Wild West Day 20 October 10

We're going to head east today; the homeward journey.

Started to see Pronghorns and Prairiedogs now that we were out of the mountains (though they were available to the eye off in the west).

Stopped at the Ludlow “Ghost Twon” (per CAA) which was in fact a memorial to the Ludlow Massacre of the 1913-14 Coal Mining Labour Strike (and Massacre). The memorial depicted the deaths of women, men and children as the Company burned down the tent city erected for stikers. More details are here http://www.umwa.org/?q=content/ludlow-massacre.

It was a lovely memorial and I felt a little sad as I walked around:

We started to notice a lot of llamas and alpacas in the fields. Not sure why.

We stopped in Trinidad for some information on the Santa Fe Trail (and two free ball caps) and headed east, the homeward journey.

In Tyrone, we saw the lines of short telegraph poles paralleling the railroad tracks and, often, new hydro poles (and occasionally mountains in the background):

There was now flat, flat land forever and ever.

We passed signs for PCMS and finally saw that this stood for the Pinon Maneuver Site where the US Army gets ready to fight (must simulate the desert???).

Some other sights included a beautiful hawk:

Some yellow “flowered” cactus (which David called yellow cactus hips, like rose hips since the flowers are actually now gone):

There were also strange zucchini-like vines in the ditches (wild):

We stopped at the Delhi One Stop store, an abandoned place with a stuffed toy inside the open door which led to a mess including an old Commodore PC!:

We saw a bunch of crows/ravens (I just call them cravens since I'm rarely sure which is which) which meant a kill (a deer by the railside) which led to two young coyotes ravaging the corpse. One left with a big chunk of meat. Missed the photo op (David had to drive; go figure).

In Iron Springs (a Santa Fe landmark), we saw an ingenious fence made with tree branches (and wire):

At the iron Springs Stage Site, we stopped and looked for ruts from the stage coaches. There was brick rubble and broken glass from the station and springs from an old buckboard. More importantly, we're sure we saw evidence of the Trail ruts; can YOU see them?:

We had lunch at Timpas, another stage site; it was 76 degrees and sunny, unlike the winter conditions we've been experiencing.

We had a lucky stop at Vogel Canyon, It was a little out of the way, but worth the drive. There was a picnic area (and a strange man in a beat-up Coachman who had been there for two weeks-free-and tripped and fell on his electric cord when he came to talk; might have been from the MANY beer cans he was holding).

There were several trails and we biked down to a series of rock paintings. The site is not super well maintained (one graffiti artist wrote LH). Can you see the images (and bullet holes, we think)?:

This is a REAL salamander:

We would have stayed there for the night but for the strange man. We tried the further Picket Wire Canyon but gave up after 10 miles on a dirt road and ended up in a Wal-Mart (for free).

A good day.

Here's the view from my (pretend...it IS a parking lot) chair: