The Road Otter

Madness In Macadam

I already know.

Pictures on this website have been taken from moving cars, in the rain, the snow, the bright shiny day with harsh glare, all sorts of adverse conditions. If you don't have a better picture you're willing to share, don't tell me how bad the pictures are. I already know.
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Long Road Home

April 16, 2015 by Road Otter

Road Home

  • Long and not so winding road
  • Mr. Spock, set the landscape on stun
  • Long Road Home

  • Road To Denver
  • Denver & Denvention

First published 13 August, 2008

Headin’ out of Flagstaff early in the morning, the San Francisco Peaks stand behind the trees and meadows. The grass alongside the road was bright with sunflowers and indian paintbrush.SanFranciscoPeaks

 

 

 

 
ViewOfTheRoad

 

The day is clear, the road not so much. It’s not as bad as LA during rush hour, but I’ve got a lot of pictures with the butt end of a truck in them.

RoadAndSunflowers

Do click on the images
to get the larger view.
I'm biased but I
think they're awesome.

The road starts down the long slope to Seligman, with enthusiastic sunflowers to wave as we go by.

 

GoldAhead

I took this picture to capture the winding road. I didn’t realize until later, I had a picture that showed the blaze of vivid mustard on both sides of the road.

 

Imagine both sides of the road awash in golden blooms. The Yellow Brick Road was never so golden. And edged in ever present sunflowers.

MustardBlooms

MustardAndSunflowers

Six percent grade, headed down out of the mountains. Road is steep, the view is magnificent. I remember driving this grade last week, tucked in behind a trucker, strobe flashes of lightning showing the mountains around me, the downpour trying to wash us all off the road. This is easier, but… that was exciting!

SixPercentGrade

SteepRoadAwesomeView

MaybeRoute66
West of Flagstaff, long sections of Route 66 no longer exist as a separate road. Segments may exist as dirt roads on private property, or simply a wide stripe through the trees. The bare green stripes to the right of the road may be all that’s left of Route 66 in this place.

TheRoadThru

 

Sometimes, road crews just cut on through, adapting the land to our needs.

 

TheRoadAround
 

And sometimes, we gotta go around.
Or both at once.

 

AndAnotherVista
I’ve taken a lot of pictures of mountains, clouds, sky, but I never get over my delight and joy at the layers of colors and textures each vista presents.

 

PaintedBackdrop

 

Sometimes looking like cardboard cutouts or painted backdrops for a play.

 

AcrossTheColorado

Crossing the Colorado in to California, the pictures are full of railing and railroad bridge.

 

ColoradoBackView
The view back across the valley shows the Colorado River and the green of the agriculture that its water generates.

 

CasualtiesOfTheRoad

Stopping in Needles for gas, a stack of casualties of the road. And stacked neatly behind, their ever ready replacements.

 

JoshuaTreesInBloom

 

Heading into the Mojave, the joshua trees are in bloom.

 

DoubleRibbonWithTown

Driving thru the Mojave, sometimes the only sign of man’s impact is the double ribbon of the interstate sliding into the hazy distance, punctuated by signs, rest stops, and very small towns.

 

DryLake

This dry lake brings to mind the words of the song “Horse With No Name” about a river that’s dead. Rivers in deserts are never dead, only dormant. If you can see the riverbed, it’s been scoured clean by flashflood, and kept alive by the sporadic rainfall. This lakebed still lives, probably flourishing when the snow melts.

When you think of desert, often low rolling sand dunes come to mind. The Mojave has long rolling hills of rock and sparse scrub. The Mojave has some fascinating geology: lava flows, and mountains with a split personality. Some of the mountains look like they’re shadowed. They’re not. And, of course, the many layers of landscape I love, with the mountains seemingly floating in the distance.

Mojave LavaMojave Lava
Mojave Lava
Mojave LavaMojave Lava
Mojave Lava
Mojave LavaMojave Lava
Mojave Lava
Not A ShadowNot A Shadow
Not A Shadow
Mojave VistaMojave Vista
Mojave Vista
Mojave VistaMojave Vista
Mojave Vista
Mojave VistaMojave Vista
Mojave Vista
Mojave VistaMojave Vista
Mojave Vista
Floating MountainsFloating Mountains
Floating Mountains

TrucksAhead
Sometimes the road gets a bit crowded. I have more faith in the common sense of long haul truckers than I do many others on the road, but even so…

 

AndTrucksBehind

 

It’s a leetle tight in here.

 

HighPowerLines

 

These power transmission lines look like they bring power in from Hoover Dam. They’re coming from the right direction.

Coming to the end of Interstate 40, at Interstate 15, into Barstow, and then back into LA.
EndOfTheRoadEndOfTheRoad2

Heading south in I-15, these are the backsides of the mountains that ring the LA basin. LAMountainsI suppose I should have taken more pics as we went thru LA. Maybe the mountains from the other side. But I’ve seen the mountains, and the traffic. If you want to come visit, I’ll give you a tour. Right now, I’m taking a nap. It’s been a long trip.

Filed Under: Road Goes Ever On

Mr. Spock, set the landscape on stun

April 9, 2015 by Road Otter

Road Home

  • Long and not so winding road
  • Mr. Spock, set the landscape on stun
  • Long Road Home

  • Road To Denver
  • Denver & Denvention

First published August 12, 2008

The day started in Santa Fe, with one lone cloud hanging out over the mountains on the east. OneLoneCloud

 

 

 

I25Rail

Do click on the images
to get the larger view.
I'm biased but I
think they're awesome.

There was a great deal of construction down the center of I-25.

I25RailConstructionHaving gone thru far too much road construction everywhere, it took a while to realize it wasn’t road improvement, they were building rail down the center. And of course, the one lone cloud.

I25-I40InterchangeComing back into Albuquerque, early in the day, I couldn’t get any decent shots of the color of the land. But Albuquerque itself believes in color,
(junction of I-25 and I-40, every piece had this brilliant blue stripe)

 
and shapes.

Overpass Art1

Overpass Art2

 
TheMotherRoadSometimes Route 66 would be parallel to I-40, sometimes wandering off over the landscape to pop up somewhere else.
 

OldRoute66BridgeThis old steel-truss bridge was in unbelievably good shape. Unfortunately, it was not wide enough for more than one car to cross at a time.

NewOldRoadAnd was replaced with a wider, but boring new section, before being completely replaced by Interstate 40 over there.

 

 

New Mexico-Arizona Border: In sunshine this time

TrainAcrossNewMexico

Coming up on the amazing border geology again, this time with the company of a freight train.

ViewDownTheTracks
Looking down tracks has as compelling a view as highways stretching into the distance. “Follow…follow…”

 
Viewing the cliffs in the sun this time, with all their glorious colors on display. And some of the lava fields.

RedCliffs2RedCliffs2
RedCliffs3RedCliffs3
RedCliffs4RedCliffs4
RedCliffs1RedCliffs1
Lava RidgeLava Ridge
Lava Ridge
Lava FieldsLava Fields
Lava Fields

Being the one driving while crossing out of New Mexico, I had this… This amazing piece of landscape in the rear view mirror.

New Mexico Border
New Mexico Border
Every time I looked back, I felt my brain stop working, just wanting to stare at the cliffs. This is not a good thing to do while driving, and I felt very relieved when I finally crossed over a hill and could no longer see it.

However, somebody was determined to stun my brain.

PetrifiedForestOfficialSign
Having missed the Painted Desert on the way out, we picked it up on the way back.

Nothing prepared me for the problem of running out of adjectives.

Arizona SurpriseI had an idea what was coming. But can you imaging the expressions on the faces of the first explorers who had never seen this land before, traveling across country that looked like this:

 

And getting this!
How do you prepare for running out of adjectives? Glorious. Awesome. Unbelievable. Stunning. I think I was seriously stuck on stunned.
Followed closely by *gasp*
A lot of rock formations show their layers on a slant, as the earth twists and deforms to create mountains. The amazing Chinle Formation runs the gamut from reds to grays, all in relatively horizontal stripes.

Painted DesertPainted Desert
Painted Desert
Painted DesertPainted Desert
Painted Desert
Painted DesertPainted Desert
Painted Desert
Painted DesertPainted Desert
Painted Desert
Painted DesertPainted Desert
Painted Desert
Painted DesertPainted Desert
Painted Desert
Painted DesertPainted Desert
Painted Desert
Painted DesertPainted Desert
Painted Desert
Painted DesertPainted Desert
Painted Desert
Painted DesertPainted Desert
Painted Desert
Blue MesaBlue Mesa
Blue Mesa
Blue MesaBlue Mesa
Blue Mesa
Blue MesaBlue Mesa
Blue Mesa
Blue MesaBlue Mesa
Blue Mesa

 
When I got to the “Blue Mesa,” I realized my adjective generator had completely broken down. I was pretty much left with stunned.

PaintedDesertWater

 

There is water in this desert.

 

NewspaperRock
Newspaper Rock: Petroglyphs. They show up better if you click the image to get the larger version.

 

When this wash was first discovered, it full of petrified wood. It was carried away by the truck-load, blasted for the amethysts and quartz within, vanished to be used for doorstops. MissingWoodIt is estimated that one ton of petrified wood is stolen from the Petrified Forest every year, even though there are legitimate places to buy it outside the National Park. At one time, this was was full. Now, this is all that remains here.

 
There are still scattered pockets of petrified wood throughout the park and around the museum. On some pieces, you can still see the grain of the wood. And life will find toe-holds in any pocket that will hold dirt.

Petrified LogsPetrified Logs
Petrified Logs
PetrifiedWood1PetrifiedWood1
PetrifiedWood2PetrifiedWood2
PetrifiedWood3PetrifiedWood3
PetrifiedWood4PetrifiedWood4
PetrifiedWood5PetrifiedWood5
PetrifiedWood6PetrifiedWood6
PetrifiedWood7PetrifiedWood7
Petrified Wood And GrassPetrified Wood And Grass
Petrified Wood And Grass

 
ArizonaDuskAnd after that, all that’s left is dusk over the Colorado Plateau, and on into Flagstaff for the night.

Filed Under: Road Goes Ever On

Long and not so winding road

April 2, 2015 by Road Otter

Road Home

  • Long and not so winding road
  • Mr. Spock, set the landscape on stun
  • Long Road Home

  • Road To Denver
  • Denver & Denvention

First published August 11, 2008

Leaving Denver, headed back to LA. The clouds play with light and shadow on the mountains, sometimes making a grass covered mountain side shine like green velvet. The green of the trees, the blues of the mountains, the light and shadow of the clouds, almost looks unreal. I told myself I wouldn’t take so many pictures on the way home, as the road was the same road, the grass the same grass. Except this grass looks like velvet. And some of the vistas just takes my breath away. In Colorado, the green trees along a river stand out much more against the yellows of the prairie grasses.

Road SouthRoad South
Road South
Light And ShadowLight And Shadow
Light And Shadow
Green VelvetGreen Velvet
Green Velvet
Clouds And MountainsClouds And Mountains
Clouds And Mountains
OneMoreVelvetyMeadowOneMoreVelvetyMeadow
OneMoreVelvetyMeadow
Long Breathless VistaLong Breathless Vista
Long Breathless Vista
Where The River RunsWhere The River Runs
Where The River Runs

AirForcePlane

Do click on the images
to get the larger view.
I'm biased but I
think they're awesome.

One of the more interesting sites is the plane on the ground, on or near the Air Force Academy.

 

GardenOfTheGods

I now have a reason to go back to Colorado. A place now on my to-see list, “Garden Of The Gods”.

 

BoxcarsAllAloneA siding of box cars. They were there on our way to Denver. They were there on our way back. Just sittin’ there, waiting for someone to need them.

 

Trinidad

Lovely old building in Trinidad, Colorado. I couldn’t get a good shot of anything else, as there were signs, trees, trucks, the usual interference. There also weren’t any convenient parking spots to pull over and snap pics. Ah well.

RoadSouthFromTheBorder
Construction on every road, everywhere we went. I stopped avoiding taking pictures of it, because I would miss taking shots like this. Do click on it and see the larger shot.
 

RoadToLoseYourselfOn

 

The road ahead, winding or straight, calls us on.

 

CloudsMountainsSunDogs
As the day got later, it became more difficult to take pictures into the west. The clouds, mountains and green green grass delight the eye, even with the sundogs.

 

Antelope

 

And I finally got some antelope!
 

 

VelvetSlopes
As night falls, the rolling hills turn to dark green velvet slopes.

 

SunsetCloudsAndHills
Clouds still lit by the sun over shadowed hills.

 

PerfectSunset

 

And a sunset Hollywood couldn’t have done better.

Filed Under: Road Goes Ever On

On the road again

March 26, 2015 by Road Otter

Road To Denver

  • It Rains in the Mojave?
  • Twisty Mountain Roads, They Look All The Same
  • What is it with twisty roads?
  • On the road again

  • Denver & Denvention
  • Road Back To LA

First published 8/6/2008

Another day, another road. Heading out of Santa Fe, we encountered more Adobification, seen at the beginning of yesterday’s report. Even the nice houses looked tacky after all that “adobe.”

As we headed north thru the Rockies, we drove under blue, blue skies with cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds along the mountain tops.

The Road AheadThe Road Ahead
The Road Ahead
Amazing VistasAmazing Vistas
Amazing Vistas
Amazing VistasAmazing Vistas
Amazing Vistas
Amazing VistasAmazing Vistas
Amazing Vistas
Amazing VistasAmazing Vistas
Amazing Vistas
Amazing VistasAmazing Vistas
Amazing Vistas
Bones Of The Mountains In RedBones Of The Mountains In Red
Bones Of The Mountains In Red
Bones Of The Mountains In BeigeBones Of The Mountains In Beige
Bones Of The Mountains In Beige
Bones Of The MountainsBones Of The Mountains
Bones Of The Mountains
Bones Of The MountainsBones Of The Mountains
Bones Of The Mountains

Do click on the images
to get the larger view.
I'm biased but I
think they're awesome.

As the road came down onto the high plains, odd bits of rock stuck up like thumbs thru the soil.

 

Rock Thumb
Rock Thumb
Thumb of rock, clothed in green velvet
Thumb of rock, clothed in green velvet

High plains in New Mexico stretched away into the distance, edged with mountains at first, then just flowing away to the horizon.

Ringed By Mountains

The road ahead beckons, empty, clean. This is a different form of road hypnotism. Become lost in this road and you may never return. Each mile of road leads to the next, the far horizon is your only destination.
TheRoadBeckons

As the road tops a hill, grazing herds of cattle, horses, and antelope can be seen. Yes, antelope. They came in to and out of view so quickly, I could not photograph them.
GrazingHorsesAndBarn

The clouds and the sun cause shadows to dance across the land, changing the shape of the land and the color of the grass in passing. The colors of the grass change from golds and greens, to shades of green, and back again, as the road flows over the prairie.

Grass Gold And GreenGrass Gold And Green
Grass Gold And Green
Grass And ShadowsGrass And Shadows
Grass And Shadows
Green Green GrassGreen Green Grass
Green Green Grass

ShortPowerPoles
It may be easier to transport wood to the prairies, but there are still reminders that wood is a precious commodity. These power poles are not much higher than the fence posts.

The borders between states seem to be quite dramatic markers. Between Arizona and New Mexico, the spectacular cliffs. The northern border of New Mexico with Colorado has some marvelous mountains. Above the mountains, the cumulus clouds gather, shading and sometimes raining on the ground below. Always a delight. The Colorado side shows some mine tailings there on the left. And shows Mother Nature starting her cover of green in the pockets of soil.

Mountains Of The BorderMountains Of The Border
Mountains Of The Border
Mountains Of The BorderMountains Of The Border
Mountains Of The Border
Cumulus Over ColoradoCumulus Over Colorado
Cumulus Over Colorado
Colorado Mine TailingsColorado Mine Tailings
Colorado Mine Tailings

ColoradoGrass

 

The prairie on the Colorado side seems drier. The land is covered in golden grass as far as the eye can see.

 

RainOnTheMountains

 

Cumulonimbus gather on the mountains, rain and lightning dance in the distance.
ColoradoWash

In a few of the low places, a carved wash will appear, attesting to the occasional ferocity of thunderstorms in the mountains.
ETsShip

 

And then you get the odd lenticular cloud formation. ET anyone?

 

ColoradoThumb

 

As in New Mexico, the odd thumb of rock still appears.

 

Shadows Of Gold And Brown

 

The clouds and sun dance again, changing to brown the golden hue of the grass.
HouseOnTheHill

 

The house on the hill commands the heights, and is master of all it surveys. The view must be marvelous.

 

MileHighStadium

After all that space and grass, we arrive in Denver to catch rush hour…and Mile High Stadium. Go Broncos!

Filed Under: Road Goes Ever On

What is it with twisty roads?

March 19, 2015 by Road Otter

Road To Denver

  • It Rains in the Mojave?
  • Twisty Mountain Roads, They Look All The Same
  • What is it with twisty roads?
  • On the road again

  • Denver & Denvention
  • Road Back To LA

First published 8/5/2008

Many years ago, my mother described the freeway system in Salt Lake City as having been designed by a drunken snake. Downtown Santa Fe used the same snake and added a sadist.

My needs were simple. I wanted to see the Loretto Chapel, the one with the miraculous spiral staircase. Maps were unfolded, instructions were requested of local hotel staff, and off we started.

And discovered you can’t get there from here.

Roads in the heart of downtown Santa Fe are, of course, leftovers from horse and buggy days. And from the days when laying out streets in straight lines was a thing for the future. They were narrow and often one-way. And not quite the way the map showed them to be. Due to road construction, and due to the fact the central plaza was blocked to auto traffic, we meandered all over the place, frequently totally clueless as to where we were in relation to where we wanted to be. “The map says we want to turn left here.” “Wait, we can’t turn left here.” “Well, then, turn right.” “Turning right… oh, the road’s blocked down there, now we have to turn left.” And now we’re headed in the totally opposite direction. We did get to see the Santa Fe River several times, as we criss-crossed the downtown area.

Jim can’t read really small print, and the street map was in really, really small print to be able to fit it all in. I finally found a free public parking lot, the sign of which told me that I would be given a ticket if I didn’t get a parking pass from the attendant. There was no attendant. I parked anyway. I read the map. One of the blessings(?) of being dreadfully near-sighted is I can read really fine print. I found where we were, where we wanted to go, the streets to get there, and started off. Silly me, I didn’t verify the names of some of the other streets.

Out of the parking lot, still with no attendant, left onto Paseo de Peralta. Right on Washington, which according to the map turned in to Santa Fe Trail.

I found upon reaching the point where Washington should become Santa Fe Trail that a building now occupied the space, requiring a left turn because the right turn was blocked to thru traffic. Now, I’m “off the map” again. Left, right, blocked, left, left only because it’s a one-way street, right, past a wonderful unreachable multi-story parking lot because the entrance was on a one-way street with traffic against me, with the other end of the street somewhere around a bend, around in circles (Paseo de Peralta makes a big horseshoe shape around downtown), and back to that very same parking lot.

By this point, however, I knew how far it was to walk to the Loretto Chapel. So off we went, on foot. I found several things on foot, one of which was Santa Fe Trail, the right turn off Washington that was blocked to street traffic. The other end of the street to the wonderful parking structure was a narrow, one-way road with a street name different than the one the parking structure was on. Since you couldn’t see the parking structure from the point of entry onto the road, and the road changed names at the bend, finding that parking structure required a native guide.

Santa Fe is suffering from a “beautification” project that said every building on a major street has to look like a pueblo. Gas stations, cheap eateries, even a no-tell motel. Housing tracts, hospitals, the fire station. The McDonald’s!! Downtown not only was suffering from this disease, but was suffering this disease in the exact same “adobe” brown color. There were a few buildings built in an “Old West” style that had so far escaped adobification. But the rest, OY!

And I used to like pueblos.

Adobified DowntownAdobified Downtown
Adobified Downtown
Adobification Looks Like A MudpackAdobification Looks Like A Mudpack
Adobification Looks Like A Mudpack
Adobified Store FrontsAdobified Store Fronts
Adobified Store Fronts
Adobified MotelAdobified Motel
Adobified Motel
Adobified No Tell MotelAdobified No Tell Motel
Adobified No Tell Motel
Adobified CarwashAdobified Carwash
Adobified Carwash
Adobified HillsidesAdobified Hillsides
Adobified Hillsides

Loretto Chapel

Some of the claims made for the staircase have been disproven by Snopes. It’s still an amazing structure, and amazingly beautiful. I’m one of those people that likes to know how things are built, so knowing this doesn’t destroy any of my sensawonda. What’s also amazing is that almost all the pictures I took came out blurred. I can take decent shots from a moving car, but not here. Here are a couple that came out ok, as well as one of the front of the chapel.

StaircaseStaircase
Staircase
Staircase Up CloseStaircase Up Close
Staircase Up Close
Front Of The ChapelFront Of The Chapel
Front Of The Chapel

Start Of The Day

Rain In the Distance

Rain In the Distance
Do click on the images
to get the larger view.
I'm biased but I
think they're awesome.

The day started out beautifully, heading east out of Gallup. Clouds chasing each other across the sky, rain in the distance.

 

Rain Not So Distant
Rain Getting Closer

 

Or not so distant.

Drivin' On Thru
Drivin’ On Thru

 

In typical desert rainstorm fashion, it rained for about fifteen minutes, trying mightily to wash all these pesky cars off the road.

 

The shadows of the clouds allowed the brilliant color of the cliffs to stand out even more. Topping a rise, the mountains rise blue in the distance. Up close, the color of the land glows red thru the green of the grass. Every so often, the earth’s volcanic nature rises above the soil, leaving narrow tongues of broken lava littering the landscape. Sweeping vistas are broken up by buttes scattered in the distance. And up close.

Cliffs In The SunCliffs In The Sun
Cliffs In The Sun
Cliffs In The SunCliffs In The Sun
Cliffs In The Sun
Cliffs In The SunCliffs In The Sun
Cliffs In The Sun
Distant MountainsDistant Mountains
Distant Mountains
Red Soil, Green GrassRed Soil, Green Grass
Red Soil, Green Grass
Broken LavaBroken Lava
Broken Lava
Scattered ButtesScattered Buttes
Scattered Buttes
Butte Up CloseButte Up Close
Butte Up Close

Albuquerque

Albuquerque Mountains
Albuquerque Mountains

When I first saw Albuquerque, thirty years ago, I came in by Greyhound bus at sunset. The red of the mountains behind the bowl of the city framed Albuquerque in a ring of brilliant flame. For this trip, the flames live in my memory. Albuquerque lives at the base of the far mountains.

Downtown Albuquerque
Downtown Albuquerque

 

Downtown Albuquerque. If you look really closely, you can see the red of the hills behind. I see the color best with my heart, with my eyes closed.

 

Road North

Road To Santa Fe
Road To Santa Fe

 

I drove from Albuqueque to Santa Fe, so there aren’t so many pictures. The landscape was filled with hills and the long road ahead.

 

In To Santa Fe
In To Santa Fe

 
Coming in to Santa Fe, tucked into a bowl in the mountains, the city looked deceptively lovely. The fiendish desire to turn it into a modern pueblo village was not evident until much later. After realizing that I-25 went past the city, not thru it, we backtracked thru town to find our hotel. Then off all innocent and unknowing, to fight our way thru downtown Santa Fe.

An oft repeated phrase during this trip: “It is an adventure!”

Filed Under: Road Goes Ever On

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