Category Archives: New Mexico True

Tortuga (exploring Albuquerque murals on bicycle)

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Landscape is a unity, a wholeness, an integration, of community and environment; man is ever part of nature, and the city is basically no less involved than the countryside.  –D.W. Meinig, “Reading the Landscape” in The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays

The main reason I ride a bicycle is to get where I want to go.  Sometimes I get an idea of places to go from someone else’s rides.  John Fleck, a UNM professor and journalist with an emphasis on water, posted a ride on Strava with pictures of these cool murals depicting scenes from Albuquerque’s Bosque with colorful flora and fauna.  It looked beautiful and I wanted to see it.

John posted a picture of the Pacific Avenue street sign on his ride, but I couldn’t make out the cross street.  So the first time I ended up looking for these murals I rode up and down the wrong section of Pacific.  I was on the West side of the railroad tracks.  It turns out the murals are by the Tortuga Art Gallery on the east side of the tracks.  I found it on my second try.

Standing there in September light, I marveled at this mural!  The street became a theatre for this wrap-around art work transforming an ordinary building into a vibrant bio-scape.  It must always look different in the changing light.  Even though I only found what was already there, it gave me a sense of discovery and hope.  Thank goodness there are artists working in this world!

While pedaling down Edith away from this mural a kid on his porch gave me a big wave and I waved back.  It’s amazing how the bicycle creates a sense of adventure and connection that is so accessible and easy to enjoy, right out our front door.  I took the Bosque Trail northward and the long way home, paying closer attention to the ordinary beauty all around me.

Resources:

Check out this website collecting Albuquerque murals!
https://murosabq.com

The mural in this blog post:
https://murosabq.com/denise-weaver-ross-et-al-tortuga/

You can find John Fleck on Strava,
https://www.strava.com/athletes/12521793

and also check out Mr. Fleck’s great blog on the geography of water in the arid West:
http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/

Here’s my Strava ride to view the Tortuga mural:
https://www.strava.com/activities/2744476385

Home trails

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Humanity
has been sleeping
–and still sleeps–
lulled within the
narrowly confining 
joys of its
closed loves.
–Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

I love exploring Albuquerque’s Open Space on urban trails.  Our trails put me in touch with the healing powers of nature.  The trails are often times small, and that can bring trail users into close proximity.  That gives us opportunities to contribute to well-being in a neighborly way.

The best kind of trail in my opinion is singletrack.  This is even more challenging to share than a small two-lane road, where a person may take up a whole lane, but there is still another lane to pass providing you can see it is clear of oncoming traffic for the necessary distance.  When you meet another person on singletrack, you have to negotiate a safe pass, because by definition there is only room for one line of traffic.  This always requires communication, patience, awareness of and respect for the well-being of others, and restraint by the speedier users.

One day on a singletrack trail in High Desert, I got stuck behind a couple walking and talking.  They were going in the same direction I was.  They had two dogs off the leash.  I said hello and that there was a bicycle behind them.  They didn’t hear me or see me.  I kept a safe distance behind them and waited until there was a pause in their conversation, and used a louder voice to try saying hello again.  On the third or fourth try they heard me.  I stopped and waited as they gathered their dogs and attached the leashes to the collars.  They found a safe place to move aside and when they were set they waved me on.  We exchanged smiles and greetings with remarks on how beautiful the day was outside.  It felt so good to share pleasantries.  By taking time I made new friends.  I felt like my patience paid off, not only in waiting for them, but the feeling I got inside from negotiating a safe, friendly pass contributed to my own well-being.

Our situational awareness as travelers takes into consideration the well-being of others.  It is not just about going somewhere, it is about being with people in places and safeguarding dignity.  In our travel culture I sometimes see an atmosphere of incessant rushing.  And in traffic engineering, there are metrics such as travel speed and throughput that stress industrial measures that can overshadow human needs such as community, enjoyment and quality.  The trails are a good place to get back in touch with ourselves and forge those vital connections once again.  It takes discipline, but when we focus our attention there, good things happen.

In Colorado Springs, the Garden of the Gods offers trail opportunities for exploring the land

An important mentor of mine for teaching youth cycling told me that kids don’t get “yield”.  It is kind of a complex word.  He found that it works better to teach kids to “give it up” when they see other people on the trail, at junctions, or crosswalks.  This works well, being present to the needs of others.  This also includes horses, which are common on New Mexico trails.  In that sense, the rules for urban trails teach us to give it up and be present to all of life in nature. By doing this, we experience a fuller measure of nature’s healing powers right here on home trails.

Manzano mountain air

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Keep at a tangent.
When they make the circle wide, it’s time to swim
Out on your own and fill the element
with signatures on your own frequency.

Seamus Heaney, Station Island

Mai’s Fall break and the recent cold spell made for perfect timing to walk in the Manzano Mountains, sampling the turning colors.  Prime color season draws decent sized crowds to these remote mountains, but part of the joy was seeing other people excited by the experience of walking out in the wild, eyes wide open.  Being in the presence of splendid nature on such intimate terms imbued everyone with good manners.  The forest was a picture of health.

During our walk we encountered three different groups on horses.  I was delighted to see such beautiful animals on the trail, especially since this is probably the busiest time of year and horses are shy.  But the horses were happy too.  We saw one party being trailered up for the ride home.  The woman walked into the trailer and gently called who wants to come.  The horses with their shining brown hair followed her like dogs, heads bobbing.  Our favorite group included a donkey, who seemed to be smiling, content from the open air walk with his herd.

We packed our lunch and mid-hike we stopped on a hillside angled Southeast and sat on rocks facing the sun.  We could see the veins of color shooting up 4th of July Canyon, which we had just walked through, and we admired the speckles of color further up on the high ridges of the mountainside.  The habitat changed as we emerged from the canyon, which was filled with tall trees with long roots twisting down, tapping the ground water.  The sun exposed hillsides were dominated by alligator junipers, piñon pine, yucca and had more open vistas.  The fragrance of sun, rock, soil and forest detritus was absolutely sublime.  Lunch never tasted so good.

By the time we finished later in the afternoon we were hungry again and our legs were tired.  We went to the Manzano Mountain Retreat down the road and stocked up on fresh apples.  The Spanish settlers brought apple seeds with them centuries ago.  This luscious fruit that originated in the Caucus Mountains of Central Asia still grows well here and takes on the unique character of these mountains.  They also sell Apple Cider and we got that too.  We are still eating these delicious apples and baking pies to fuel our next walk into the glorious wild.

Finding our way home

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“What is it that awakens in my soul when I walk in the desert, when I catch the scent of rain, when I see the sun and moon rise and set on all the colors of the earth, when I approach the heart of wilderness?  What is it that stirs within me when I enter upon sacred ground?  For indeed something does move and enliven me in my spirit, something that defines my very being in the world.  I realize my humanity in proportion as I perceive my reflection in the landscape that enfolds me.”  –N. Scott Momaday, Testimony, 1996.

Following Mai up the Spruce Spring trail in the Manzanos

We’ve had a good series of adventures since I last wrote.  I’ve been to the Iron Horse Bicycling Classic in Durango, and enjoyed bike rides and walks with Mai in sweet places.  So far as figuring out where home is, I think that is a trick question.  I feel at home everywhere I am.

Mai cycling near Lemon Reservoir

Feeling at home is a matter of paying attention.  When we tune in we sense it.  In Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way, she says “the reward for attention is always healing.”

Following my teammate around the Sandia Mountains

roses in front of the Hillerman Library

A cactus flowering on top of the Manzano Mountains!

Cameron goes on to say “your own healing is the greatest message of hope for others.”  This seems to me true.  And it a whole lot easier than trying to fix problems we don’t control.

Enjoying a slow roll up the mountain on the back road tucked away behind Placitas

Cooling off after the Ironhorse in Silverton

Hidden waters in the canyons of the San Juan Mountains

I enjoyed being in Durango, but it was also nice coming back to Albuquerque.  There is a lot of nature in this place, and we do well to experience it, to go with the flow.  It is ironic that people need nature to recharge and recover, but sometimes the way we build up the environment covers up this healing power.  It seems like where we need that the most is where all the people are (or most people, and now across the world, over 50% of people live in cities, and that proportion is growing).  Sometimes I feel alienated from humaneness in parts of the city, and that causes pain.  Julia Cameron wrote “pain is what it took to teach me to pay attention”.  That is an important lesson.  Building places, working with nature, so that we feel connected to all of life feels a whole lot better, and it’s worth the effort.  When people feel a sense of adventure in routine activities, enjoying simple things like a walk or bike ride, we are living well.

On most road rides I meet people

Sometimes the beauty in the mountains helps us get back on the right path and reminds us life is an adventure

Home

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“We must go alone.  I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.”  –RW Emerson, Self Reliance

“The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lessons of worship.” RW Emerson, Nature

One of the truest aspects of cycling is the way it connects us to the soil again and helps us put down roots in the places where we are growing our lives.  Cycling helps us find our way home. It’s a technology that helps us notice when we are happy, and shows us how simple the joys in life can be, how direct and integral the connections between the land, water, air, all of nature, the whole community are to sensing a greater awareness of who we are and what we can be.

I think with all the fancy technology we have there is a tendency for arrogance, for pretending we know more about life than anyone else.  But as Kurt Vonnegut points out in his talk called the Shape of Stories, we really don’t know anything more about the central mysteries of life than before.  This is what Emerson referred to as the equivalency of all times.  There is an equality inherent throughout humanity.  It is this humility and understanding our limits that keep us innovating at our best, with the aim of enjoying life on the only home we know, planet Earth.

“I have tried to bring scientific thinking to literary criticism and there’s been very little gratitude for this.”  –Kurt Vonnegut, Shape of Stories

And so on this Earth Day, I took a ride on lunch break.  The butterflies are flying about in the winds, caterpillars are crawling on the ground and on flowerstalks, and the hummingbirds are arriving in town.  It is just another day on this earth like any other day, which means today is magnificent, special and holds the complete history of time, all of the present, and the seeds of the future.  It’s a great day.  A nice day to take a stroll or a bike ride, and keep finding our way.

“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist fighting for peace by nonviolent methods most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence…It destroys his own inner capacity for peace.  It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”  –Thomas Merton quoted in Rick Bass, The Blood Root of Art

References:

Kurt Vonnegut’s talk Shape of Stories can be viewed on YouTube here since you probably can’t listen/watch it while “reading” this blog post and listening to Clapton and Winwood playing, but it is worth a view, as Vonnegut can tell a good story about storytelling.

Why cycling is a symbol for uplifting all of humankind:
https://bikeyogiblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/cycling-and-walking-to-get-our-bearings/

The Thomas Merton quote, via Rick Bass, appears in Numbers and Nerves: Information, Emotion, and Meaning in a World of Data edited by Scott Slovic and Paul Slovic

“Spring Sunlight” from Sansai Studios

Fall harvest

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Whilst the abstract question occupies your intellect, nature brings it in the concrete to be solved by your hands.  –Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature”

As the season comes around to Fall again, I reflect on what this year has brought and may bring.  I’ve learned a few things, most importantly that New Mexico is a beautiful place to ride.  I knew it was, but after much practice, I find a true understanding deepening.  Cycling activates our care, for ourselves, the earth, and each other.  It opens our senses to the world.  Our hearts beat stronger.  Our lungs fill with vital air and oxygen.  We relax and feel more at home.  Cycling  fits with our times, grows roots and makes our families happy. I am grateful for cycling.

An action is the perfection and publication of a thought.  –RW Emerson, “Nature”

If we live truly, we shall see truly.  –RW Emerson, “Self Reliance”

the ancient precept, ‘know thyself,’ and the modern precept, ‘study nature,’ become at last one maxim.  RW Emerson, “American Scholar”

References:
Photos from my bike rides, except of the three Ikebana from Sansai Studios:  https://sansai.photoshelter.com/index

Appreciating colorful New Mexico: A visual story

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Walk on air against your better judgement.  –Seamus Heaney, “The Gravel Walks”

In the last year I’ve had the pleasure of traveling in New Mexico, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, sometimes with my wife Mai, snapping pictures.  Sometimes in a car, sometimes by bike, always on foot at some point in every journey.  Taking pictures is a balancing act between being fully present in the moment and framing a visual instant to realize a deeper meaning.  Although pictures just show surfaces somehow they can fuel our imaginations and help the world become incorporated into our being.  As Cormac McCarthy notes in his return to the Kekulé problem, “the world has a great deal to tell us while we have nothing at all to tell it.”

At La Cueva Farm near Mora, New Mexico we picked raspberries last September.  I’m ready to go again.  A big monsoon storm erupted and we took shelter in their Cafe, eating ice cream.

We took the raspberries back to our campsite at Morphy Lake and ate them over oatmeal for breakfast the next day, like two bears anticipating a long winter hibernation.

It was nice to pluck berries off the plants and feel the stems gently letting go of the ripe ones!

Morphy Lake was low on water, but still beautiful.  The rumbling storms at night were powerful!

Looking north from the Manzano Mountains out into the Albuquerque Basin.  Space & solitude.

Cycling off of old route 66 West of Albuquerque, horses galloped across the road and hilltops

This hotel is new in Albuquerque and links together what really matters in New Mexico.  Albuquerque is such an interesting city to ride in, in part because it is a city of open spaces, distinct cultural heritage, wonderful local flavors, reflective of the rural character of this State.

The landscaping is still new on the skirts of the building, but is growing up

Bikes make everything look better.  You can feel the energy rolling

We camped in the Gila National Forest and I went on morning rides.  The roads there seem like they’re made for cycling, & the region hosts the Tour of the Gila, a world famous cycling event.

Camping on the north end of Elephant Butte reservoir we were delighted by wintering Sandhill Cranes and surprising iterations of New Mexico’s mesmerizing atmospherics.

We visited Alpacas on Victory Ranch near Mora

Contrasts in New Mexico are sharp, between wet and dry, hot and cold, even daily temperatures fluctuate widely.  Everybody comes together to be fire wise and protect NM

We are not the only ones looking at New Mexico through the lens of photography!  Outdoor recreation is an emerging opportunity to bring people and nature together more sustainably.

Being here and being healthy is a grand adventure.  Fun!

Sources:

Cormac McCarthy Returns to the Kekulé Problem, Nautilus, Nov. 30, 2017
http://nautil.us/issue/54/the-unspoken/cormac-mccarthy-returns-to-the-kekul-problem

A couple of these photos (the better ones!) are Mai’s.  You can visit her website and Instagram:
https://sansai.photoshelter.com

Almost all of my photos first appear on my Strava account, where I log my daily cycling:
https://www.strava.com/athletes/bikeyogi

Connecting Albuquerque and Santa Fe with cycling

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The way we treat the environment and the way we treat each other are intricately connected.  —Jonathan P. Thompson, “We are the environmental movement”, Colorado Sierra Club blog 

I’ve reached a couple milestones recently.  This is my 365th blog post on bike yogi.  For some reason, this has been a number I’ve had in my head as a goal since I started this blog in 2014 to write about cycling.  I also was trained as a cycling instructor this past Spring by the League of American Bicyclists.  I’ve wanted to do that for years!  And on Sunday June 17th, I connected two great cities, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, with a bicycle ride along the Turquoise Trail, through Santa Fe, and on up Hyde Park Road into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

the turquoise trail connects Albuquerque to Santa Fe through rolling high desert terrain and beautiful mountains

I woke up early on Sunday to begin my ride by 7:15am so I could meet my wife in Santa Fe at Fort Marcy Park for a picnic at noon.  Although June is an extremely hot and dry month historically in the Southwest U.S., the previous day we received a steady rain and the landscape was still wet and fragrant.  Lingering clouds dropped some showers in spots as I rode.  It felt so good to pedal and circulate that oxygenated blood all around my body, and at the same time watch that vital ingredient in the chemistry of life–WATER–flow from sky to the waiting earth.

bike art along the Turquoise Trail

The atmosphere above, the ocean below–it’s one big system.  –Sylvia Earle, “Sunken Treastures”

Spooling down the Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway on a bicycle is a little bit like sailing on an inverted ocean, the clouds roiling in the sky with a fluid, wave-like motion.  I feel the beauty inside of me.  We already see the roads as an artifact of our culture, and a way into the culture, history and traditions of the land around us.  In Georgia, there is a pilot project on highway to farm the roadside and make it more ecologically productive.  As part of this project rethinking what a highway can be, Georgia is building bioswales to clean the water runoff, growing wheatgrass to sequester carbon, and experimenting with asphalts to make it quieter.  This sounds exciting, but right now by cycling I already feel the way this road is improving my health, today!  Why do for people what people can do for themselves?  Cycling is an economic engine.

Hyde Park Road leads up into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

The infrastructure is the landscape.  –Jonathan Thompson, “River of Lost Souls”

In Santa Fe I took the most direct way through town, and started climbing up Hyde Park Road.  Due to the high fire danger most of the recreational facilities from the road are closed, so there is very little traffic, and more than half of that traffic are bicyclists.  It’s so quiet I am spooked when I here twigs breaking in the forest next to me.  I look to my right towards the sound’s source and there are two deer running up an embankment.  They were enjoying the quiet too.  After I climb “the wall”, the steep two mile pitch through the State Park, I turn around to be on time for my picnic date with my wife.  It’s delightful.  After lunch we stroll through town.  In the Plaza in the center of town where the streets are closed to motorized traffic, all I can hear is a chorus of human voices.  It’s like a hundred conversations happening all at once, something like a symphony of voices.  A beautiful sound.  The fabric of community.  We stumble upon a free concert by the Santa Fe Concert Band in front of the Court House.  We lay on the grass and listen to the songs roll–Arioso, Black Horse Troop, A Touch of Carmen, The Phantom of the Opera. We drive home to Albuquerque together, feeling restored, hoping more rain will come soon.

The Santa Fe Concert Band played a Father’s Day Concert at Federal Park

Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere.  –Albert Einstein

References and Resources:

We are the environmental movement is an interview with writer Jonathan Thompson https://www.sierraclub.org/colorado/blog/2018/06/we-are-environmental-movement

Georgia DOT is farming the roadside:  https://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/blogs/georgia-highway-rightofway-farming-ray-anderson

Explore New Mexico’s Scenic Byways:  http://dot.state.nm.us/content/nmdot/en/byways.html

The Sun Magazine’s feature interview each of the last five months has been incredibly inspiring:
https://www.thesunmagazine.org

Jonathan Thompson’s book River of Lost Souls is in part about converting our economy so what used to be sacrifice zones contribute more to human well-being and our sense of place.  https://riveroflostsouls.com

The breaks

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We got a lucky break this year on a trip to the Quebradas Backcountry Byway.  We heard hummingbirds arrive in Albuquerque, and we thought that might mean they would also be at Quebradas–which is about 60 miles south–pollinating the Ocotillo flowers.  We’ve been trying to time a trip to Quebradas for years to synchronize with the Ocotillo blooms.  Finally, it worked.

The byway is a gravel road about 24 miles long.  We spotted Ocotillos immediately, though I had remembered most of the plants were growing at the other end.   It is amazing how the bright red Ocotillo flowers make the landscape light up.  They sing a new song with their flaming reds.

We also spotted some pretty cactus flowers.  With the sparse rains and mild winter, it is amazing how these desert plants survive.  They have developed strategies for scarce water.

It was a great trip!  Although we saw a lot from the car window, the landscape really opens up when you get out and walk, moving at slower speeds, eyes trained to the ground.  Everything is hiding under nursery plants, grasses, shrubs and piles of rock.  It makes it even more inviting and rewarding to get out and explore.  Next time we’ll bring our bicycles.  It is perfect for it.

Other posts I’ve done on Quebradas, and the BLM Website:

https://bikeyogiblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/quebradas-or-breaks/
https://bikeyogiblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/17/quiet-energy/
https://www.blm.gov/visit/quebradas-backcountry-byway

Waterworks in Albuquerque

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If I had sought counseling, I might have become a more mature, emotionally well-adjusted human being.  But I preferred becoming a writer.  —Viet Thanh Nguyen, “Don’t Call Me a Genius”, New York Times, April 14, 2018

I read a Robert Frost poem this morning, and it reminded me of my bicycle rides in Albuquerque.  The North Diversion Channel multi-use trail is a main cycling connection across town.  It runs along a big concrete ditch that’s been engineered to control the water shed from the Sandia Mountains.   Sometimes I close my eyes and try to imagine what this landscape looked like before we built up this city.  Water, which is often used by poets as a metaphor for memory and justice, is a primary shaping force in the landscape.  Water has a voice.

The situation, now and in the past, is that the minority and marginalized communities of this or any other country are often not voiceless.  They’re simply not heard.  –Viet Thanh Nguyen, NYTimes

On Saturday’s ride I made a point to stop by the Mill Pond Refuge at the Sawmill Community Land Trust.  Keshet, a local dance company, performed a water dance there at 2pm.  It was part of the 3rd biannual National Water Dance, where communities renew their connections to the life giving world of water.  In the arid Southwest, during this drought, it was especially poignant.  The Sawmill location represents our community’s changing relationship with water.  Below is the poem from Robert Frost, and then a few photos from the Water Dance that I saw Saturday.

A Brook in the City, by Robert Frost

The farmhouse lingers, though averse to square
With the new city street it has to wear
A number in.  But what about the brook
That held the house as in an elbow-crook?
I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength
And impulse, having dipped a finger length
And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed
A flower to try its currents where they crossed.
The meadow grass could be cemented down
From growing under pavements of a town;
The apple trees be sent to hearthstone flame.
Is water wood to serve a brook the same?
How else dispose of an immortal force
No longer needed? Staunch it at its source
With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown
Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone
In fetid darkness still to live and run–
And all for nothing it had ever done,
Except forget to go in fear perhaps.
No one would know except for ancient maps
That such a brook ran water.  But I wonder
If from its being kept forever under,
The thoughts may not have risen that so keep
This new-built city from both work and sleep.
–1923

References:

http://keshetarts.org  “Founded in 1996, Keshet is an Albuquerque-based nonprofit which exists to inspire and unite community by fostering unlimited possibilities through dance, mentorship and a creative space for the arts. Uniting the arts, the artist and the audience, Keshet invites you to engage, experience and be inspired through bold explorations of movement and celebrations of community.”

Keshet’s Water Dance:  http://keshetarts.org/join-national-water-dance-2018_dancing-for-water-in-nm/