In our years of urban exploring of Albuquerque on our bicycles, my collaborator and I have learned a number of guiding principles that I realized might be worth sharing. The realization came at this gate, which of course I checked to see if it was locked. It wasn’t, which led to the discovery of a …
Continue reading ‘Always check the gate. It might be unlocked and lead somewhere interesting!’ »
The secret corridor proves an amazing fast shortcut to any explorer determined to brush aside low-hanging branches and to risk broken glass and rusted wire. And it offers the probing and poking explorer another view of the chrome-and-glitter commercial strip, even of the regional mall, for it makes clear the stealth with which change comes. …
Seen on the morning bike ride.
Out on my bike exploring this morning, I climbed a hill to find these old abandoned railroad tracks built for what they called the “White Trains,” which carried nuclear weapons to and from Kirtland Air Force Base outside Albuquerque, New Mexico. It wasn’t a surprise. I knew roughly where they were, having stumbled on a …
With the book manuscript handed off to University of New Mexico Press, and fall semester (and grading) done, I’m taking some time off. CRWUA, or not I’m skipping CRWUA this year. Y’all seem to be doing fine right now on Colorado River stuff, and to the extent you’re not, I don’t feel like I’ve got …
Where no one asks any questions Or looks too long in your face In the darkness on the edge of town. – Bruce Springsteen Do you believe in ghosts? Or crows? Do you at least believe in crows? Three of them. Possibly four. Crows, or possibly ravens. But I’d rather they be crows, so let’s …
Sunup bike ride to consult with The Birds. They advised us, if we can, to stay indoors to beat the heat, said they’d keep an eye on things for us.
That boat is totally fixable. – Inkstain reader Greg This raises a fascinating legal question: whose boat is it? 43 U.S. Code § 2101 The Congress finds that— (a) States have the responsibility for management of a broad range of living and nonliving resources in State waters and submerged lands; and (b) included in the …
Continue reading ‘Deadpool Diaries: The Law of Shipwrecks’ »
My friend Scot and I rode north on yesterday’s bike ride to see the Corrales Siphon pumps. Built in the 1930s, the siphon for nearly a century carried water beneath the Rio Grande to irrigate a thousand acres of land on the west side of the river at the northern end of the Albuquerque …
Continue reading ‘Thick places, infrastructural inversions, and the gift of ideas’ »