Cartographus

Today at work someone called me a mapping god. "Just call me Cartographus: God of Maps," I said. I also got a very nice note from the lead author of the solar paper I was raging against the other day. It made me feel bad for blogging about it, because he loved and incorporated all of my suggestions for improving it.

[sigh]

I don't know what's wrong with me. I've got a perfectly wonderful career working with perfectly wonderful people doing interesting and wonderful work. I live in the best city in the most beautiful state in the most awesome country in the world. Yet I can't stop bellyaching. All I seem to want to do is manual labor and screw around with horses. WTF?

Cartographus. Indeed.

Great Balls of FIre!

What a perfectly gorgeous Autumn day.

We'd planned to have a couple of friends over for dinner tonight. They'd never had Rocky Mountain oysters and were really curious to try them. One half of the couple is from Britain, so that's understandable. But the other half is from Wyoming, and that's just inexcusable. ;0)

A couple of hours before they were supposed to arrive, a couple of friends from Texas showed up on the doorstep completely unannounced. One of the guys had actually moved from Austin to Denver two months ago on a whim, and the other guy was here visiting the first guy. They decided to swing by Boulder, so our dinner count unexpectedly jumped by 50%. Fortunately I had thawed three bisons' worth of oysters, just in case. (You never know when weary travelers may show up for dinner!) I'd also procured more than enough beer, and at the farmer's market this morning something told me to buy 6 large poblano peppers (instead of just 4) and a larger than usual block of goat cheese. Gerard roasted and stuffed the poblanos with goat cheese and spiced bison meat while I skinned and batter-fried the oysters, and everyone had a great time.

Sometimes everything just works out perfectly: beer and buffalo testicles for all!

I Don't Know What This Is About

Let me preface this by saying I've had an appreciable quantity of beer. If you're ever in Boulder you need to have a beverage at the Mountain Sun. They brew their own beer and rootbeer (the rootbeer I did not partake in today.) It's really good and locally owned by a 'shroom and marijuana loving gay man named Kevin who treats his employees well! Though he'll never remember you, no matter how many times you meet him.

The Tarahumara Indians of the Sierra Madre believe that anything you say or do while under the influence of alcohol is not your responsibility. It has something to do with an evil spirit taking over your body or some such bullshit. Let's say I subscribe to that.

Now that I've given myself a license to say anything I want, I can't think of a goddamn thing to say. Isn't that always the way of it? I think this blog is becoming my shrink. I'm posting too many times a day.

I could expound upon the virtues of beer. I wish I could be this loose all the time. I feel good, confident, happy-go-lucky. I feel aggressive. So maybe that's not such a good thing to feel all the time, but it sure feels awesome right now.

I think my job - well, office jobs in general - are emasculating. Now here's a topic I've been wanting to cover! Now I'm not one of those that thinks a woman's place is in the home barefoot and pregnant, nor do I think that men have to have some kind of hyper-masculine persona to be a man. However, I do think that these days in American society the line is blurring between masculinity and femininity and, for whatever reason, I don't like it. Ever wonder if the human race is evolving toward some kind of homogeneous, boring blend? Kinda like those big-eyed gray aliens that were so popular in the 1980's and '90's? I'm going to sound like a total backwoods redneck, but I don't like it when I can't tell if a person is male or female. Women wear t-shirts, men have long hair, everyone's got tattoos and nose rings. (Geez sound just like three generations of Roberts'.) Why are so many people in our society either so fat that men and women both have boobs, or so thin that neither have boobs? I understand we have the freedom of choice and I support that, but you know I really like it when men are masculine and women are feminine. Even the animal world often has lines of demarcation beyond mere sex organs: generally speaking males are vivid and colorful and love to show off, and females aren't. Usually the males are bigger than the females and are in control, but in some species it's exactly the opposite. Whatever the arrangement, I don't care. I just like that there's often a clear difference, certain unspoken rules for each. I'm not advocating helpless women, and I don't have a problem with bull dykes per se. Same goes for men - some are overly macho while others couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. You are who you are. I guess the problem I have is with the homogenization of society. (Though I am a stickler, perhaps irrationally so, on some points. For example, women should not wear cowboy hats, period. There is no discussion here. And anything pink is most certainly not a cowboy hat.) And there's a whole list of things men should not wear, including short shorts (though honestly I'm not a fan of shorts in general.) Do I think people should be outcast from society for going against this? Of course not. Do I think they're "evil" or "wrong?" Certainly not. I just think it's nice for people to put some effort into their appearance and to do things to accentuate their unique qualities. That's all. Does it sound like I'm trying to cover up a bigotry streak? God I hope not.

I've got female friends, who I won't name here, who talk all about being a feminist and then turn around and absolutely revel in using their long eyelashes and sensuous curves to entice men into opening doors and doing other things for them. I think it's funny. I'm not picking, I'm just saying that I know that even among at least some feminist types the desire for that dividing line is still there. If nothing else, it's fun. It gives us a bit more of a heightened sense of belonging to a special group, of not being just like every other biped on the planet. I see nothing wrong with that.

Anyway, back to emasculating office jobs. I hate them. It's not masculine OR feminine to be pecking away at a computer all day. It's like we're all robots on an assembly line, each doing our own specialized task. Sex and physical strength have nothing to do with anything in that world. Hell, even a face has nothing to do with anything. All you need to be able to do is hit the right keys in the right order to get the desired outcome. A lot of people come to work in t-shirts, men and women. This one guy I work with looks like he rolls out of bed every morning and into whatever is lying on the floor. He's a brilliant programmer, so why do I care that he looks like white trash? I don't know. There's also a woman who dresses exactly the same way. They could share a wardrobe and no one would know the difference.

I think there is a liberal and a conservative duking it out in my head and beer just let's their battle come a little closer to the surface. The liberal wants to do the right thing, educate himself and spread peace and happiness. The conservative, at the very least, just wants to hold on to at least some of the old ways. I mean, let's take food for an example. What happens when our attitude toward food is "anything goes?" You end up with McDonald's and a nation full of obese citizens. Just because we can, does that mean we should? Why do some people (myself included) put so much emphasis on eating locally and organically, on insisting that food be prepared by hand, and that it actually be attractive when served? I mean there's a McDonald's on every corner. Why not save myself a lot of time, effort and money? Food is food, right? Does it matter if it's grown on a farm and prepared by loving hands or grown in a factory and processed by machines? Why do I care that my food be served at a real table, often with flowers from my garden and natural beeswax candles from the local honey guy? Presentation doesn't change the nutritional content of the food. So what's the deal? I think those "extras" make the whole experience somehow more special, more wonderful. I mean, isn't part of what makes us human the fact that we don't just stand in a field and graze? Or tear a cow apart and eat its flesh while the heart is still beating? Or for that matter, just pop a pill for a meal? How enjoyable would that be? Why did we develop culture in the first place? Why do cookbooks always show beautifully presented food, and pastoral images like chickens wandering in green pastures on an idyllic farm? Why don't they show the truth: half dead chickens suffering by the millions on a disassembly line of death? It's the same food, right? Why did we develop rules for eating and dressing and speaking in the first place? I think those things are very important. No, we shouldn't be like the Puritans in our rigidity, but can't there be some kind of compromise where people dress nice and make a big deal out of food because they want to instead of because they have to? Or what about the opposite extreme (from the Puritans) where no one thinks twice if there's a 300 pound woman walking down the street wearing spandex? Where's the middle ground?

I guess this all goes back to me feeling like we're steadily taking the humanity out of what it means to be human. I like it when a man says, "Yes sir" and wears a starched shirt. It shows (to me anyway) that he cares enough not to just say, "yeah dude whatever." It says he has some degree of respect for me as a fellow human being. I like pretty women who fuss about their shoes or their hair, because to me it says she cares about making both herself and society just a little bit more special than it needs to be (society by virtue of her appearance in it.) Life isn't about just surviving, and it certainly isn't about getting by with the least amount of effort or discomfort. Nowhere in nature is that written. So why not be like the peacock and spread those gloriously showy feathers from time to time? Life is hard enough. Isn't it our right, our natural calling even, to bring a little more beauty into the world?

Comments? Anyone?

It Begins

Farriery has been on my mind big time since my experience with Mr. Masterson. I think about it day and night, and I talk about it to anyone I can rope into listening. Last night I dreamt about it. I was standing in a golden field. My truck was there, properly outfitted. Horses were standing around grazing. The sky was blue and the mountains were behind me. I was hammering shoes, and the only sound I could hear was the wind. I was alone, making my own way in the world with the tools of raw creation. I was my own boss, working in the Great Western Outdoors, master of an arcane trade - simple in its concept, complex in its subtleties. I was utterly at peace, and all the world was right.

I sat bolt upright in bed, and it took me a moment to realize it was only a dream.

I called Mr. Masterson on the phone this morning.

"Hello," he answered plainly.

"Mr. Masterson? Billy Roberts here," I said.

"Why Billy Roberts!" he said, his voice suddenly coming to life. "Great to hear from you! How are you doing, man? I'm really looking forward to working together!" His reaction was as if he were hearing from an old friend, which I found to be both comforting and reassuring - if not slightly unexpected.

We talked a little about work (his and mine), the weather, his application to vet school and some other small talk, then talked a lot about farriery. Seems I'll be his first apprentice and he's as excited about it as I am.

"So let's see," he said. I heard papers rustling on the other end of the line. "I could use you all day Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday of next week. Then the week after that..."

"Whoa," I said. "I do have a full time job and I'm a full time grad student, so my schedule isn't that flexible just now." We ended up scheduling two full days' work back-to-back to get things rolling. "We'll get you under a horse right away," he said. He told me to wear my boots and jeans and bring leather gloves, and that he had an extra pair of chaps I could wear. I'm to meet him at the crack of dawn at the horse barn, to get things setup before the horses start coming in. He said I should plan on shoeing a whole herd's worth of horses. Well, I won't be doing the shoeing. I'll mostly be doing the grunt work: cleaning and trimming and learning the detailed anatomy of a horse's foot. Some of this I know already. I do basic hoof maintenance and horse grooming every week before and after riding, and at the two horse rescues where I've been volunteering. But soon I'll be using knives and files and learning things I don't even know I don't know. "Just knowing how to hold a horse's foot without wearing out your back is the biggest challenge for new guys," he said. "But you'll get it in no time."

Do you ever get the sense that something big, some significant and exciting new thing has just popped into your life? That's how I'm feeling. I keep trying to explain it away or brush it off, but I can't shake it. I've felt that way about all of the big things that have come into my life and enriched it or changed its course for the better: Texas A&M, Austin, Gerard and Colorado to name a few of the biggest. I think - I hope - I'll eventually be able to add this experience to the list.

Dang. I'm excited.

Elk

Yesterday in Colorado two bull elk (mature males) were found entangled with each other due to barbed wire which was wrapped around their antlers. This is rutting season, and males are battling one another for dominance and females. In this case it seems some stray barbed wire became entangled in their antlers and essentially tied the two animals together at the head.

This all happened just off the road I take to work every day.

Fortunately, several ranchers found the animals and were able to cut the barbed wire off. (No, that's not me in the black cowboy hat below, but I wish it had been!) The two elk, upon being freed, ran off into the mountains apparently unharmed.

Oh and by the way, that beautiful golden meadow where this happened is slated for development. It's home to elk, mule deer (yesterday I saw a mule deer with a huge rack lying in the grass there), coyote, prairie dog, fox, hawk, rabbit and innumerable other creatures, but some developer is chomping at the bit to turn it all into a quick buck (for himself.) Yep, it's been sold to the highest bidder, which means a developer. It will be paved and covered with cookie cutter houses and strip malls. There's a huge sign erected by the developer in front if it right now proudly displaying the fact, and doubtless there are Americans who just can't wait for this "useless" meadow to be turned into more cheap shopping opportunities (because God knows Americans just don't have enough cheap places to buy crap!) After all, that toxic MADE IN CHINA stuff isn't going to buy itself! Who cares about good 'ol American wilderness and the spectacle of nature's ancient rituals? We need more plastic garbage and cardboard houses!

This whole thing just makes me glow incandescent with rage. Not only can elk not breed without being tied up in our junk wire, but soon the very meadows where they've been breeding for longer than humans have even existed will be strip malls and tract houses. Is nothing sacred anymore?

SNOW!

Just a couple of hours after this morning's blog post, the temperature dropped and the rain turned into snow! The first snowfall of the season a day and a half before the autumn equinox.

I was as giddy as a child.

Good Morning

One of the things I love about Colorado is that she's got a place and a season for my every mood.

The temperature was in the low 40's this morning and the sky drippy and gray. I put on my favorite red flannel and my leather vest and headed out for a walk in the dim twilight of early morning. Except for the ubiquitous Spandex-clad joggers, Boulder was asleep. I walked along Boulder Creek, watching the canyon walls rise up around me and disappearing into the gray mist which hung over the valley like a lid.

I stopped near a stone bench with an inscription dedicating it to a 23 year old girl whose life was cut short. "I love my family, I love my friends, I love my life," it said. I stood there on a boulder in the creek between two sets of falls. I could hear the rain rustling dying leaves and I could feel it pattering on the sleeves of my shirt.

I stared into the chilly water. Trout drifted along the rocky bottom, and yellow aspen leaves drifted along the glassy top before being swept away over the falls. I stood there for a very long time, rain dripping off the brim of my hat, and feeling sad that the girl had to miss this moment.

Happy Autumn!

I know fall doesn't officially start for another 48 hours, but today we went for a hike around Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was snowing. And the aspens clearly think fall has arrived. Fall has definitely come to the mountains.

Sunny Days

Last week classes began. I've returned to college to finish my master's degree in GIS. It's an online program. I wrote a blog entry about my "first day," but it was such an angry, negative post I decided not to publish it. I even surprised myself with my overreaction, my incredibly negative knee-jerk outburst. I'm still trying to make sense of it. But I want to go ahead and post an only slightly modified version because my blog is going to serve as my notebook when I start seriously working on my book. It'll be a good record of where I've been, what I've done, and my thoughts on things. I wrote this just days before my experience with the farrier.

Here is the (nearly) original post, which I called Dark Days:

I just logged in for the first time, read over the syllabus and introductions, and I already hate it. I hate it so much that I want to either run screaming from the room or collapse in a drooling heap and stare blankly into the void.

WTF?

Of my two courses, the class I hate the most is GIS Project Management. Even that combination of words puts me on the defensive. "Hate," in fact, is too soft a word but trying to find something to type that would appropriately convey the gravity of my emotion is futile. I had previously started my master's in Texas but it was interrupted (to my great relief) when I moved to Colorado for my current job. It's now painfully apparent that my interests have moved hopelessly beyond anything that further education in my current career field can offer.

Students have already started engaging in the forums. One chipper little overachiever has already posted all his plans for his big GIS management project, complete with acronyms, goals, scope, end users and data sources all glued together with an overabundance of words like "utilize" and "proactive" that makes me cringe like hearing nails on a chalkboard. I f'ing hate those two words. As Elizabeth would call them, "corporate tripe."

But I wrote my introduction just like everyone else did. The prof wanted the usual stuff: career background, future goals, and some personal hobby stuff for good measure. I had three sentences that summed up my career history and GIS aspirations, and then wrote a meaty paragraph about mountains, horses, food and a cabin in the woods.

It was all I could do to stay awake reading through the syllabus. I had to fight the sick, twisted feeling in my stomach as I started thinking about trying to force out a 20 plus page paper on the gloriously un-fascinating subject of the "interdependencies of the steps required for GIS implementation planning" in the form of the most despised (by me) of all writing, the technical report. I mean we're not just planning here, were dissecting the plan for the plan. Seriously, I start trembling thinking about late nights trying desperately to BS my way through something I absolutely could not care one iota less about. It's a black hole on my passion scale.

So what am I doing?

The other day I was at work and I read through a scientific report which I co-authored. I'm a co-author because I did all of the GIS work upon which the paper is based, but didn't actually write any of the material. It took me 4 hours to read 20 pages (which INCLUDED maps that I myself had made!) because I couldn't keep my eyes open. I wasn't even tired! I finished it, even found and marked numerous typos, and yet I can barely tell you what the paper was about. Something about solar resource and consumer buying habits and a bunch of really, really dusty statistics and technical banter that immediately sent my brain packing. The GIS part of this particular project was mildly interesting at the time I was doing it, but once my part was over I pretty
much dumped it from my memory.

Again I ask, what am I doing?

On top of this I feel guilt. I feel guilty because the great majority of the people I work with are much more "into" their jobs than I am. I'm glad they are, too. We need people like that working on the nation's energy crisis. I can do the work, and I do it five days a week (sometimes more) just like I'm supposed to. I've even gotten a lot of praise for the quality of my work. But no matter how hard I try, I'm not ever going to get the least bit excited about regression analysis, databases or the programming of anything. If anything, I'm getting less excited about them with each passing day. I can't even sit through meetings without getting glassy eyed. Hell I'm mentally checked-out before the meeting organizer even gets warmed up. I feel guilty because my heart's not in it. I'm just not interested. It makes me feel like I'm cheating my more enthusiastic co-workers and even the nation to some degree. I feel like a monkey in a zoo, staring through the bars and longing for the world beyond. I keep doing my tricks for peanuts but I'm not really there.

So, I'll ask again, WTF am I doing?

I think this GIS master's idea is kinda like a gay man going out with a woman hoping the experience will somehow make him straight. It makes no sense to anyone but the poor deluded soul who, out of desperation, is just trying to do what he has to in order to feel useful and accepted in society.

And that was as far as I got before I decided to sleep on it instead of doing anything rash like dropping out of the program on the first day. The next morning I felt better. I thought things over and logged back in, and calmly read through all the documentation for each class. They're totally doable if only I can put myself in the right frame of mind. But that's hard sometimes. For example, I was just reading through the lecture notes for my cartography class. Check this out:

Dent describes the cartographic process, the process by which you go from unmapped to map form, in three general steps:

1. Cartographic Thinking - visualization of data looking for patterns or relationships
2. Cartographic Generalization - selection, classification, simplification and symbolization of data
3. Cartographic Communication - making the maps including map design and structured symbolism

Only information that is potentially meaningful to the context should be included in the map. Realize the power of cartography.

Seriously? I paid $2,000 for this class? This is one of the things I really dislike about academia. They can make the painfully obvious seem like they're revealing the deepest secrets of the universe - in step form. I'd rather sit down and start making a map and learn by trial and error, or have an experienced cartographer show me the ropes, hands on, rather than read about the process step by step. I do this stuff every single day of my life, and I read almost a book a week, and yet I can't read a few pages on cartographic basics in a graduate level college course without drifting away.

Still, I'm much less hostile toward my classes today. I think the experience with the farrier and bucking hay has helped. They gave me hope that there could be something better out there, that even if I complete the master's in GIS I won't be, as they say, "educating myself into a corner." I desperately need the outlet of ranch work and the glimmer of hope from a tradesman to keep me sane. And if farriery or the greater plan of my self-sufficient homestead never comes to fruition, then I'll always have a solid formal education to fall back on. That's what I keep telling myself.

Last Weekend of Summer

Today's farmer's market was the last for the summer of '09. Tuesday is the equinox, the first day of fall. I can't believe another summer has slipped away. It's always sad to say goodbye to summer.

Of course there's still a whole lot of good stuff to be had at the market, and autumn really is my favorite time of year. More pumpkins are starting to fill the booths, as well as winter squashes and an abundance of potatoes, onions, garlic and other fall crops. The Garlic Queen has returned this year. She's a wonderful, friendly woman who sells nothing but garlic. Dozens of varieties fill her booth for every use from cooking and canning to eating raw, to varieties that will store all the way through spring. Her garlic now fills a nook in my storage pantry. New to the market this year, one farm started braiding their onions into traditional hanging ornaments for winter storage. They look beautiful hanging in the kitchen, and whenever you need onion you just cut one off the braid. They should last through the depths of winter. Pears are also in season, and they are second only to the pumpkin as being a symbolic fruit of autumn and the start of the holiday season. They are always a very welcome but short lived autumn treat. And of course there's also a little bite in the morning air now, and people are starting to wear light sweaters and long sleeves in the early morning hours. Even the aspens have started to slip into their golden autumn wardrobe, and mountainsides are starting to shimmer. Autumn is knocking on the door.

This morning I ate the first fresh apple I've had since last fall. Lordy it was a feast for the senses. Never in my life have I enjoyed an apple so much. They're just coming fully into season, and when I saw those crates full of them my mouth started watering. I selected an organic Gala with a full round body and no blemishes. It was a bright, sunny morning but the apples were still cold from last night. That first bite - oh my - I wish I could put it into words. It was so crisp, so sweet and juicy and chilled. It was nothing like those flavorless cardboard apples from the grocery store. It just tasted so - appley. It may sound odd if you haven't experienced it, but it gave me a slight buzz. I savored every incredible bite, then sat there stretched out in the cool grass looking at the sky for a long time being deeply grateful for moments like this.

Buckin' Hay!

A bale of hay is about 1.5 feet wide, 2 feet tall and 3 feet long. It weighs 40 to 60 pounds depending on how fresh or moist it is, and it's held together by two very tightly wrapped strings or wires.

I just bucked 160 of those bad boys. That's a minimum of 6,400 pounds. I feel more alive than I have in a very long time. I only regret that the pile was so small.

This morning I went out to the ranch. The woman who asked for my help saw me pull up in my truck. "Well," she said, "since you know how to handle a truck, you get to drive." She tossed me keys to a Ford. Moments later we were hitching a four horse trailer to an older model Ford F-Series. It was pretty much my truck but 6 or 7 years ago, and now with the extra length of a horse trailer. She and I and another guy jumped in and headed across a field, down a dirt road to a neighbor's property, and found a thin Mexican fella waiting beside a stack of hay at least 20 feet high and as long as a small house. We loaded the bed, then the trailer, then headed back to the barn. It took some fancy maneuvering, both forward and in reverse, but I drove that big mama in, around, and back out of that barn like nobody's business. The windows were down, the dust was up, the engine was rumbling. Hell yeah!

Why does this make me so happy? Partly because it brought back good memories from childhood. Partly because I wasn't pecking at a computer. And partly because, when the work was done, I could stand back and see that something real and tangible had been accomplished by my own two hands. It wasn't some virtual thing, some rearrangement of photons in a plastic box. It wasn't something everyone could have a petty little opinion on and suggest I tweak this or adjust that or modify something else. This was something raw and physical, something with an undeniable presence. It was a big, sturdy stack of horse feed, and because it existed horses would get to eat for a few more weeks.

To "buck" hay means to throw a bale, and mostly that means moving it from the ground to up over your head. It doesn't take too many bales before you start to feel muscles you never knew you had. Talk about a workout! Chest, biceps, shoulders, back, legs and lots of lower back and abs. I've bucked hay before but never this much in one go. It was awesome. I'm filthy, covered in a fine dust and lots of dried grass bits. You might also be surprised at how sharp hay can be. My forearms are pricked and bleeding all over. Funny thing is I didn't even notice until the work was done and we were all standing around BSing (which is one of the best rewards of ranch work, in my opinion, but it's only good if you earn it first.) I noticed the blood when I felt my forearms stinging. "Huh," I thought. I loved it.

But the work wasn't actually over. We also unloaded a horse trailer full of pine shavings used for horse bedding, and then I spent two hours riding. Have you ever loped around on a horse? The lope (in Western riding) or canter (in English riding) is basically third gear for a horse, one step down from a full-on gallop. It's an incredible feeling, kinda like flying. It's so smooth and rhythmic. Your upper body stays relatively motionless, while your hips lunge forward and fall back with each stride. It's almost like an erotic dance. You can feel every contraction of the horses body, and when you've been riding a while you can sense his every footfall, his every twitch. Riding has little or nothing to do with audible or visual cues. It's entirely about body language. A slight motion of your foot or leg or arm and the horse responds accordingly. Likewise, every motion the horse makes you respond to. There's a continuous feedback loop of information between a good horse and a good rider, all unspoken, and when done right it will appear to an observer that the horse and rider are of one mind.

And now for a late lunch of homemade buttermilk biscuits with butter and home canned fruit preserves, fresh milk (just milked yesterday!) and scrambled yard eggs with bacon. After that, a siesta followed by some guitar on the porch watching the sunset. I suppose at some point this weekend I'll have to sit behind this damned computer (for more than just blogging) to pay the price for my wonderful day.

Where Do I Belong?

Today I visited Colorado State University in Fort Collins. I had an appointment with an advisor in the Animal Sciences department. The purpose was to investigate their veterinary and equine science program.

When I first moved away from home, it was to go to college. I went to Texas A&M intent on entering vet school. For various complicated reasons I've probably blogged about before, I ended up moving to Austin and finishing with a completely different major at Texas State.

Today was about revisiting that original academic urge. CSU is an agricultural college, and Larimer county is the agricultural center of the state of Colorado. It's pretty evident just from driving around. Trucks like mine are common, and it's the only place in Colorado I know of where cowboy hats and big belt buckles are common enough that they don't elicit a response. Except from girls, which I find are, on the whole, extremely attracted by them. It's an odd place, Fort Collins, because it's also an extremely progressive town. It's a pairing I tend to like.

I arrived on campus, parked easily enough and went inside. On my way to the office, I saw a nameplate that said "Temple Grandin." The Temple Grandin, author of several popular books including Animals Make Us Human? Indeed, they are one and the same. Cool.

I found my way to the advisor's office. Brock Nelson was my age and wore polished cowboy boots, starched jeans with creases down the front, a tooled leather belt and a western shirt. He was well spoken with a slow, soothing western accent and a deep voice. We had spoken on the phone previously for about an hour and he invited me to come up and spend a half day talking with faculty, staff, students and tour the facilities. We talked at length about my current career, what I like and don't like, my cabin in the woods, the animal science program, the equine science program, vet school and career opportunities. I also spoke with several other interesting people, including an equine veterinarian who shared bits of his vast experience. He pretty much confirmed what I already knew: vet school isn't going to do it for me, though I didn't share that conclusion. I'm not that dedicated a student. Even if I were, the career wouldn't satisfy me. Still, I had to reconfirm it to quell that nagging voice in my head that keeps trying to suggest ways to get out of a desk job and into something more physical without having to live under a bridge.

During our conversation, farriery came up several times. A farrier is someone who cares for horse feet. This includes shoeing, trimming and other forms of maintenance and preventive care. Apparently 90% of horse ailments involve the feet. Without feet, a horse is nothing, and for all the heft and power of a horse, their feet are terribly delicate. I'd been toying with the idea of farriery for the better part of this year and had intended to ask about it. Mr. Nelson mentioned that a former student and personal friend of his had put himself through vet school, paying all of the $125,000 cost by working as a farrier for the four years he was in the program. To my surprise, I was informed that farriers make really good money. According to several sources at CSU, a decent farrier earns as much as I'm currently making sitting behind a computer. I haven't verified this with independent research. A good, established farrier I'm told makes twice that. And what's more interesting is that farriers not only have no degree, they need not have any formal education or even so much as a certification to perform their duties. Farriery is a very old craft, and though you can go through farrier programs to learn the basics of the trade, you only become good by being an apprentice. It's one of the few truly old tradesman's jobs still in practice. Apparently, like farming, no one is going into it anymore. But unlike farming, there's no mechanized corporate solution, so demand for truly skilled farriers is very high.

As we were wrapping up the meeting, I ask Mr. Nelson directly about farriery. "I've got a guy you need to meet." He rifled through his desk, pulled out a post-it with some scribbles on it, turns on the speaker phone and dials. A strong young male voice answers.

"Mr. Masterson, Brock Nelson here," says the advisor.

"Yes sir! How are you, sir?" replies the voice.

A brief exchanged ensued. Mr. Nelson had written a letter of recommendation for Mr. Masterson who just graduated with his master's in animal science at the tender age of 25 and now wished to enter the vet program. Mr. Masterson was apparently an established and well regarded farrier who did some work for CSU. He was incredibly polite, lots of yes sirs and no sirs and thank you sirs. Mr. Nelson discerned that Mr. Masterson was on campus working out at the equine facility this very afternoon, and asked would it be alright if he sent over someone who'd like to know more about farriery. Mr. Masterson expressed his enthusiasm to meet me, I thanked Mr. Nelson copiously, and headed out to the equine facility.

The equine facility is a pretty good distance from the main campus. At one time it was right on the edge of town, but now cookie cutter houses and town homes were closing in on the property. It still has a remote feeling, because the property is pretty big and has an unobstructed view of the mountains. It's what you might expect of an equine facility: dirt roads, big gravel parking lots, arenas, livestock chutes, lots of dust, big trucks, cowboys and, of course, lots of horses. I parked and wandered toward the arena. A couple of young cowboys walked by and nodded politely. Horses grazed in the shadow of the mountains. The arena and stables loomed ahead, and a massive truck pulling a 6 or 8 horse trailer cruised slowly by raising a thin cloud of dust which give the whole place a sort of movie-scene feel.

I entered the airy arena, walking slowly, taking in the sights and smells and sounds. The arena was covered and the dirt freshly graded. Massive doors on either end were open and a 70 degree breeze swept through. Light entered through skylights, illuminating horses in pens along both sides. A young girl outfitted for English saddle walked past leading her clip-clopping horse, and she gave me a smile and a nod. Across the arena I could see a couple of horses and some people milling around them. Mr. Nelson said I could find Mr. Masterson there working.

I approached. The two horses were tied to a hitching rail and two young girls stood facing them, chatting quietly with each other. A man was on the opposite side of the horses, fiddling with the foot of one. I couldn't see him clearly, so I walked around.

"Mr. Masterson," I said.

I can best describe Mr. Masterson's physical appearance as "burly" and probably the handsomest redneck-type I've ever seen. He stood a little taller than me, had thick black hair covered mostly by a battered old cap, light olive skin, and a facial hair density that could supply three men. He had thick chops and a goatee, but he had several days of stubble growing in between which almost filled out a full beard. He had thick curly hair on his arms and popping out the neck of his t-shirt. He wore dusty boots, baggy jeans and a leather belt with a large buckle. I couldn't read it because he was also wearing a style of chaps which covered most of the buckle. I'd bet money he didn't workout in a gym. Instead he had that characteristic hearty, powerful physique that comes from years of physical labor. But his most captivating feature were the eyes. Big, deep brown, friendly, calculating. They were simultaneously full of light and mystery and were framed by youthful skin free of blemishes and wrinkles.

"Yes sir!" he said, coming to his feet. "You must be Mr. Roberts. Pleasure to meet you," he extended his hand.

I reciprocated, "I am, sir! The pleasure is mine!"

My God it was a macho moment.

His hand was rough and dirty, his grip was firm. He looked me directly in the eyes, which I love, and which most men rarely do.

And so it began. Immediately I noticed he was very different with me than he was on the phone with Mr. Nelson. With Nelson, Masterson was almost kissing butt, which you might expect considering the circumstances. With me, he was lecturing. I briefly explained that I had an established, successful career, but was exploring other options. He immediately jumped into telling me how to go about figuring out what I want in life, what mistakes not to make, and other things I'd either figured out years ago or at least learned enough to know that he didn't have as many answers as he thought he did. I didn't interrupt, and I probably couldn't have if I'd wanted to. He hardly took a breath as his thoughts flowed from his mouth. Curiously, all the while he worked furiously. He never missed a beat moving between two horses, cleaning their feet, trimming their hooves, fitting them with new shoes, stepping reflexively over a steaming pile. I listened politely, examining his every move, listening to his every word, and just trying to absorb the environment I was immersed in. His verbal outpouring flowed seamlessly from one topic to another, and I learned his opinions on "horse people" and other farriers, his disdain for text messaging, and the finer points of a good work ethic. He also really despises authority figures and won't tolerate being told how to do his job.

Farriers, I learned, not only shoe horses, but they actually make the shoes they put on the horses. A large part of what a farrier does is blacksmithing, which is done onsite out of the back of his truck. And apparently farriers are all (or at least are predominately) men, because when referring to them Mr. Masterson always said, "his" rather than the more generic, "they." At one point he was telling me about the tools of the trade. "Now, you'll need a truck. What do you drive?" he asked.

I said, "Ford F-350. Crew cab, long bed." He paused for a moment, took what I perceived to be his first breath since I arrived, and nodded his approval.

"Now you'll need a shell for it," he continued by listing items and their costs. As he was doing so, he was selecting blank shoes from a rack in the back of his truck and placing them in a portable firing oven. He never stopped moving, always doing something productive, and returned to the shoes when they were glowing hot. He pulled one from the fire and placed it on his anvil and started alternately pounding and tapping on it in a clearly skillful manner, subtly altering the shoe's curves. As he worked, he flipped hammers and files and various tools in his hands like some kind of blacksmithian circus act. He made it look like he'd been doing it for longer than he'd even been alive and I was captivated by the spectacle.

Then the whole world began to move in slow motion. He stood up, pulling his attention away from the hot iron. He looked directly into my eyes and waved his hands around to make what I was sure was a very important point about something. His lips were moving and I know words were coming out, but I was completely transfixed. I could hear nothing, I could think nothing. My eyes were flooded with what was probably the manliest thing I had ever seen with my own two eyes. It was the very definition of masculinity. A brutally handsome, educated, self-employeed, rugged young man standing with his hips tilted, leaning into me to, asserting his dominance in a friendly but extremely confident manner. He was the master, I was the apprentice. He was the possessor of an arcane and privileged skill set belonging to one of the most masculine of all trades. His skin glistened with sweat and dirt. He was wearing chaps -real chaps for real work. Before him was glowing iron and a black anvil. In his hands were heavy, mysterious tools. To his left, his rig and all his equipment. Behind him, horses - massive beasts that would completely submit to him as he scraped and hammered on their feet. And as the backdrop, the Rocky Mountains and a liquid blue sky.

Now I ask you, what more? What more? By God, what more could possibly have made this moment more beautiful? It will be burned into my mind until my dying day.

Eventually, fortunately, I did come back to Earth. And Mr. Masterson did, eventually, relax his jaw. I'm not sure what was going on initially, but I think as we got to know each other and I had a chance to get a few words in, he was able to relax and a real two-way conversation could begin. I don't know if he was just checking me out, testing me for something, or was maybe on the defensive or nervous, but I definitely got a sense of a wall coming down. I could clearly see him warming to me over the two hours or so I was there. He eased off the authoritative lecture and started offering useful advice, such as suggesting that I ride with a farrier sometime. Then he suggested maybe I apprentice. Then he offered that he might be looking for an apprentice, and ultimately he asked if I'd be interested in apprenticing under him.

It all sounded good to me. It was really interesting the way he could clean up a hoof, eyeball it, and then pound a horseshoe into the proper curves. He can also build shoes from scratch and is capable of whipping up special shoes for horses with special needs. He also claimed that the very best farrier he knows of pulls in an unbelievable quarter million a year. He said the really good guys he knows won't even leave the house unless they're going to pull in $700 that day. The income claims are intriguing, almost unbelievable and so I'm taking it with a grain of salt. But he encouraged me by reminding me that farriery is something I could do part time on the side to figure out of I like it, if I'm any good at it, without having to give up my current career. And, he'd be happy to take me on as his apprentice - or even just out for a single day if I only wanted to check it out. Well you don't have to ask me twice. Soon, we ride.

After my experience with Mr. Masterson I was in a mood. I don't know what kind of mood, but it certainly wasn't bad. I left the rural setting and returned to the reality of Boulder. I hadn't been in town five minutes when I was sitting at a red light. A cyclist on a recumbent came pedaling toward me. I was quietly staring out the window still lost thought, when the cyclist looked directly at me and flipped me off. It took me a moment to register what had just happened. I was in no way doing anything offensive. I wasn't even moving, and the cyclist wasn't even on the same road as me. And it was definitely me he flipped off. And this wasn't some punk kid either. He looked like one of those uppity holier-than-thou "greens" and my immediate thought was he flipped me off because of what I was driving. I don't know that for a fact, but I can't think of anything else it could possibly be. I thought of the pink-haired lesbian and her eco-smirk about my truck. I told Gerard about it and offered nothing in the way of why I thought the cyclist might have done it. Gerard immediately said, "It's your truck."

So then I was pissed off. I just don't understand why someone would judge someone else, a complete stranger, based on ONE thing. Be irritated by it, fine. Even if you don't know who I am or why I might need it, you can still hate big trucks I suppose. But I've met exactly one person in my life who I think is probably "greener" than me by virtue of his living like a pauper and being a 90 pound locavore vegan, but I know NO ONE who I think tries harder to support the community and make smart environmental choices as a whole (my truck, my one real weakness, aside.) Who is this asshole who thinks he can cast judgement on ME? I guess no matter who you are, no matter what you do, now matter how hard you try, someone is still going to find something to hate you for. It's just funny because I never in my wildest dreams thought that I of all people would be judged by freakin' LIBERALS. Welcome to Boulder.

In the morning I'm going to spend a couple of hours bucking hay at the ranch.

Ridin' Steel Horses

Did you know that 100 years ago the automobile was touted as being the pollution-free transportation of the future? In big, crowded cities like New York, horse pollution was a problem that made smog seem like a joke. Horse manure was a terrific problem and nearly everywhere it lay where it fell. Even when it was picked up, it was just dumped in someone else's back yard. Even dead horses tended to lay where they fell, liquefying in the streets. Aside from the stench and unsightly appearance of it all, flies and disease were rampant. In addition, city horses could only work about 5 years before they had to retire. They required a lot of feed and water, couldn't move a whole lot of people per animal and had a hard time trudging up hills - especially when pulling carts. In 1872, an outbreak of horse flu ripped through New York wiping out much of the transportation and causing a serious carcass problem.

There were about 3.5 million people in New York City in 1900, and about 75 million in the entire United States. Today the population of New York City is well over 8 million, and in the US there are about 300 million of us.

Can you just imagine if we were all still riding horses? I think we'd already be extinct.

But we aren't. We're here, riding the horse of the future. Rather, the "horseless carriage" as it was called back in the day. The car was the solution to pollution. It was clean by anyone's standard in 1900. It didn't drop dead and rot, spread diseases (or catch diseases) or leave steaming piles of fly magnets every half hour. It could last well over 5 years with proper maintenance. Of course, paved roads weren't common at the time and the Interstate system hadn't even been conceived of. Outside the city the horse was the only alternative to walking, but inside the city the car had everything going for it, except that it was too expensive for most people. But Henry Ford changed all that with his brilliant idea of the assembly line, and in 1908 the Model-T started rolling off the lines and into the hands of the masses. In a generation the horse went from being transportation to being recreation - from daily necessity to play thing.

I thought of this last week as I was grooming a horse named Sunny. Horses fart a lot. They poop a lot. They pee a lot. They sneeze big slimy dirt-filled boogers a lot. It's astounding how many offenses a single horse can produce in a short period of time. And they aren't nearly as cooperative when I've got a brush in my hand as my pickup is when I've got a garden hose and a towel.

Recent studies have suggested that all of the world's livestock - horses, cows, etc. - produce nearly 20% of all the greenhouse gases being released into the environment. That's more than all of the world's planes, trains and automobiles combined. The combined global farts alone produce a whopping 1/3 of all the methane being released into the environment, and methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Right now there are over 600 million automobiles on the planet. No one knows how much livestock there is, but there is at least 1.5 BILLION cattle.

At my conference last summer in Austin, one of the presenters mentioned a study wherein psychologists determined that people, on a subconscious level, identify their car as a horse. Apparently Chrysler used this information to give "eyes" to the Jeep by making the headlights round, and sales shot through the roof. Indeed years later when they shifted back to square headlights, customers revolted and the design was swiftly changed back to round where it has remained since. I don't know how much truth is in that, but I've always thought of my vehicle as my horse in some sense. It has always given me freedom - freedom to run and to roam. I even bond with my vehicles, silly as it seems, and in years past was known to spend hours detailing my pickup. I've heard it explained that the American frontier and our vast dependence on the horse for so many generations, along with the lingering fantasy of the American West is what gave rise to the American love affair with the car - particularly among American men. Psychologists tell us this ultimately goes back to thousands of years of horsemanship and roaming.

There's this Boulder hippie who works down at Whole Foods - young guy - long ponytail, scruffy beard, skinny, vegetarian. He's about as green as a Boulderite can get. And he drives a jacked-up, beat-up old white Jeep Wrangler with black flames down the side, and the thing's nearly as old as I am. It totally doesn't fit his image. "It's the only thing I do that's not 'green,'" he'll tell you. "But it's my horse. I love it. I gotta have it." His comment strikes a chord.

I suppose all of this is on the forefront of my mind because of all the time I've been spending around horses lately. Just about everyone I know who rides or has ridden frequently has numerous stories of being bucked off and sustaining injury. I decided to do a little investigation. Turns out that horseback riding is many, many times more dangerous even than motorcycle riding, which itself is far more dangerous than driving a car or truck. We're talking orders of magnitude here. This of course led to looking at injury and death statistics for lots of activities, learning about fears generally held in modern society, and facing up to some of my own fears as well. For example, I'm not in the least afraid of spiders or snakes, though I do have a healthy respect for them. However I've always been irrationally terrified of a shark attack. I've never lived within 100 miles of the ocean (and maybe that, in part, explains my fear.) I don't think twice about jumping in my pickup and going anywhere at all, but put me out on a mountain above tree line and I can't stop obsessing over a lighting strike.

Yet the chances of me having a life-altering accident in an automobile are far, far, higher than being eaten by a shark or struck by lightning. In nearly every scrap of literature on riding horses, we're urged to wear not just helmets but protective vests due to the high rate of injury. In our society you're considered odd, to say the least, if you refuse to drive for fear of an accident, but it's nothing at all to be afraid of bugs or sharks or lightning. Why is this? I think it's familiarity. I suspect that over 100 years ago, few people feared riding a horse because riding is just what one did. It's how one got around, got work done, moved things. Likewise, despite the risk of car accident, few people today think twice about riding in one despite the risk.

And then of course there are those who believe that when you're time's up, it's up. Nothing else matters so why worry about anything.

So these have been my thoughts the last few days: horses and pickups, technology and tradition, cowboys and urbanites, life and death. Sometimes it seems like everything is so jumbled up. I'm not saying they were necessarily better, but the "old days" have a certain appeal to me if for no other reason than that life was pretty clearly defined. You're born, you get married and have kids, you work, then you die. Depending on your perspective, that may or may not sound appealing. The appealing part is you didn't have to worry about the millions of choices we have today. You don't worry about getting hurt on a horse, you just ride. You don't worry about finding the perfect career or the perfect life-partner or living in the perfect place; you do what you can, you love who you're with, and you live where you are. More than likely that meant you did what your father did for work, you married the girl next door for better or worse, and you lived your whole life within a few miles of where you were born. Again it's not the formula that's necessarily appealing, but the simplicity behind it that's appealing. I honestly wonder if kids today aren't so screwed up because they're plagued by choices. They have so many options they don't know what to do, and end up not doing much of anything constructive. In my own experience, graduating from high school was like stepping in the center of a giant labyrinth with a thousand doors all going to places unknown. At first it seems like a wonderful thing: endless possibility. But you soon realize it's got a dark side. You can't go through all the doors and you can't see how any of them end. Does having more options really bring more happiness? Numerous studies have shown that pre-arranged marriages produce couples that are far happier than our system produces. That's evident from the divorce rate and the proliferation of online dating and social networking. As for me, I became obsessive about which road to take after high school. What might I miss or suffer by choosing one instead of another? How far do I go down one road before I turn back and try another if this one isn't doing it for me? Had I been born over 100 years ago there might have been only two or three doors, tops. At least I'd have (or I think I'd have) the satisfaction - the peace of mind - of knowing this was my life's path, that I didn't make any mistakes because there were no other options.

Or maybe I'm just perpetually wondering "what if" and romanticizing things I don't really understand. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

The 'Lil Red Wagon

A few weeks ago I decided I needed a better system of getting bulk produce home from the farmer's market in the fall. It's not a long walk from the market to home, but carrying 40-50 pounds of peaches/tomatoes/apples for canning, stocking up on potatoes, onions, garlic, honey and other foods for the winter, plus the festive pumpkins, squashes and corn I can't resist buying every week this time of year, in addition to our regular weekly groceries is quite a chore often requiring multiple trips even with two of us carrying stuff. I decided we needed a wagon.

As luck would have it, I found one at a second-hand shop that fit all of my criteria: it's not plastic, it's made in the USA and is used but in good condition. It's a wooden Berlin Flyer made in Berlin, Ohio. These things, as the website proudly describes, are still made by hand in the USA with quality parts. In fact I emailed the owner and we had a brief exchange. He employs six Amish families. No mass production here. It's the cutest darn wagon you've ever seen. I gave it a good cleaning and touched it up with good old fashioned milk paint, which is also made in the USA, and is made from 100% natural materials: milk, lime and earth pigments just like in centuries before toxic synthetic paints. I then attached a small American flag (actually made in the USA) from Boulder's own McGuckin Hardware (the best little mom & pop hardware shop ever), and she took her maiden voyage into her new life as my market wagon first thing this morning. She was a big hit at the market, and she performed her duty well. We returned with quite a load.

Fall is definitely in the air this morning. Yesterday was gorgeous and sunny, but late last night a mild cool front started pushing through. It's noon now and the temperature is only 55 degrees and it's raining. Appropriate, because the first apples made their appearance at the market this morning and I got really excited when I caught sight of a few small pumpkins. I'm starting to notice the shorter days and my mind is starting to wonder when I'll get my first long snowy night curled up with a book by the fire. Our first snowfall is likely only a few weeks away.

Anyway, I think my wagon needs a name. I'll ponder it over the weekend. Now I need to go unload everything and heat up the kitchen. I've got salsa, ketchup, peach butter, peach salsa, pickled jalapenos, two loaves of bread and a peach cobbler on my "to do" list this weekend.

Proud to be an American

I grew up with a mom who was vehemently patriotic. My dad was patriotic to some degree but he never really got excited about much of anything. He'd get plenty angry about things, but never passionate about anything. My mom always was, and is still to this day, capable of the most fiery displays of passion for the things she believes in. I get it from her.

Throughout college I always had a big American flag hanging in my room, American and Texas flag stickers on my truck, and after 9/11 painted the windows of my truck with things I won't repeat here. I've had American-themed clothing, know the words to just about all of our patriotic songs, and even now have patriotic-themed playlists on my iPod about both America and Texas. A few months ago while visiting Austin I bought a Texas t-shirt like a common tourist, despite being born in Texas and living there for 33 years.

In recent years, however, I started quietly shunning flag stickers and avoided saying things like, "I'm proud to be an American." It sounded WAY too Republican. Liberals, generally speaking, don't appear outwardly patriotic, and the more liberal I became the more I toned down my own displays of patriotism. Quotes from Einstein and others bashing patriotism stuck with me and I got to thinking that I must be a fool for it. After all, what's to be proud of? Arbitrary political boundaries? Blind allegiance to some government or culture? We should tear down the boundaries and strive for global harmony. Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do - nothing to kill or die for and no religion too. You know, all that hippie stuff.

Turned out I found other ways to express my patriotism. I started to avoid buying anything made in China at all costs, and always buy American when possible. I got into self sufficiency and supporting the small businesses and farms in my local community. I found a really functional form of patriotism that also happened to fit perfectly into the liberal mindset of being green and helping the little guy.

Well I think I've come full circle. Lately little shows of patriotism have been creeping back into my life. Last February when I visited DC for the first time, I bought a flag pin at the Lincoln Monument and wore it as I walked around the National Mall pondering it all. I felt an enormous swell of pride in my country and my people, despite our considerable flaws.

For the longest time I thought liberals and patriotism didn't go together and that really bothered me. Until I moved to Boulder, I can't say I'd ever met a liberal who came anywhere near being as visibly patriotic as your average conservative. It bothered me because I have always felt that in most ways liberals actually have more ideals in line with the professed American ideals than conservatives do. Conservatives say you should love your neighbor, but liberals actually make an effort to do that. While liberals are protesting the destruction of Creation and calling on world unity, conservatives are staging hate rallies or bombing pretty much anyone who isn't like themselves or who might have a negative affect on their pocketbook. The America I believe in doesn't just sing about purple mountains majesty but actually tries to make sure they stay majestic and unspoiled, and really believes in America the melting pot, not America the pot of gold to be plundered at the expense of the environment and other people. I don't want to go too far down this road, but why not a patriotic liberal? It seems perfectly natural to me.

So I moved to Boulder and met Ryan Van Duzer, our local celebrity. This fanatical bike riding vegetarian is my age and has never driven a car in his life. He's biked from Honduras (where he worked in the Peace Corps for two years) all the way back to Boulder. He's biked from Maine to Florida and from California to DC. He's extremely active in the community and is probably the most outgoing, liberal-minded person I know. He's also the most accepting, fit-in-anywhere guy I've ever known, and he is every bit as patriotic as any conservative I've ever known. He frequently talks about being proud to be an American and often rides with an American flag on his bike. It astonished me. It was like discovering Bigfoot. The mythical flag-waving liberal really does exist. I suppose on some level it made me feel validated to find I wasn't alone.

Then on top of all this, I just finished reading a book called God's Middle Finger in which a white guy sets out to explore the notorious dark heart of the Sierra Madre in Mexico. I could write volumes on my thoughts about this, but I'd rather you read the book and let's talk about it over coffee. About a quarter of the way into the book, I thought there can't be a God if this is true. By the end I just said to myself, with complete sincerity and humbleness, thank God I have the life I do. Despite all my complaints about desk jobs and bums in the park, I have a life that the vast majority of the people who have ever lived on this planet couldn't even dream of. Despite corrupt politicians and FOX news, compared to Mexico, the United States of America really is the land of milk and honey where the streets are paved with gold. That's no joke. When I read stuff like that, I'm not just proud to be an American, I'm thankful to the bottom of my heart.

And keeping with that theme, a co-worker of mine recently was sent to Haiti for a few days. She is by no means a flashy person. She's not interested in labels or consumerism, but I wouldn't really call her a liberal activist type either. She returned from Haiti looking like she'd seen a ghost. We talked at length about her experience there and she said she simultaneously felt guilt and utter gratitude for her American life. She's a well traveled, educated woman who has been to many parts of the world and she agreed wholeheartedly that most Americans don't know how very, very good we've got it.

So while others are proud to be gay or proud to be black or proud to be whatever, I will proudly say that I am an American. I love this country and am fascinated by her history, I love my freedom, my flag, my culture and my fellow Americans. And I will continue to fight to make this country a better place, to right our collective wrongs, and do my little part in my little community to be the best American I can be. This is not a slam or a dismissal of other countries, this is me saying that I love my home and it is my wish to make it the best home I can.

New Mexico

We just had three awesome days in northern New Mexico. We only visited two cities, but three days really wasn't enough.

Our first day was in Taos. Taos is a small town of less than 5,000 people but it's a popular skiing and shopping destination. Most of the buildings are adobe (or are made to look like adobe, in the case of McDonald's and other chains encroaching on the area.) Taos is also the location of the famous Taos Pueblo, pictured below. This is sort of a Native American condo complex and is believed to be between 1,000 and 1,500 years old. People still live here, making it the oldest continually inhabited structure at least in North America. About 150 people live in the structure, but there are many other detached adobe dwellings around it which are nearly as old and are also inhabited. Electricity and running water are forbidden, and the village's water supply comes from a creek than runs through it. The Tiwa Indians call this village home and it's the first Indian village I've ever been to.

You have to pay a fee to get in. You also have to pay a separate fee to get your camera in, and you can't take pictures of Indians unless you get their permission first. And probably you have to pay them to do it too. I didn't try. The Indians were actually pretty shy and secretive, though one little old raisin of an Indian woman shouted at me, "Are you a real cowboy!?" to which I replied, "Are you a real Indian!?" She laughed heartily and asked, "Can you ride?" "Of course," I said. She dismissively waved her hand and said, "You need to move here to Taos!" as she turned and walked away.

These people are really poor. Most of them have set up shop and sell little trinkets, and every shop sells the exact same stuff. It was such a strange experience. You get a definite impression that they resent us (Americans) for their current state, though you can't blame them. We destroyed their culture and now they're reduced to letting us pay to walk around peeking in their windows for amusement and selling us worthless trinkets. Imagine if we were conquered and ultimately confined to living our lives out of our suburban tract homes, and the only way to make a living was to allow our conquerors to pay us a few darseks to walk around our streets and lawns taking pictures and asking stupid questions about the tattered remains of our culture. I have a lot to say about this but there's still a lot of vacation to cover.

We also got a glimpse of what the Great Plains once looked like before the arrival of the white man: literally thousands of bison grazing on a ranch that was so big we couldn't see the borders.

Perhaps you've heard of Earthship? They build (or sell plans for) completely sustainable, off-the-grid homes. They're made of local materials (usually dirt and rocks right from the ground) as well as recycled materials (mostly old tires to build the wall structures). They generate their own power from solar and wind, harvest their own water, are passively heated and cooled, and even clean their own waste water. One of their communities is right outside of Taos. One of the homes is open for tours.

To get to the Earthship community, you have to cross the mighty Rio Grande, which isn't so mighty this far north as it's still pretty young. It has, however, carved a mighty gorge. The bridge that spans it is 650 feet above the river, making it the fifth highest in the US. There was no good vantage point from which to get a photo of the bridge and I was standing on it to get the picture below.
We encountered portions of the old Route 66 several times, which was just cool. I always pictured James Dean cruising with the top down across the gorgeous desert landscape right at sundown.

We normally camp when we take a road trip, but since our destinations weren't National Parks or other necessarily outdoorsy locales, we decided to stay at bed and breakfast inns. Those are always preferable to corporate chains. We stayed right downtown in both Taos and Santa Fe, so we were always walking distance from everything. In Taos, the first inn we went to was (as nearly all are) an adobe. This one was particularly interesting because it was originally a fort and was something like 400 years old. It had also been haunted, but the owner told us in all seriousness how they'd brought in a woman who sent the troublesome apparition packing. Unfortunately there was no room at the inn. Fortunately the one next door had a vacancy. I highly recommend that if you're ever in Taos, you stay at Casa Benavides. It's close to everything, it's beautiful, the rooms are huge, and we met some really fun people at the community breakfast. And the food was delicious. Oh, and right next door to The Casa is Kit Carson's house. Kit Carson, as you may recall from high school history, was the most famous mountain man of the old west. He played a tremendous role in "settling" the west (ie. bringing about the destruction of the culture he admired and who now sell trinkets to their conquerors.) He's buried right around the corner and nearly everything in town is named after him.

In Santa Fe we stayed at Pueblo Bonito, which I also recommend. The food wasn't anything special, but everything else about it was wonderful - especially the free margaritas. We checked in and the lady behind the desk said, "Are you a real cowboy?" I sighed and smiled but didn't say anything. I think she understood I was getting tired of that question. "Can you ride?" she asked, right on cue. "Of course," I said. She smiled and said, "Put on your hat." I put it on. She looked at me for a moment, mouth slightly agape, and said, much to my surprise, "Yum!" For a second there the way she was looking at me made me wonder if she was going to pounce from across the desk. Gerard stepped up and told her she needed to lay off the margaritas. Turned out she was a "real" cowgirl and lives in a 400 year old adobe on her New Mexico ranch. She was also a "bull whisperer." We learned this over margaritas with her and a really gorgeous couple from Denver who also happened to be staying there. You just don't get that kind of experience at a chain motel.

Aside from Pueblo Bonito's offerings, the food in New Mexico really was quite good. If you're ever in Santa Fe and you want some truly delicious, authentic Northern New Mexico cuisine, you need to try La Fonda. It's the second best Mexican/Southwestern food I've ever had, right after Fonda San Miguel in Austin.

Other Santa Fe notable attractions include the San Miguel Mission Church, which is said to be the oldest church in the United States and was built around 1600 out of, you guessed it, adobe. It's right next door to what is said to be the oldest house in the US, an 800 year old adobe which is not inhabited and is closed to the public. Another famous old church, The Loretto, is not made of adobe. It's a lot fancier, and it's now privately owned and isn't really a functioning church anymore. Instead it's a money maker for the owners who wasted no time in putting in a well-stocked gift shop. What's all the excitement about a church? It has a miraculous staircase. I don't know that I'd call it miraculous, but it is quite beautiful and certainly is a work of art. The story goes that the church was built but the designer "forgot" to design in a staircase to access the balcony. No one apparently noticed until after the church was finished. Then some guy shows up in the 1870's, builds this amazing spiral staircase with no nails, no glue, no pillars or columns, and disappears. The builder remains anonymous and the staircase truly was a work of art. Churchy people said it was a miracle from God and claim that even today engineers can't figure out how the staircase stands, but that of course is BS. The bishop, shortly after the staircase was built, decided it needed to have a banister so that was added after the fact. I guess he felt the miracle only extended far enough to keep the staircase standing, but not far enough to keep is geriatric butt from falling off. Geez, you'd think God would at least have had the foresight to know the old man needed a hand rail.

Anyway, we loved New Mexico. It's really beautiful, and I just love walking around all the adobes and the roasting foods, the bright red ristras which are abundant, to say the very least, and the intense presence of a hybrid Indian-Mexican culture. Gerard, having grown up on the border with Mexico, was like a kid running around as memories came flooding back. Agua fresca, roasting corn on the cob, the nostril burning aroma of roasting chiles, dark skinned people lining the sidewalks selling jewelry and trinkets - it all reminded him of his roots. He said the market area was a lot like Mexico, but without the trash and crime. I'd say that's a pretty fair observation.

On The Road Again

Nothing beats cruising down a two lane country road on a crisp, cloudless day, windows down, music up, mountains to the west, rolling prairie to the east, and Denver daisies lining the road for as far as one can see.

It's Labor Day weekend, so we're taking the opportunity for one last summer road trip. Santa Fe New Mexico, here we come!