreational Area in New Mexico. Far above at The Junta Point you stand between the two gorges that hold the rivers between their enormous canyon walls. Having trekked down the canyon paths to the confluence and looking up to Junta Point you can barely intellectually grasp how long it took for the rivers to eat through the flat earth further and further down to the canyon floor. Millions and millions of years. There in the midst of all that space and depth I can’t help but ponder how insignificant I am in the context of all the time ensued to create this natural wonder. How little do we matter in the entire scheme of things except to our own selves and those who share this time and space with us. It’s marvelous and frightening.
I marvel at the friends I am still allowed to have. The longer we are on this earth the more we lose: family, friends, neighborhoods, entire worlds and levels of consciousness.
The universe is still expanding, making us even more significant and small. How we treat each other now is the most important thing—in our homes and in the world. Happy Trails
Keep in touch and stay on the Happy Trails...
Beatlick Pamela Hirst
Beatlick Travel Report #12
It has taken a full year to really become comfortable with our new van. I felt so connected to my old 71 VW and transferring emotionally to my newer 77 has been like taking on a new lover. When in Albuquerque last month the transmission hung up on me twice in one day in downtown traffic. I panicked at first then thought this van is officially blessed by the Ukranian Orhtodox Church, me too and Joe. This can’t be happening. The painful learning curve. All this time I have been shifting in a lazy X pattern when I should have been using an H pattern. So now I know and that is last bit of trouble I have had with the van. Coming back from Taos was one of the most pleasant experiences I have had, stress free driving now.
We are also in a new era with Beatlick News. We’ve changed over to a new publishing program, more compatible than our old Quark documents. I also took the front page picture with my Tracphone and emailed it to my new laptop computer, which is Wifi compatible. Publication is becoming much more streamlined and less stressful, too. And the house-sitting gigs are really starting to stack up so no new trips planned until January.
Here are some final thoughts which will be my Live For Art column in our upcoming issue. Check out beatlick.com in about a week or look for a hard copy in the mail if you are a subscriber.
The Red River and Rio Grande come together at the Wild Rivers Recreational Area in New Mexico. Far above at The Junta Point you stand between the two gorges that hold the rivers between their enormous canyon walls. Having trekked down the canyon paths to the confluence and looking up to Junta Point you can barely intellectually grasp how long it took for the rivers to eat through the flat earth further and further down to the canyon floor. Millions and millions of years. There in the midst of all that space and depth I can’t help but ponder how insignificant I am in the context of all the time ensued to create this natural wonder. How little do we matter in the entire scheme of things except to our own selves and those who share this time and space with us. It’s marvelous and frightening.
I marvel at the friends I am still allowed to have. The longer we are on this earth the more we lose: family, friends, neighborhoods, entire worlds and levels of consciousness.
The universe is still expanding, making us even more significant and small. How we treat each other now is the most important thing—in our homes and in the world. Happy Trails
Keep in touch and stay on the Happy Trails...
Beatlick Pamela Hirst
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Beatlick Travel: Wild Rivers
Date: Sep 26, 2009 11:23 AM
The confluence of the Rio Grande and Red River is at the Wild Rivers Recreation Area where this report originates. The confluence I mentioned earlier on the Low Road to Taos report was actually the Rio Grande and Rio Pueblo confluence.
I also meant to tell you in my last report about all the small black tarantulas that kept crossing the dirt road we took out to Manby Springs. We passed seven in one mile. That was before the weather changed. These little guys knew all about it and were on their way to make new burrows for themselves as they prepared to settle down for the winter.
We are already hunkered down in full winter mode now as we head out for the Wild Rivers Recreation Area on BLM land. We are sleeping on the bottom bunk and lining the interior with the Indian blankets to keep in the warmth from two big candles, an oil lamp, the occasional Coleman heater, and my favorite – a hot water bottle. I carry it around like a baby, call it the “baby” and just am amazed how warm and cozy it makes me feel. I love it.
We have driven about thirty miles from Taos, off the main road, through lots of small communities that seem to be living a much more hard-scrabble life than their counterparts in glamorous downtown Taos. The clouds get bigger, grayer, and more daunting as we head further and further away.
The Montoso campsite is along the rim of the Rio Grande Gorge. The mountains are dark and vast in the background. There is a second gorge beyond our horizon where the Red River is making its way through its own steep canyon walls, heading toward the Rio Grande. It rains on us that night and a subdued atmosphere greets us as we set out on our hike.
We had to walk to the Junta Trail from the van through a path of decimated pines. By the time we got to the gorge overlook there was some sun peeking out of the clouds. We were well suited up, complete with gloves, sweaters, neck scarves, and sporting two walking sticks.
Here two ecological worlds collide at the Junta. High above on the rim where we camp we see grasslands below the big mountain peaks, along with sagebrush, juniper and pinyon trees. Far down below in the shadows at the bottom of the gorge there are towering ponderosa pine, small springs, and lush riparian vegetation. All lay there in shadow most of the day because the canyon walls are so high.
I can't imagine how far it is from the bottom of that gorge where the river runs to the top of those snow capped mountain peaks that greeted us this morning. It is a 1.2 mile hike down to the confluence. The trail is rated “difficult” and it is. We set out on a rocky switch back trail, had to climb down one ladder, take a long series of metal steps clinging to the rock face, then follow the continuous switch back rocky path down to a flatland. The BLM has made a valiant effort to hold back the relentless law of gravity that erodes the steep rock walls, taking out old trails, and necessitating new ones. At the bottom four trails converged into a cross, where we picked up the Junta trail, .4 miles further down an easy dirt path.
Unlike so many other places we have constantly encountered other hikers here, mostly fishermen with their rods in hand. Two couples came by us with ski poles, or I guess hiking poles. I took our two wooden walking sticks and made myself a hiking stick outfit and was amazed how much easier it was to maneauver and traverse across the rocks.
Despite how intimidating the trail looked and how distant the confluence, we made it there in 30 minutes or less. The hiking sticks I think added to the speed. Joe is a billy goat and scampers over rocks. I was definitely going slower than he was before I started using the two sticks.
There were only big boulders where the two rivers came together, no shoreline. The Rio Grande is the larger of the two rivers, neither one of them really daunting, yet the slope of the land and the big rocks created a friction and conflict so strong that a marvelous roar fills your ears and the water is smashing and gushing over stones, with the light dancing through the droplets of water. I found a relatively flat rock, took up a comfortable yoga position and just willed all that raw energy into my own body.
Later with great dexterity we made two sandwiches on our knees; there was no surface to maneuver with. We munched avocado, pepperoni, and cheese sandwiches while we watched the nearby man fishing for trout. Two women sat on rocks keeping him company. The sun went in and out and long logs of gray clouds still dominated the sky.
When Joe pointed out to me the ridge we had to hike back to I was shocked by how far away it looked and figured it would take all afternoon to get there. However surprisingly enough we were back withing an hour and fifteen minutes.
The most devastating shock of this hike is the destruction created by the pine bark beetles. We camped in the bone yard of pine tree skeletons. In my estimation in places a third of the trees are destroyed. Their carcasses so massive in number that it would be impossible to remove them, or burn them, and they devastate the landscape with their blackened limbs like burnt fingers scratching towards deliverance. But there is none.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
The confluence of the Rio Grande and Red River is at the Wild Rivers Recreation Area where this report originates. The confluence I mentioned earlier on the Low Road to Taos report was actually the Rio Grande and Rio Pueblo confluence.
I also meant to tell you in my last report about all the small black tarantulas that kept crossing the dirt road we took out to Manby Springs. We passed seven in one mile. That was before the weather changed. These little guys knew all about it and were on their way to make new burrows for themselves as they prepared to settle down for the winter.
We are already hunkered down in full winter mode now as we head out for the Wild Rivers Recreation Area on BLM land. We are sleeping on the bottom bunk and lining the interior with the Indian blankets to keep in the warmth from two big candles, an oil lamp, the occasional Coleman heater, and my favorite – a hot water bottle. I carry it around like a baby, call it the “baby” and just am amazed how warm and cozy it makes me feel. I love it.
We have driven about thirty miles from Taos, off the main road, through lots of small communities that seem to be living a much more hard-scrabble life than their counterparts in glamorous downtown Taos. The clouds get bigger, grayer, and more daunting as we head further and further away.
The Montoso campsite is along the rim of the Rio Grande Gorge. The mountains are dark and vast in the background. There is a second gorge beyond our horizon where the Red River is making its way through its own steep canyon walls, heading toward the Rio Grande. It rains on us that night and a subdued atmosphere greets us as we set out on our hike.
We had to walk to the Junta Trail from the van through a path of decimated pines. By the time we got to the gorge overlook there was some sun peeking out of the clouds. We were well suited up, complete with gloves, sweaters, neck scarves, and sporting two walking sticks.
Here two ecological worlds collide at the Junta. High above on the rim where we camp we see grasslands below the big mountain peaks, along with sagebrush, juniper and pinyon trees. Far down below in the shadows at the bottom of the gorge there are towering ponderosa pine, small springs, and lush riparian vegetation. All lay there in shadow most of the day because the canyon walls are so high.
I can't imagine how far it is from the bottom of that gorge where the river runs to the top of those snow capped mountain peaks that greeted us this morning. It is a 1.2 mile hike down to the confluence. The trail is rated “difficult” and it is. We set out on a rocky switch back trail, had to climb down one ladder, take a long series of metal steps clinging to the rock face, then follow the continuous switch back rocky path down to a flatland. The BLM has made a valiant effort to hold back the relentless law of gravity that erodes the steep rock walls, taking out old trails, and necessitating new ones. At the bottom four trails converged into a cross, where we picked up the Junta trail, .4 miles further down an easy dirt path.
Unlike so many other places we have constantly encountered other hikers here, mostly fishermen with their rods in hand. Two couples came by us with ski poles, or I guess hiking poles. I took our two wooden walking sticks and made myself a hiking stick outfit and was amazed how much easier it was to maneauver and traverse across the rocks.
Despite how intimidating the trail looked and how distant the confluence, we made it there in 30 minutes or less. The hiking sticks I think added to the speed. Joe is a billy goat and scampers over rocks. I was definitely going slower than he was before I started using the two sticks.
There were only big boulders where the two rivers came together, no shoreline. The Rio Grande is the larger of the two rivers, neither one of them really daunting, yet the slope of the land and the big rocks created a friction and conflict so strong that a marvelous roar fills your ears and the water is smashing and gushing over stones, with the light dancing through the droplets of water. I found a relatively flat rock, took up a comfortable yoga position and just willed all that raw energy into my own body.
Later with great dexterity we made two sandwiches on our knees; there was no surface to maneuver with. We munched avocado, pepperoni, and cheese sandwiches while we watched the nearby man fishing for trout. Two women sat on rocks keeping him company. The sun went in and out and long logs of gray clouds still dominated the sky.
When Joe pointed out to me the ridge we had to hike back to I was shocked by how far away it looked and figured it would take all afternoon to get there. However surprisingly enough we were back withing an hour and fifteen minutes.
The most devastating shock of this hike is the destruction created by the pine bark beetles. We camped in the bone yard of pine tree skeletons. In my estimation in places a third of the trees are destroyed. Their carcasses so massive in number that it would be impossible to remove them, or burn them, and they devastate the landscape with their blackened limbs like burnt fingers scratching towards deliverance. But there is none.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Beatlick Travel: Taos
Date: Sep 23, 2009 11:45 AM
We spent four days urban camping in Taos alternating between Wal-Mart and Smith's grocery store before we found the public parking lot. Most accommodating with the city bus line right there, too. Taos is wrapping up the "Summer of Love" and I have had a good time interviewing locals about their reactions. Very diversified and some downright controversial. I have a scathing report to pass on later from a local, but I'm still waiting for permission to publish his rant.
Taos is tiny and I'm telling you they roll up the sidewalks at six o'clock around here. The restaurants are closed by nine and there are I think only three bars that are open into the night. The whole focus is the art scene and skiing. The prices are outrageous I think and all the merchandise is high end. We attended an open-mic in the lounge at the historic Taos Inn, but got there late. There was never a sign up sheet or invitation by the guy singing for anyone else to participate. The drinks were $9 apiece so Joe just ordered a $2 cup of tea. It was a great place to people watch. It's obvious who are the wealthy tourists and who are local low-enders. Their faces are lined with hard work and their jeans are stained with dirty feet in worn out sandals.
The lobby itself was magnificent, constructed of old timbers higher that telephone poles called vegas. They held up a mosaic roof of more wood, smaller pieces called latillas. They made a mosaic of great beauty, like some Cistene Chapel made out of logs. Balconied rooms overlooked the lounge and there was a great iron door that opened into the bar. All the walls were old adobe.
A beautiful long-haired redhead sat next to Beatlick Joe so he initiated a conversation with her. Turns out she lives in Gatlinburg and is moving to the tiny little shrine town of Chimayo. She said her name was Jen and she was staying in Santa Fe and had driven up for the day because she loved Taos so much. Her rental car had been broken into into two days before and she was overcome with how much help and support people gave her as she dealt with the problem. Turns out when she was married she lived in Nashville and her ex-husband ran the fancy Stockyard Restaurant downtown. After a few reminiscences about Music City we were discussing the local hot springs.
Before long a single man sitting on a nearby leather sofa joined our conversation. He was from Rhode Island, a real estate evaluator, whatever that means. He was obviously taken with Jen, who never would disclose her last name as she divulged her former careers in radio and the broadcast media world.
Bob turned out to be divorced, came to Taos two or three times a year, and was currently staying in an earth ship house out in what the locals call the "gopher holes." Those are houses made of recycled materials and tires filled with dirt. As Jen used her interviewing skills Bob's answers disclosed more affluency. He had another house in Vermont. The richer he appeared the more animated she became. Soon Bob was ordering a round of those $9 drinks. We had a good time talking to those two and Joe and I speculated if Jen would really drive all the way back to Santa Fe. We all departed when the bar closed at eleven. Jen had a CD of one of her interviews with an important physicist and philosopher back at her car she wanted to give Bob. We speculated whether she would make that long drive back to Santa Fe that night.
It was one of the most social nights we have had with anyone since we came here. The other highlight of our trip was the spectacular hike down to Manby Hot Springs. They are just a few miles out of town, about six miles down a dirt road. Then you park and hike down the Rio Grande Gorge. It was a steep and rocky trail but only took about twenty minutes. Another VW van owner was there with us. We have seen a lot of VW vans in this town.
Our hot springs mate was Stephan, pronounced the European way: stef-fun. I had hoped we would be alone and we had waited most of the afternoon for the parking lot to empty out. But just as we locked up our van Stephan pulled up in his. So I had to soak, in my bathing suit I might add, with Joe and Stephan both naked. But that's the way it's done out here.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
We spent four days urban camping in Taos alternating between Wal-Mart and Smith's grocery store before we found the public parking lot. Most accommodating with the city bus line right there, too. Taos is wrapping up the "Summer of Love" and I have had a good time interviewing locals about their reactions. Very diversified and some downright controversial. I have a scathing report to pass on later from a local, but I'm still waiting for permission to publish his rant.
Taos is tiny and I'm telling you they roll up the sidewalks at six o'clock around here. The restaurants are closed by nine and there are I think only three bars that are open into the night. The whole focus is the art scene and skiing. The prices are outrageous I think and all the merchandise is high end. We attended an open-mic in the lounge at the historic Taos Inn, but got there late. There was never a sign up sheet or invitation by the guy singing for anyone else to participate. The drinks were $9 apiece so Joe just ordered a $2 cup of tea. It was a great place to people watch. It's obvious who are the wealthy tourists and who are local low-enders. Their faces are lined with hard work and their jeans are stained with dirty feet in worn out sandals.
The lobby itself was magnificent, constructed of old timbers higher that telephone poles called vegas. They held up a mosaic roof of more wood, smaller pieces called latillas. They made a mosaic of great beauty, like some Cistene Chapel made out of logs. Balconied rooms overlooked the lounge and there was a great iron door that opened into the bar. All the walls were old adobe.
A beautiful long-haired redhead sat next to Beatlick Joe so he initiated a conversation with her. Turns out she lives in Gatlinburg and is moving to the tiny little shrine town of Chimayo. She said her name was Jen and she was staying in Santa Fe and had driven up for the day because she loved Taos so much. Her rental car had been broken into into two days before and she was overcome with how much help and support people gave her as she dealt with the problem. Turns out when she was married she lived in Nashville and her ex-husband ran the fancy Stockyard Restaurant downtown. After a few reminiscences about Music City we were discussing the local hot springs.
Before long a single man sitting on a nearby leather sofa joined our conversation. He was from Rhode Island, a real estate evaluator, whatever that means. He was obviously taken with Jen, who never would disclose her last name as she divulged her former careers in radio and the broadcast media world.
Bob turned out to be divorced, came to Taos two or three times a year, and was currently staying in an earth ship house out in what the locals call the "gopher holes." Those are houses made of recycled materials and tires filled with dirt. As Jen used her interviewing skills Bob's answers disclosed more affluency. He had another house in Vermont. The richer he appeared the more animated she became. Soon Bob was ordering a round of those $9 drinks. We had a good time talking to those two and Joe and I speculated if Jen would really drive all the way back to Santa Fe. We all departed when the bar closed at eleven. Jen had a CD of one of her interviews with an important physicist and philosopher back at her car she wanted to give Bob. We speculated whether she would make that long drive back to Santa Fe that night.
It was one of the most social nights we have had with anyone since we came here. The other highlight of our trip was the spectacular hike down to Manby Hot Springs. They are just a few miles out of town, about six miles down a dirt road. Then you park and hike down the Rio Grande Gorge. It was a steep and rocky trail but only took about twenty minutes. Another VW van owner was there with us. We have seen a lot of VW vans in this town.
Our hot springs mate was Stephan, pronounced the European way: stef-fun. I had hoped we would be alone and we had waited most of the afternoon for the parking lot to empty out. But just as we locked up our van Stephan pulled up in his. So I had to soak, in my bathing suit I might add, with Joe and Stephan both naked. But that's the way it's done out here.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Beatlick Travel: Albuquerque
Date: Sep 13, 2009 9:49 AM
[The website beatlick.com is up and running with the current issue of Beatlick News featured. This is now our only website, geocities site is closed down.]
The roosters start crowing at four in the morning. We are camped out in a field in the South Valley at a friend’s farm. The cows are right next door, too. This is really the country with the sounds of the day marking time just like the church bells used to do in the Upper Ninth Ward in New Orleans.
The chickens sound like people quarreling off in a distance or Ninja warriors getting ready to attack. No wonder farmers wake up early, you can’t sleep through the noise. The roosters crow until about ten in the morning and then the cows start up. It is a cacophony all day long. And the night is augmented with the sound of the neighboring dogs.
We always have some sort of audio book to listen to so when the roosters start in the morning I turn on the boom box in the dark, put on my CDs of “Benjamin Franklin,” “The Johnstown Flood,” or Michener’s “Mexico.” That usually gets me through till about seven in the morning.
We stayed out in the field for a week with our tent set up. It attaches to the van’s sliding side door and creates such an accommodating space we are quite comfortable. We spend our time clearing out the weeds in the garden and watering the orchards, strawberries, and raspberries for camping privileges. After a week we got to move into the A-frame adobe guest house and set up until some more money comes in for next month.
We have to climb an eight-foot ladder to go to bed. It's a challenge to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and we do our best to avoid it. Makes climbing down from the top bunk of the van a breeze. Although I am grateful to be indoors; it's so much quieter.
We love the simplicity of the farm, the slower pace, and the daily chores. From this vantage point you would never guess you were so close to a thriving metropolis such as Albuquerque. We head out in another day or two, for some poetry functions in Las Placitas, then on to Taos.
Happy Trails,
Beatlick Pamela
[The website beatlick.com is up and running with the current issue of Beatlick News featured. This is now our only website, geocities site is closed down.]
The roosters start crowing at four in the morning. We are camped out in a field in the South Valley at a friend’s farm. The cows are right next door, too. This is really the country with the sounds of the day marking time just like the church bells used to do in the Upper Ninth Ward in New Orleans.
The chickens sound like people quarreling off in a distance or Ninja warriors getting ready to attack. No wonder farmers wake up early, you can’t sleep through the noise. The roosters crow until about ten in the morning and then the cows start up. It is a cacophony all day long. And the night is augmented with the sound of the neighboring dogs.
We always have some sort of audio book to listen to so when the roosters start in the morning I turn on the boom box in the dark, put on my CDs of “Benjamin Franklin,” “The Johnstown Flood,” or Michener’s “Mexico.” That usually gets me through till about seven in the morning.
We stayed out in the field for a week with our tent set up. It attaches to the van’s sliding side door and creates such an accommodating space we are quite comfortable. We spend our time clearing out the weeds in the garden and watering the orchards, strawberries, and raspberries for camping privileges. After a week we got to move into the A-frame adobe guest house and set up until some more money comes in for next month.
We have to climb an eight-foot ladder to go to bed. It's a challenge to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and we do our best to avoid it. Makes climbing down from the top bunk of the van a breeze. Although I am grateful to be indoors; it's so much quieter.
We love the simplicity of the farm, the slower pace, and the daily chores. From this vantage point you would never guess you were so close to a thriving metropolis such as Albuquerque. We head out in another day or two, for some poetry functions in Las Placitas, then on to Taos.
Happy Trails,
Beatlick Pamela
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Beatlick Travel: El Malpais
Subject: Beatlick TR: 7Malpais
Date: Sep 10, 2009 10:08 AM
[A note to say there is something going on with beatlick.com website and I'm really bummed out about it, so if anyone is trying to access Beatlick News there I hope I can get this straightened out soon.]
Last night we slept under two chenille blankets, a down comforter, and an Indian blanket over that. The weather has really turned, clouds, drizzle. Beatlick Joe wants to poke around Quemado Lake but I am anxious to move on. We are headed to El Malpais, near Grants, NM. My best friend from my Alaska days way back in the mid 80s, in a little tiny town named San Rafael, just four miles from Grants. One more night to spend in the wilderness and then we’ll be off to Andrew’s house and I can’t wait to see him.
The closer we got to El Malpais the warmer it gets and I am relieved, wasn’t really ready to start enduring the cold yet! The El Malpais National Conservation Area gets its name from the lava beds that comprise it. This area is full of old volcanoes and the black lava flows still dominate the landscape although they were deposited thousands of years ago. You can stand there and imagine what the dinosaurs saw. There is a great picnic ground at the Lower Narrows picnic and we set up. First we pulled all of the blankets and bedding out of the van and stretched them in the hot sun to dry out. In the late afternoon we took a hike along the Narrows Rim.
The Narrows Rim Trail at an elevation of over 7,000 feet gives hikers a view to witness geologic processes thousands of years apart. We took a moderate hike up to the top of an ancient mesa where we could see the much younger lava beds below, all black with gangly trees struggling out of the folds and crevices. On top of the mesa the soft sandstone rocks are a beautiful dirty rose color with light tints of green moss, and pale blue rock fragments. In the light of afternoon with the ferns and vegetation in full bloom it is just a breathtaking sight and in so many pastel colors that contrast so sharply with the lava beds across the highway and the dark clouds beginning to loom overhead.
The wildflowers are abundant all along the trail here in the late summer. Ponderosa pine, a pinon and juniper woodland, and a variety of oak and shrub species line our pathways. Brochures claim mule deer, elk, bobcat and black bear have all been spotted along the mesa trail but thankfully we didn’t encounter any. The rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, and lizards are plentiful here and it is claimed birders can view over 30 different species of birds on a good day.
When we heard the thunder we cut our hike short, not even halfway to the La Ventana Natural Arch. On the way back down the trail we ran into to a young man and his grandfather just picking up the trail. The old man complained about how sharp the lava was to walk on and they were expecting an easier time of it up on the mesa. Brochures didn’t encourage anyone to hike up there with looming thunderstorms but they headed out anyway.
We went back to our picnic table. Joe and I tossed around the idea of illegal camping there overnight, we weren’t in sight of the highway, but the thought of getting to see Andrew before the day was over won out and we headed for San Rafael. I was supposed to give Andrew some notice before I arrived but I wasn’t able to because we didn’t have any phone service. He was a little taken aback when I informed him we were already at WallyWorld in Grants. “Oh, wow,” he said, but agreed to meet us in 15 minutes.
We stayed camped in the backyard of Andrew’s parents house. They are both gone now, parents of a dozen children, all raised in this tiny town of 700 people. All his brothers and sister keep this beautiful home like a shrine to their parents. They had a party just the night before to celebrate a fortieth birthday. Andrew and I spent a lot of time reminiscing about our days in Alaska. Andrew and I were hairdressers for Jon Anthony Salons in Anchorage. He knows me so well, has known me even longer than Joe, and I guess outside of some people in Nashville, he is my oldest friend. No one makes me giggle but Andrew. He always cooks up great meals and we stay up late and discuss naughty subjects all night.
Happy Trails,
Beatlick Pamela
Date: Sep 10, 2009 10:08 AM
[A note to say there is something going on with beatlick.com website and I'm really bummed out about it, so if anyone is trying to access Beatlick News there I hope I can get this straightened out soon.]
Last night we slept under two chenille blankets, a down comforter, and an Indian blanket over that. The weather has really turned, clouds, drizzle. Beatlick Joe wants to poke around Quemado Lake but I am anxious to move on. We are headed to El Malpais, near Grants, NM. My best friend from my Alaska days way back in the mid 80s, in a little tiny town named San Rafael, just four miles from Grants. One more night to spend in the wilderness and then we’ll be off to Andrew’s house and I can’t wait to see him.
The closer we got to El Malpais the warmer it gets and I am relieved, wasn’t really ready to start enduring the cold yet! The El Malpais National Conservation Area gets its name from the lava beds that comprise it. This area is full of old volcanoes and the black lava flows still dominate the landscape although they were deposited thousands of years ago. You can stand there and imagine what the dinosaurs saw. There is a great picnic ground at the Lower Narrows picnic and we set up. First we pulled all of the blankets and bedding out of the van and stretched them in the hot sun to dry out. In the late afternoon we took a hike along the Narrows Rim.
The Narrows Rim Trail at an elevation of over 7,000 feet gives hikers a view to witness geologic processes thousands of years apart. We took a moderate hike up to the top of an ancient mesa where we could see the much younger lava beds below, all black with gangly trees struggling out of the folds and crevices. On top of the mesa the soft sandstone rocks are a beautiful dirty rose color with light tints of green moss, and pale blue rock fragments. In the light of afternoon with the ferns and vegetation in full bloom it is just a breathtaking sight and in so many pastel colors that contrast so sharply with the lava beds across the highway and the dark clouds beginning to loom overhead.
The wildflowers are abundant all along the trail here in the late summer. Ponderosa pine, a pinon and juniper woodland, and a variety of oak and shrub species line our pathways. Brochures claim mule deer, elk, bobcat and black bear have all been spotted along the mesa trail but thankfully we didn’t encounter any. The rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, and lizards are plentiful here and it is claimed birders can view over 30 different species of birds on a good day.
When we heard the thunder we cut our hike short, not even halfway to the La Ventana Natural Arch. On the way back down the trail we ran into to a young man and his grandfather just picking up the trail. The old man complained about how sharp the lava was to walk on and they were expecting an easier time of it up on the mesa. Brochures didn’t encourage anyone to hike up there with looming thunderstorms but they headed out anyway.
We went back to our picnic table. Joe and I tossed around the idea of illegal camping there overnight, we weren’t in sight of the highway, but the thought of getting to see Andrew before the day was over won out and we headed for San Rafael. I was supposed to give Andrew some notice before I arrived but I wasn’t able to because we didn’t have any phone service. He was a little taken aback when I informed him we were already at WallyWorld in Grants. “Oh, wow,” he said, but agreed to meet us in 15 minutes.
We stayed camped in the backyard of Andrew’s parents house. They are both gone now, parents of a dozen children, all raised in this tiny town of 700 people. All his brothers and sister keep this beautiful home like a shrine to their parents. They had a party just the night before to celebrate a fortieth birthday. Andrew and I spent a lot of time reminiscing about our days in Alaska. Andrew and I were hairdressers for Jon Anthony Salons in Anchorage. He knows me so well, has known me even longer than Joe, and I guess outside of some people in Nashville, he is my oldest friend. No one makes me giggle but Andrew. He always cooks up great meals and we stay up late and discuss naughty subjects all night.
Happy Trails,
Beatlick Pamela
Beatlick Travel: Quemado Lake
Subject: Beatlick TR: 6Quemado Lake
Date: Sep 2, 2009 12:35 PM
Next morning we woke up to find two big trailers and one modest tent in the campground. We passed a man in the tent and he struck up a conversation. Turns out he is the great grandson of the first homesteader in the area. He told us all about the Pueblo Creek and how it used to be full of fish. He described the big wash outs that come these days during the rainy season. He said all the property around this area now belongs to the US Forestry Service. I guess he still enjoys coming out to visit the old homestead and remembering better days.
We took the interpretive trail right there in the campground. It featured some sites where the Pueblo Indians used to live. It was a short walk, but at least we did get to see some semblance of where the Indians lived. All the guides that go with an interpretive trail were long gone so we just had to imagine the circumstances. Budget cuts I'm sure.
We were on the road by 11 am. We stocked up again in the little town of Reserve. Beatlick Joe now has poison ivy so we were lucky to find some Benedryl there. We headed on out towards Quemado Lake and set up camp by 1 pm. It looks like a miniature Lake Tahoe in Nevada. We had a big rig parked right next to us. We decided of course to take advantage of the free campsite parking here in a big gravel lot. There's plenty of fee area camping on down the road.
We were perched high overlooking the lake and Joe walked the trail all around it - about an hour's walk. The wildflowers are dominating the landscape right now. Despite some gloomy weather we set out for a little store and steak house we saw coming in hoping to find a land line telephone and a hot drink. We set out wearing gloves, sweaters, and neck scarves. We hiked along sharing a small umbrella with newspaper comic strips all over it. When we got to "Snuffy's" it was closed and the pay phone was out of order.
It was a long walk back, all uphill. Rains seriously set in just as soon as we reached our campsite. We settled in with a hot cup of hibiscus tea and opened a can of hot tamales. We fell asleep to the drone of the big rig's generator next door.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Date: Sep 2, 2009 12:35 PM
Next morning we woke up to find two big trailers and one modest tent in the campground. We passed a man in the tent and he struck up a conversation. Turns out he is the great grandson of the first homesteader in the area. He told us all about the Pueblo Creek and how it used to be full of fish. He described the big wash outs that come these days during the rainy season. He said all the property around this area now belongs to the US Forestry Service. I guess he still enjoys coming out to visit the old homestead and remembering better days.
We took the interpretive trail right there in the campground. It featured some sites where the Pueblo Indians used to live. It was a short walk, but at least we did get to see some semblance of where the Indians lived. All the guides that go with an interpretive trail were long gone so we just had to imagine the circumstances. Budget cuts I'm sure.
We were on the road by 11 am. We stocked up again in the little town of Reserve. Beatlick Joe now has poison ivy so we were lucky to find some Benedryl there. We headed on out towards Quemado Lake and set up camp by 1 pm. It looks like a miniature Lake Tahoe in Nevada. We had a big rig parked right next to us. We decided of course to take advantage of the free campsite parking here in a big gravel lot. There's plenty of fee area camping on down the road.
We were perched high overlooking the lake and Joe walked the trail all around it - about an hour's walk. The wildflowers are dominating the landscape right now. Despite some gloomy weather we set out for a little store and steak house we saw coming in hoping to find a land line telephone and a hot drink. We set out wearing gloves, sweaters, and neck scarves. We hiked along sharing a small umbrella with newspaper comic strips all over it. When we got to "Snuffy's" it was closed and the pay phone was out of order.
It was a long walk back, all uphill. Rains seriously set in just as soon as we reached our campsite. We settled in with a hot cup of hibiscus tea and opened a can of hot tamales. We fell asleep to the drone of the big rig's generator next door.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Beatlick Travel: Glenwood
Subject: Beatlick TR: Glenwood
Date: Aug 27, 2009 10:10 AM
Glenwood is this tiny little town once bustling from mining , sawmill, even the early aviation industries, but now a quaint conglomerate with a guest ranch, rustic cabins for rent, goat mile beauty products, an old bible camp, some art galleries, a rock shop, two bars and three restaurants – as far as I could tell.
We settled in at the free Bighorn Campground west of town and right next door to the $18 a night RV park. We had the campground to ourselves and there were about three rigs at the RV park, most looked like they were there on a semi-permanent basis.
I took a yoga class for $5 down at the Community Center taught by a British woman named Cornelia. She arrived in Glenwood seven years ago via London, Africa, and New York City. She and her husband have horses and built a labyrinth which they make available to the public.
At the Blue Front Bar and Café we found out from the locals that a nearby landowner tapped some of the hot springs on their property which they had closed to the public. Then they pumped the hot water up to their residence and set up an exclusive RV park and campground named Sundial Hot Springs. Reservations only. I tried to call the number from a pay phone by the Trading Post, but got an answering machine that said it would call back. Unfortunately cell phones don’t work in the town, so that limited communications.
In the morning we had 25-cent coffee at the Golden Girls Café. Great, I mean great biscuits. In the tiny dining room only one other table was filled. There sat a man and woman with two young children and a baby. Their car roof was covered with about a dozen gym bags of varying proportions all lashed together. One of the back tires looked like it was going to explode at any minute. I wanted to ask, "How far do you think you're going to get on that tire?"I was sure we would see them broken down further down the road. But I guess it is some kind of tribute to them that they could set that problem aside and sit down to a great breakfast.
We’re all carbed up too and ready to press on into the wilderness.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela Hirst
Date: Aug 27, 2009 10:10 AM
Glenwood is this tiny little town once bustling from mining , sawmill, even the early aviation industries, but now a quaint conglomerate with a guest ranch, rustic cabins for rent, goat mile beauty products, an old bible camp, some art galleries, a rock shop, two bars and three restaurants – as far as I could tell.
We settled in at the free Bighorn Campground west of town and right next door to the $18 a night RV park. We had the campground to ourselves and there were about three rigs at the RV park, most looked like they were there on a semi-permanent basis.
I took a yoga class for $5 down at the Community Center taught by a British woman named Cornelia. She arrived in Glenwood seven years ago via London, Africa, and New York City. She and her husband have horses and built a labyrinth which they make available to the public.
At the Blue Front Bar and Café we found out from the locals that a nearby landowner tapped some of the hot springs on their property which they had closed to the public. Then they pumped the hot water up to their residence and set up an exclusive RV park and campground named Sundial Hot Springs. Reservations only. I tried to call the number from a pay phone by the Trading Post, but got an answering machine that said it would call back. Unfortunately cell phones don’t work in the town, so that limited communications.
In the morning we had 25-cent coffee at the Golden Girls Café. Great, I mean great biscuits. In the tiny dining room only one other table was filled. There sat a man and woman with two young children and a baby. Their car roof was covered with about a dozen gym bags of varying proportions all lashed together. One of the back tires looked like it was going to explode at any minute. I wanted to ask, "How far do you think you're going to get on that tire?"I was sure we would see them broken down further down the road. But I guess it is some kind of tribute to them that they could set that problem aside and sit down to a great breakfast.
We’re all carbed up too and ready to press on into the wilderness.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela Hirst
Monday, September 07, 2009
Beatlicks: Last Generation of Campers
Subject: Beatlick TR3: Glenwood here we come
Date: Aug 26, 2009 12:40 PM
Last night Beatlick Joe and I sat outside to watch the sky. It was too dark to see the cow patties but we got lucky and missed most of them. I haven’t really spent that much time looking at the stars since Joe and I took that sailboat trip out of Zihuatanejo to Mazatlan, sailing beneath the Southern Cross. I couldn’t even find the Big Dipper, but in my defense the stars were so numerous that it was lost in the masses.
You know if you look up into the sky long enough you will definitely see something that makes you want to scratch your head. Joe and I both saw a little red star that seemed to pulse and quiver around, not really travel, but definitely move incrementally in all directions. We watched the blinking lights of airplanes traverse the whole horizon and the summer heat lightning illuminate the sky off towards Silver City.
Next morning we pulled out and learned a lot more about the Bubbles at the Ranger Station. The Bubbles don’t exist anymore – dried up years ago. All our information was too old truthfully. We also learned from the rangers that the road to the hot springs was closed because of squatters.
Apparently a small enclave was living there and word got out that an infant had died up there. Upon further investigation it was discovered that the people were poaching long horn sheep for sustenance. They were run out and the road was closed forever.
The young female ranger that came to our campground told me squatting is still a problem. She had a work crew back near the springs to clear brush recently when she discovered an intact “house” that someone had constructed for themselves out there. Now for her own protection she’s not allowed to go back there to work.
She also said the rangers who work in this area do not restore the hot springs after a flood. So maybe the person in that “house” is the one who attempted to restore one of the pools. Or maybe the person whose blanket I now own did it. The smaller pool near that camp was by far the cleanest and best being constructed all out of rocks without mud.
That camper who left the blanket had sustained himself or herself with a twenty-pound bag of organic oatmeal. I know because the bag was left there as trash along with the blanket, pan, backpack and tarp.
So, only problem campers, floods, and a need for constant restoration, it’s easy to see why these campgrounds can be cut from the Federal budget or simply diminished to hiking trails. In this economic climate it’s just a matter of time – especially when there is the pristine Cat Walk hiking experience fifteen miles down the road with only picnic grounds to maintain.
Beatlick Joe says we are probably the last generation of campers.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela Hirst
Date: Aug 26, 2009 12:40 PM
Last night Beatlick Joe and I sat outside to watch the sky. It was too dark to see the cow patties but we got lucky and missed most of them. I haven’t really spent that much time looking at the stars since Joe and I took that sailboat trip out of Zihuatanejo to Mazatlan, sailing beneath the Southern Cross. I couldn’t even find the Big Dipper, but in my defense the stars were so numerous that it was lost in the masses.
You know if you look up into the sky long enough you will definitely see something that makes you want to scratch your head. Joe and I both saw a little red star that seemed to pulse and quiver around, not really travel, but definitely move incrementally in all directions. We watched the blinking lights of airplanes traverse the whole horizon and the summer heat lightning illuminate the sky off towards Silver City.
Next morning we pulled out and learned a lot more about the Bubbles at the Ranger Station. The Bubbles don’t exist anymore – dried up years ago. All our information was too old truthfully. We also learned from the rangers that the road to the hot springs was closed because of squatters.
Apparently a small enclave was living there and word got out that an infant had died up there. Upon further investigation it was discovered that the people were poaching long horn sheep for sustenance. They were run out and the road was closed forever.
The young female ranger that came to our campground told me squatting is still a problem. She had a work crew back near the springs to clear brush recently when she discovered an intact “house” that someone had constructed for themselves out there. Now for her own protection she’s not allowed to go back there to work.
She also said the rangers who work in this area do not restore the hot springs after a flood. So maybe the person in that “house” is the one who attempted to restore one of the pools. Or maybe the person whose blanket I now own did it. The smaller pool near that camp was by far the cleanest and best being constructed all out of rocks without mud.
That camper who left the blanket had sustained himself or herself with a twenty-pound bag of organic oatmeal. I know because the bag was left there as trash along with the blanket, pan, backpack and tarp.
So, only problem campers, floods, and a need for constant restoration, it’s easy to see why these campgrounds can be cut from the Federal budget or simply diminished to hiking trails. In this economic climate it’s just a matter of time – especially when there is the pristine Cat Walk hiking experience fifteen miles down the road with only picnic grounds to maintain.
Beatlick Joe says we are probably the last generation of campers.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela Hirst
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