G. M. Baker

Arizona high desert plain

Grand Tour 16: Finding Fern Seed and Elephants in Petroglyphs and Rock and Roll

This entry is part 16 of 22 in the series Grand Tour

Sights ancient and modern are larded with claims of certain knowledge that are dubious at best, given the available evidence. Without contradiction, a guess hardens into assurance. But our certainty is tinged with aspiration. May 13, 2018, Gallup to Winslow: I’m not sure what the climate classification is for the landscape West of Gallup, New …

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Taos Pueblo

Grand Tour 14: Holy Jumble and the Intrusiveness of Tourism

This entry is part 14 of 22 in the series Grand Tour

To travel is to intrude. The intrusion may be welcomed. It may be invited. You may pay for the privilege of intruding. But it is still an intrusion, and sometimes you feel like an intruder even where you are welcomed. But then, there are some places, no matter how foreign, where you always feel at …

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Strange offerings.

Grand Tour 13: Holy Dirt and the Sacredness of Real Things

This entry is part 13 of 22 in the series Grand Tour

All through the New Mexico portion of this journey, I have noted how much it matters here what things look like. This is in some small part a reflection of how much things matter. I don’t mean this in the sense of how much it matters to have things. Rather in the sense that things …

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Trees and Adobe

Grand Tour 11: Intimations of Mortality in a Town Too Pretty to be Beautiful

This entry is part 11 of 22 in the series Grand Tour

Wednesday, May 9, 2018, Santa Fe: A day on foot in the heat and altitude of Santa Fe leaves me feeling ten years older and ruminating on my mortality. The themes for the day are towns that try too hard to be beautiful and end up looking contrived, and a reflection on mortality in general …

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Pecos Historic Site showing surrounding higher hills

Grand Tour 10: The Stunning Similarities of Ancient Sites

This entry is part 10 of 22 in the series Grand Tour

Tuesday, May 8, 2018, Las Vegas NM to Santa Fe NM  Today our Grand Tour takes us to the Pecos National Historical Park where we notice the stunning similarities between the ruins here and the stone circles, Roman, and Medieval ruins of Britain. We also note just how much it matters what things look like …

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