Tag: Sandia Mountains

Walking on the moon

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
The Comanche Launch Facility.

Never fear. We’re still earthworms. It’s just that The Duck! City landscape looks a bit lunar in spots, especially at the eastern end of Comanche Road NE, which tilts up and turns to dirt just short of Foothills Trail 365.

During our nine years here a few eastbound motorists have failed to notice that Comanche just sort of, oh, I don’t know, ends at its intersection with Camino de la Sierra NE. Their vehicles take flight, briefly, then return to earth, their only laurels being the remains of the wire fence marking the end of Comanche and the beginning of the Sandia Mountains. Resale value and driving privileges suffer. Lunacy of a different sort entirely.

Yeah, but it’s a dry heat.

Anyway, it’s not hot enough around here to be the moon, which enjoys highs of 260° Fahrenheit in full sunlight. It just feels that way lately.

Herself and I got a late start on our weekly bike ride this morning, and it was getting right toasty as we climbed Big Horn Ridge Drive toward a couple of whoop-de-doos that are more fun when done from the other direction.

Bunnies we had seen, but no quail, and I was thinking we were going to get skunked (har de har har) until a lone adult quail ran across the road just ahead of us, saw us, and pulled a U, scurrying back down into the gully.

We stopped to have a peek over the side, and wowser, there were at least three pairs of adults and a whole mob of juveniles puttering around down there, wishing we would quit gawking and be on our way, like the two e-bikers who zip-zapped past without a word.

It pays to keep your eyes peeled around here. You never know what you might see, even if it’s only a windshield full of wire and the Sandias coming up fast.

No groundhogs here

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
You’d think these dudes had engines, the way they stay aloft forever. But they’re just riding the thermals like big ol’ hawks.

Well, there was me. These daredevils may have been tooling around above the Sandias like Icarus and Daedalus, but yours truly kept his landing gear on the deck. I saw my shadow, too, and you know what that means. Bundle up.

But for today, temps hit the mid-50s, and basically anyone who wasn’t chained to a concrete bunk in the Graybar Hotel was out and about, doing something.

“I’m trying to get my bike legs on!” wailed one rider as I yielded a narrow section of trail.

“I feel your pain,” I replied. I’ve been running the trails, but riding the road; this was my first trail ride of 2019.

Ordinarily I shun the trails on sunny weekends, reasoning that I get to play pretty much whenever I please while the cube farmers have a limited window of opportunity. But it’s been a long week and I felt I needed a change of pace.

Speaking of which, there will be no Radio Free Dogpatch this week, for a number of perfectly defensible reasons. I had a notion, but it ran off with one of the voices in my head. I hope they didn’t get married. We don’t need any children from that quarter.

Watermelon at sunset

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
Looking south from Trail 365.

As the weather warms up, picking a time to walk Mister Boo becomes something of a crapshoot (haw).

The auld fella doesn’t like the heat, so mornings would be ideal, if he didn’t enjoy sleeping in after a medium-heavy breakfast. Evenings would be second best, but with only the one headlight he doesn’t see the road any too well.

Yesterday we walked him pretty much right at sunset, and it being nearly 80 (!) outside he was something of a sluggard on the way up the road to the foothills, but on the way back he let ‘er rip, running a full block back to El Rancho Pendejo.

Maybe he was inspired by the view? Looks like the boonies, but it’s all of two blocks from the house.