Sunday, February 24, 2008

Sub-urban

Unlike (or like) some of the other folks on the blogroll, I live in the big (well, biggest for a couple of hundred miles in any direction) city. Even so, just two and a half miles from my house the foothills of the mountain behind town start up. Those foothills are public land and provide a nice, if generally well-peopled, quick walk in a less urban environment.

This afternoon the dog and I took advantage of warm-ish temperatures and a break in the weather to walk up until our (my) legs got tired then fell back off the hill to return to Sunday chores. Apart from some likely ringtail, or possibly fox, scat, scenery is mostly what we came across. No surprise given the popularity of the area and the early-afternoon hour we were out.



Here, you can see all the way to Querencia country, the peak in the distance on the right side of the frame is Ladron and those are the Magdalenas to the left and behind it.



One thing about the Southwest, you come to take your hundred mile views for granted. My first thought was "the light's not great and there's a lot of humidity (23%!), I wonder if the photo will come out?"

3 comments:

Matt Mullenix said...

First off: 23% humidity would be the driest day we ever had in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It would be heaven. People would leave work early and wander home on foot. They'd be putting their clothes on lines to dry. They would be saying the word "dry," just to try it out in their mouths.

Then it would flood.

Henry Chappell said...

I'm envious. I can't imagine having substantial public land only two and a half miles away. To get into any decent country, I have to drive an hour and a half to either the LBJ National Grassland or Caddo NGL. So why am I still here? Good question. I have answers, but I'm not sure they're good enough.

mdmnm said...

Matt-
Pretty funny! I have relatives in Houston that complain about their skin drying up when humidity hits that level during the occasional norther.
Henry-
I don't go up there enough. Even though you'll always see other people and usually dodge a couple of mountain bikes, it is a great area to get a little exercise, maybe see a few deer, different birds, and long vistas. If you want to get more exercise, it is pretty easy to plot out a ten mile loop (with 6 or 8k total elevation change). Every time I think much about leaving NM I think about all I can do in an hour and a half to two hours drive- hunt elk, deer, grouse, quail, ducks, and geese, fish trout, backpack either desert or spruce/fir/aspen country...all on public land.