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 …
Grand Tour 11: Intimations of Mortality in a Town Too Pretty to be Beautiful Read More »
The museum has become the artifact. These days one can often tell more about a people from how they structure and present their museums than from what those museums contain. Thursday, May 10, 2018, Santa Fe to Taos: This was a day mostly about visits to various sites and there is enough to say about …
Grand Tour 12: The Museum Has Become the Artifact Read More »
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 …
Grand Tour 13: Holy Dirt and the Sacredness of Real Things Read More »
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 …
Grand Tour 14: Holy Jumble and the Intrusiveness of Tourism Read More »
From the low of a mine to the height of the Continental Divide and from the width of the plain to the steepness of Gallup’s streets, this is a day on the move. And a chat with the ghost of Jimmy Stewart. May 12, 2018, Albuquerque to Gallup: We begin the day with a 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 …
Grand Tour 16: Finding Fern Seed and Elephants in Petroglyphs and Rock and Roll Read More »
We cannot separate a people from their landscape. To visit one is to visit the other. This makes tourism a kind of natural resource that people living in attractive or unusual landscapes can choose to exploit as they would oil or timber or fertile crop land. But in the case of tourism, the choices and …
The Grand Tour 17: The Secret Museum and the Perfect Taco Read More »
Surprise is a significant part of the pleasure of a road trip. The view revealed for a moment as you crest a rise or round a corner can be magical. But the great tourist sites of the world cannot be a surprise; one has seem them time and again long before one ever sets eyes …
The Grand Tour 18: Amazing Scenery, and the Grand Canyon Read More »
Seen in the right light, there is a fairytale quality to the Grand Canyon and to the forests that line the rim. But the forest path can sometimes lead to the witch’s cave — in our case, the US medical system. May 16: Grand Canyon to Flagstaff: I am usually an early riser and when we …
The Grand Tour 19: Of Altitude, Fairy Tales, and Earrings Read More »
The Interstate killed Route 66, but it also gave it life. Without the Interstate it would be an overcrowded highway. Because of it, it is a delightful tourist route. We visit the town where the new Route 66 was born. And I look upward and do not see stars. May 17, 2018: Flagstaff to Peach …
The Grand Tour 20: Mannequins, Dinosaurs, and Fuzzy Stars Read More »
