May 7, 2012

A Desert Drive to Chaco Canyon


Enough with the foreplay.  Here’s a video of Chaco Canyon.

I’d been there once when I was a little kid, but I didn’t really remember it too well.  Upon going back, I found something just as awe-inspiring as walking the streets of Brussels, although in an entirely different way.  And it made it that much more amazing that I visited this place in the middle of nowhere, and I do mean nowhere, less than a month after standing on top of the Eiffel Tower.  It’s an interesting life I lead.

The place is awesome.  Here’s a link to their website, if you’re interested in reading about it a little bit.  It was built and occupied between roughly 800-1250 AD, and I guess it was quite the little cultural mecca for all the Native Americans in the area.  The scope of the place is astonishing.

Artist depiction of what the largest of the several pueblos in the canyon probably looked like.

And with an afternoon to kill in Grants, New Mexico, I hopped in my pickup, put the pedal to the floor….  I drove to the desert, fired my rifle in the sky and shouted ‘God, if I have to die, you will have to die.’  Ok, I didn’t do that.  That’s just an awesome line from Cowboy Dan by Modest Mouse, the song I used completely without permission in the video.  I suppose more accurately, I hopped in my rented Mazda 6, headed out to the desert, and took a whole crapload of pictures.  And then I made this.  Enjoy….

And with that, I’m of to beautiful Gonzales, Louisiana.

-B. Littleton

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May 6, 2012

White Horse and Seven Lakes


The Drive from Grants, New Mexico over to the Indian ruins at Chaco Canyon was a pretty long one.  The website cautioned against relying on a GPS to find the place, as I guess it’s so ludicrously far out in the boonies that even satellites can’t find it.  From their website:

“Warning: Some of the local roads recommended by map publishers and services using GPS devised to access Chaco are unsafe for passenger cars. Please use our written directions below to avoid getting lost or stuck.”

So I let their mediocre grammar slide, and printed out this here map.  I marked our starting point and our destination on there for you.

I didn’t figure it’d be too hard to find; the drive took me through the little towns of White Horse and Seven Lakes, so I figured I’d have some landmarks, and maybe even a gas station or two.  Boy, I figured wrong.

Um… This is Whitehorse?

Unbelievably enough, this intersection has a name. It’s clearly where 509 and 9 intersect. And Whitehorse is clearly located at that intersection…

Looks like a nice place.  I hope Benny gets the Littleton bump.

So this is it, this is the ‘town.’

Glad I didn’t grow up in Whitehorse.

And with that, it was on to Seven Lakes. Ok. This place will actually be a town.

So this sign used to say “Seven Lakes Ranch.” This doesn’t look horribly encouraging.

I guess this is it… Seriously, how did these places get put on the map? At least this place appears like it maybe, sort of used to have a store, a little bit.

The dead old ranch was pretty any who.

There’s actually what looks like some pretty old white-man ruins on the right there.

Yet another thriving metropolis in the beautiful southwest.

Fine. I guess I can’t buy any Gatorade on the way. At least I found my way around.  And when that sign says “ROUGH ROAD. May be Impassable, Travel at Your Own Risk” they do mean it’s totally safe for a tiny little Mazda 6 rental car right?  Sounds like Hertz’ risk to me….

20 or so miles down this here dirt road I finally found the place.  If it seems like I’m dragging my feet on showing you actual pictures of actual Chaco Canyon, well, I am.  I took well over 1,000 pictures on this particular day, and sorting them has proved to be a rather daunting little chore.  But I’m getting there.  I assure you, you won’t have to hold your proverbial horses too much longer.

-B. Littleton

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May 5, 2012

The I-40 Experience – Part 2


Unfortunately, what goes up must come down.  Well, I guess in this case what goes west must go east.  After the long drive to and a couple of days of work in Holbrook I headed back towards Albuquerque to Grants, NM.

It was a damn pretty day for the drive. View was decent too. Here we are at some random rest area tourist store thingy.

I like it.

Who’s up for some flapjacks?

I guess I misspoke. It wasn’t some random little shop. It was the Fort Courage Trading Post.

I don’t think it’s all that necessary to put ‘Keep Out’ on the sewage disposal sign.

I wonder if I have time to rebook my hotel…

I’m a little bit surprised this wasn’t a Pony Express sticker.

Hey, tourists in the west like busted old wagon shit.

Wild west wagon wheel with sun spots shot.

Later on down the road. Getting to beautiful Gallup, NM now.

A truly one stop shop. You can take care of all your gun, bow and arrow, and jewelry repair needs.

A refinery with a view.

The landscapes in the area really are gorgeous.

I love the sandstone cliffs.

Decent little sunset too. The start of one anyway.

Some random dilapidated building by the side of the highway.

Finally got to Grants just as the sun was setting.

Gorgeous sunsets in the area, that’s for sure.

Finally, Handy Andy’s Groceries. I actually really like some of the cheesy, neon, Americana, route 66 signs. This is where I get my Fat Tire around here.

And I’m pleased to announce, that that’s all for I-40.  Coming real soon, pictures and crap of Chaco Canyon.  And trust me, it’s worth seeing.

-B. Littleton

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May 4, 2012

The Road to La Ventana


As I’ve been harping on all week, I just got done taking a pretty extensive road trip through the Southwest.  This here is another one of the pretty spots I was able to check out.  Thanks to my old man for steering me in the right direction.

Like the sandstone bluffs, La Ventana, or the window, is located in El Malpais National Monument.  It’s a massive sandstone arch crafted by years of sediment deposits and erosion.  Or God, if you’re from Texas.  And drive up there wasn’t half bad either.  Check it out…

An awfully nice area to pull over and take some pictures. And I was in no hurry to get to Holbrook, that’s for sure.

Sandstone cliffs everywhere. They were pretty incredible. Too bad about all the traffic though.

See?

Nice place for a drive…

Saw this by the side of the road, just some old ranch shit, but I thought it was awful pretty.

And there’s La Ventana istelf.

Thing’s really big. I guess it’s hard to get perspective in these pictures. Light wasn’t perfect, but it was impressive.

Click on this and read it, if you’re interested in the geology…

Wild west dead tree shot.

That’s kind of a big cliff. Sort of.

And that’s all she wrote…

Well, I gotta run, there’s an airplane boarding with my name on it.  Well, not literally.  But you know what I mean.  The one, the only, Chaco Canyon coming soon.

-B. Littleton

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May 4, 2012

A Bittersweet Day in the Desert


So it’s a bit after 10:00 pm, and I’m sitting in a booth at my local Denny’s.  There’s not a whole lot to choose from when a dude gets hungry this late in Grants…  And despite the $110 per night price tag on my hotel room, the wifi is AWOL, and I feel like writing, so here I am.

Today was interesting.  Considering the fact that I’m on a service call in the boonies, it was as good of a day as I possibly could have asked for, but something just wasn’t quite right.  Bittersweet really is the only word that comes to mind, trite as it may be.  Here’s what I mean…

Bitter: I’ve spent the last 4 days travelling to, driving hundreds of miles across, and working in the middle of nowhere in Arizona and New Mexico.

Sweet: I actually got done early.  By damn near a day and a half.

Bitter: No flights home were available tonight, so I ended up with an afternoon and evening to kill around here.

Sweet: Chaco Canyon, an expansive complex of American Indian ruins is nearby.  Place is breathtaking.  So I went and checked it out.

Bitter:  It turned into a rather exhausting 8-hour trip.  Despite being only 57 miles away as the crow flies, it was a 5-hour round trip drive on virtually deserted two-lane ‘highways’ and included 45 miles of rough dirt roads.  My sincerest apologies to Hertz.

Sweet: It was more than worth it.  Place was gorgeous, and incredibly interesting.

Bitter: I was lonely as shit.

It’s hard.  Think of a time that you went someplace cool.  Any old place will do.  You probably went there with somebody.  And when you saw something worth seeing, you more than likely turned to whomever you were with and told them as much.  ”Hey look at that.”  Or “check that out, it’s gorgeous.”  I can’t count how many times I muttered something along those lines to myself over the course of my little day trip.

I’m sure it didn’t help that I was exploring the ruins of a long-since vanished society.  Or that I was in an astonishingly isolated place about 20 miles past the middle of nowhere.  But as I wandered the trails of this ridiculous antiquity, my mind was about 5,000 miles to the east.  By all means it was amazing, and was certainly a place I’m lucky to have experienced.  But that didn’t change the fact that it would have been infinitely better if there’d been a beautiful, sarcastic red-head walking beside me saying “wow, that is really cool.”

Amazing day.  And I’m ready to go back to Bergheim now.

Goodnight from New Mexico,

-B. Littleton

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May 3, 2012

The Sandstone Bluffs at El Malpais National Monument


While it might not have looked like it when I took my 250 mile jaunt through the desert, this area is home to some downright gorgeous places.  One of them being El Malpais National Monument.  As I’ve mentioned, I lived in this area for a few years as a kid, and in fact, my childhood dog was named ‘Malpais’ after this place.  That means that I kind of, sort of, know something about my subject for a change, and won’t have to rely on Wikipedia to tell you about what is it that I’m showing you.  However, I did still give you the link if you’re so compelled.

El Malpais translates to ‘the badlands’, and it’s composed of a massive lava flow, I don’t know it’s size, but I know it takes up miles upon miles of the desert.  The lava flow was created by Mt. Taylor, a long-since dormant volcano maybe 30 miles from the national monument itself.

It erupted about 3 million years ago (ok, I learned that from a placard while I was there) and the lava formed some incredibly ragged and dramatic black volcanic rock fixtures as it cooled.  This is in stark contrast to the sandstone that composes the majority of the landscape in the area.

They call it the badlands for a reason; these lava flows are impassable except on foot, and even then it can get pretty hairy.  Luckily for this flip-flop donning passerby, just inside the park was an overlook that sits high on top a series of these sandstone cliffs.  An incredibly dramatic place in it’s own desolate, wild west sort of way, and a nice place to stop and look around…

You are here.

And here we are.

Decent view from up there. You can see for a mile or two.

Gorgeous up there, and I couldn’t have asked for a better day.  The weather has been a major plus this trip.  70′s and sunny the whole time.  The high desert (surprisingly, we’re probably at about 6,500′ elevation, give or take) has a pretty sweet climate.

Erosion is a pretty sweet sculptor, really.

So the black stuff down there is the exposed lava flow, if you hadn’t figured that out for yourself… You probably had.

Obligatory I’m-in-a-desert yucca shot.

A couple of examples of the volcanic rock they had up at the overlook.

And there’s your volcano, Mt. Taylor.

Found these little ruins by the side of the road not too far from the overlook.

Cactus.

I was a little bummed when I noticed this. Seeing as how I’m pretty sure angle iron wasn’t around when this was originally constructed, they’ve done some work on keeping it intact… Or as intact as it is now anyway. Still pretty.

And finally, some other little sandstone cliff I seen on the way down from the top of the other, bigger sandstone cliff.

That’s all for today…  I hope you enjoyed your little scenic overlook.  If for some reason you ever find yourself bored in Grants, New Mexico (hey, you never know) I strongly suggest you give the place a look.  More from my Southwestern excursion coming before long…

-B. Littleton

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May 2, 2012

Holed Up in Holbrook


As we talked about yesterday, I’ve spent the last couple of days either en route to, or captive in, Holbrook, Arizona.  When I checked into my hotel, the clerk asked what brought me to Holbrook.  I told her I was in town for work, as if there were any other reason, and her response?  ”I’m sorry.”  Never a good sign.

This place is one of the shitholiest shitholes to which I’ve been sent in my 4+ years of being a professional shithole visitor (I like how I used ‘shithole’ three times in that sentence, and yet still refused to end a clause with a preposition), and It represents a rather acute example of what I had in mind when I named the blog what I did.  These little towns occupy substantially more of my time than Prague or Paris, and they put the unremarkable back in remarkably unremarkable…

But upon my arrival it was still a little too early to start drinking alone in my hotel room, so I bridged the gap from alcoholic to borderline alcoholic by taking a picture or four.  I have to give a disclaimer here: I took every one of these pictures on the 2-mile drive from dinner back to the hotel.  I didn’t go searching for abject poverty and boarded up buildings.  As far as I can tell, this is an accurate portrayal of the place.  At least it’s exactly what you’ll see if you head down the two major thoroughfares in town…

I write you from right about here. The picnic table outside my hotel room. A pretty sweet spot to drink some lonely juice and throw up some pictures.

Ah yes, main street.

I suppose the Econlodge has this place beat.

Haha, even the cop cars are busted around here.

If that double-wide needs some new cabinets, you know who to call...

Navajo Avenue... The other main drag through town.

Hell, if I got a roommate that'd only be $197.50 a month... Any takers?

C'mon... It's got a pretty awesome view...

A busted car behind one of the three restaurants in town that is still in business.

Ok, a few busted cars.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt... Maybe they do have the best food in town. But that's sort of like being the best dunker in the WNBA...

Kind of a funny story about this bar. The only other time I've been here, my esteemed colleague Glendo and I asked around trying to find a decent bar in town. While literally none of the three people we asked had a single recommendation for us, literally all three of them told us to stay the hell away from the Winner's Circle. We took their advice.

Cool old trucks, I suppose.

Looks like a nice neighborhood.

Sweet. Well, I guess Holbrook has the rock hook-up.

I bet you can get some pretty sweet electronix up in here.

At least they got my hot eats and cool treats covered.

Ok, this isn't a picture of a Burger King. Well, I guess it is. But the point is the KOA campground in the background there. Why? Why on earth would anyone choose to camp in this place? Go 80 miles down the road to Flagstaff. They have mountains, and pretty shit.

Well, at least the local economy is thriving. Here we have Holbrook's largest... boarded up building.

We gave the Indians small pox, Oklahoma, and this place. Nice work America.

Nah. I'll empty my pockets elsewhere.

Who wants some orange chicken? I feel like some orange chicken.

Man, even gas stations are going out business up in here. That's unreal.

Pretty solid vacant lot.

There are like five businesses in this town that aren't boarded up.

There it is. The prettiest thing in town. The water tower.

Anybody looking for a nice business venture? Call my boy Paul. Or my other boy Brian.

Ok. The sunset was pretty. I'll give 'em that.

That’s all for Holbrook.  I ought to be leaving this place in my rear view mirror tomorrow morning.  Not horribly upset about it either.    Coming tomorrow, the Sandstone Bluffs of the El Malpais National Monument.  We’ll see you then.

-B. Littleton

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