Lakeshore

...a last few photos, ( to no one's surprise, of flowers. )

Almost done with the road trip photos. Here's a few more, of ( various structures in New Mexico and Texas. )

Outta here, flying home this morning. I'll get to see the_child and bibliothec again soon!

It's been a great tour de Southwest, with my thanks to Frontiers in Writing and the Rio Hondo folks both. Regularly scheduled blogging resumes tomorrow.

In the mean time, this morning's Get Fuzzy seems especially apropros for anyone in the speculative fiction business.

This one's for garyomaha, but some of the rest of you might enjoy it too, ( especially the photos of the rotting 19th century Pullman car. )

(I also appear to be up too late...)

Drove from Taos Ski Valley to Amarillo today, via Arroyo Hondo, Questa, Red River, Eagle Nest, Cimarron, Raton, Capulin and Texline, NM, then on down through Dalhart, Hartley, Channing and Boys Ranch, TX. Stopping at a light in Amarillo, I realized it was the first light I'd stopped for in nine hours of driving. Took photos of flowers, landscape, trains, the Dawson Cemetery, a ruined roadside stop near the Dawson cut-off, a ruined mercantile (maybe) in Elizabethtown, the Capulin volcano, and a whole lot of other stuff. Photos to come here once I get caught up.

Flying home to Portland tomorrow. I should be back on lj as usual Tuesday. If I've missed anything important, let me know in comments here, please.

And yes, Rio Hondo was brilliant.

( Just southeast of Trujillo, NM, at the base of the escarpment. )

( Continuing my trend of posting a few at a time... )

( Some interesting roadside Americana )

( Panoramic photos, courtesy of stupid camera tricks. )

Still posting photos from the big drive. ( A couple of landscape shots from the Texas Panhandle and northeastern New Mexico. )

Busy here at Rio Hondo. Stories, cooking, hiking (a real joy at 9,000+ feet of altitude), whatnot. More later as time permits, but I'm still catching up on photos from the Big Long Drive. ( Amuse yourself with these photos of flowers... )

Left my hotel well before dawn and went to find the Cadillac Ranch. My search was hampered by considerable emergency vehicle activity on the otherwise dark and lonely stretch of rural access road (someone had missed the onramp and made a big booboo in the bar ditch), and the fact that the place is damned near impossible to find in the dark. I spent half an hour or forty minutes there, exploring in the dark then watching the first stain of dawn in the east. As the morning wind came up, I could hear it whistling through the Cadillacs, a fitful high-pitched dirge.

( Here's what I saw. )

After the Frontiers in Writing Conference, we went to The Big Texan, home of the 72 ounce steak, free if you can eat it in an hour. The FiW folks treated the conference faculty, but a whole bunch of others came as well. Big food and a dance hall. Me, I went back to the hotel and went to bed early so's I could hit the road on Sunday. Still, ( here's a few images for your delectation. )

Once again, my thanks to the Panhandle Professional Writers' Group and Frontiers in Writing for an excellent conference. And a good dinner...

Mine host for the FiW contest hath sent me this link to another odd Amarillo road sign, and confirms that Stanley Marsh puts them up. He's also the Cadillac Ranch guy. I'd love to meet him...that's my kind of oddball.

Also, it's been suggested we have another caption contest for the ( scissors sign. )

I might do that when I have more time than I do this morning.

I'm driving to Taos (Taos Ski Valley, actually) before dawn. Hope to be at Cadillac Ranch right around sunrise, then to Tucumcari, Las Vegas (NM) and on up into the mountains. Watch this space for photos of various kinds. Y'all play nice while I'm gone.

( Images from my morning walk )

Well, the Frontiers in Writing conference is winding down. This has been a great experience. These folks are fabulous, they know how to run a tight conference, and the attendees have been motivated and focused. Last night's keynote speech by William Bernhardt was one of the best speeches I've ever heard. As for me, yesterday I did a session on breaking into print through genre short fiction, as well as some one-on-ones. Today I did a session on writing fast (twice), as well as various of the conference events. Plus the on-site bookstore sold out of Dogs in the Moonlight and Rocket Science, having begun with a reasonable stock of both.

Tonight we're all going out to the Big Texan (home of the 72 ounce steak -- free if you can eat it all in one hour). That promises to be more than a little interesting.

( Meanwhile, here's a couple of pics. )

Went for a morning constitutional today, mostly to wake up my corpus delecti since I have to be 'on' all day. Of course I didn't grab my camera, of course I saw several fun things to photograph. Maybe tomorrow. I set out at 7 am and it was already plenty warm. Flat here (duh), reminds me a lot of Austin, at least in comparison to being in Oregon (double duh).

The Frontiers in Writing folks hosted a lovely BBQ last night for the attending pros. (I think we're called "instructors" here.) Mine conference host, Suzanne, got me over there with an assist from one of the other PPWG folks (the group that sponsors the conference). It was a Texas potluck with catered BBQ brisket, sausage ham and chicken. Everything else had been brought by PPWG folks -- a lovely spread of salads, side dishes and desserts. I'd sort of forgotten about Texas food. Saturday night they're threatening to take us to a place that offers a 72 ounce steak -- free if you can eat the whole thing in an hour.

I need to shoot back down shortly. I have various sessions today. This is a fun bunch of people, and they are treating me very nicely. I'll report on the conference itself tonight.

Except for the Catholic priest sitting near me, I am the only person in the departure lounge for the Amarillo flight who doesn't look like they got to the airport in a long bed, dual cab pickup. And he might have.

Gee, I wonder how that could be?