The bends

I’m in Alamo, New Mexico, on a Navajo reservation. I think I’ve gone through more changes in elevation in the last couple days than any other time in my life. Since the last time I posted… Aldo and I had an animated conversation for several hours about politics, human nature, and traveling… mostly politics. I got him to agree that government is immoral in nature, but he still thinks it’s necessary. Aldo has been very involved in politics for years, especially the anti-war movement. I never got around to explaining the concept of DRO’s… talking to him was like being caught in a tornado. In any case, I learned a lot from him. Maybe I’ll get him to come around to anarcho-capitalism, he seems to be reasonably open-minded. I left his place the following day around 2. I was on the hunt for a yoga class before I got back on the road. I stopped at the Roswell contemporary art museum and took some pictures. Then I went to the gym farther down the road. They didn’t have ay classes that day, so I went to the Raquetball Club. Same deal. Then I went to the senior center Aldo told me about. They also didn’t have any that day, but they directed me to another place… the Adult something-or-other. Turns out they didn’t have one either… but they let me use one of the empty rooms to do some yoga. On my way out of town, I continued down Main St., which happens to be the wrong way to get where I was going. I went maybe 4 miles out of the way, altogether. At the last gas station at the edge of town, I tried for about an hour to hitch a ride to Hondo. I hitched with a mustachioed man named Ed, who said he was going about 17 miles outside of town. Apparently Ed likes to drive down 380 in the middle of the night to look at the stars. He ended up giving me a ride all the way to Lincoln. Lincoln was once the home of Billy the Kid, Ed told me as we rode through the mountains. I tried to pay attention, but I was so overwhelmed with the mountains that I had trouble listening. I felt like a newborn, totally awestruck and wide-eyed wonder. We had some good conversation, though. He told me about how the geology was all upside-down due to a buckle fault, but nobody really knows why. He dropped me off at a campsite in Lincoln. I tried to just pass out on a picnic table, but the night got colder and colder, and I had to pitch the tent. I was definitely not prepared for weather this cold. Needless to say, I survived, and somehow kept all my fingers and toes.

I set out this morning around 10 and rode the 15 miles to Capitan, home of Smokey the Bear. The mountains were breathtaking. I stopped at a gas station with a Mexican grill inside and ordered some beans with a tortilla on the side. It was quite a lot of food for not a lot of money, so I had more. Outside, I asked a guy if he knew the forecast, and he told me I should probably get going to Carrizozo if I wanted to avoid the rain. His name was Jason, and he showed me some photos he had taken of that particular route earlier today. He also gave me a rainjacket, which I was fortunate enough to not have to use. It was another 20 miles to Carrizozo, the first 12 of which was more spectacular mountains and valleys. I stopped at a fruit stand just before Carrizozo and talked to Scott the potter about anarchy (it’s a pattern). I wanted badly to see the Valley of Fires, which was just past Carrizozo, so I rode right through (the Valley of Fires is the result of a pyroclastic flow that covers about 40 square miles, if I’m not mistaken… you’ll have to check the encyclopedia). It was a lot more verdant than I’d imagined it would be. It was still pretty cool, though, and I took lots of pictures. I then stood by the highway and stuck my thumb out, trying to catch a ride to Socorro. The bugs were pretty bad, so I decided to pedal back into town and try the gas station, as I’d had luck with this method before. It took me almost 2 hours to get a ride. It was Bill and Debra, who were heading just north of Soccoro, coming back from Ruidoso (I spelled it wrong before). Bill was a federal environmental agent. I brought up the subject of the Capitan free newspaper, which was extremely… Republican. Debra asked me what I thought about Obama, and I went off like a rocketship. They surprised me with their open-mindedness, I had been worried when I’d first learned that Bill worked for the government that I’d say something to get my ass kicked out on the side of the highway. They dropped me off in Socorro, where David Beres (my couchsurfing host) picked me up, and now here I am on the reservation. I will be able to meet some of the locals tomorrow. I’m excited. I apologize for the sub-standard quality of my writing tonight, I am tired and I’ve been eating horribly. I’m off to bed.