Preserve the Public Lands!

My hat is off to Field & Stream web edition, and hopefully, the print edition as well for the excellent article on the latest movement to turn over America's public lands to the states and eventually private interests.

Ken Ivory and the Malheur occupiers get special mention as part of the problem, not the solutions. And there's this great quote from the late Western Historian (and Utahn), Bernard DeVoto, who also got it:

“the ultimate objective is to liquidate all public ownership of grazing and forest land in the United States…the plan is to get rid of public lands altogether, turning them over to the states, which can be coerced as the federal government cannot be, and eventually into private ownership.”

The Unified Field Theory of Disney Pixar's "Cars" and the Welsh Indians

Gallup, New Mexico isn't really all that bad on a full stomach of genuine chile rellenos and sopaipillas. Here for work as I have been many times, I find my flights of fancy off to speculate on something I think is pretty solid along with things not quite so.

I am still convinced that the scenery between here and Grants, NM, was the inspiration for the modified Southwestern imagery of Disney Pixar's Cars. I mean, just look at the bluffs west of Gallup!

Note the Red Bluffs in Cars.

Red Bluffs at Gallup

Old Scouts Never Die, They Just Lose Their Comic Books

This is another photo that needs its own blog post. I wrote last night to my tent buddy from my first Philmont Trek in 1971. We were pen pals for a while in the 70's but we lost contact as adulthood came and other interests took us. My friend stayed true to his gift becoming a writer and publisher of underground comix! I'm still searching for my gift. But my life is good and I love my family.

My friend third from right, back row. And me - kid on the back far right.

Meanwhile, Back at the Occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge . . . .

The Mythic American Cowboy

Without license as I stole another idea from Monty Python:

Overheard around the campfire at Malheur:

"What has the federal government ever done for us?"

"yeah!"

 "Nothin'!"

"Only cause problems!"

"Threatened to take our guns and our cattle away!"

Ghost Town Ghosts

One of the great bennies of volunteer trainers at Philmont, is the Wednesday Afternoon rides into the back country. The Chaplains (Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, LDS) have a fleet of Suburbans put to this use as they have daily needs to go somewhere to rescue lost souls -- or more likely to pick up trash and make deliveries to remote camps. The back country is riddled with trails and dirt roads. Several sub-base camps staffed by Philmont summer workers have radio contact with base camp HQ and the Infirmary. The chatter is quite entertaining:

"When the crew arrives, please advise them of safety policy and that it is not good to leave their sick adviser on a camp porch and go on without him. Out. Base."

 Yesterday, we were privileged to go to a place we'd never been - Baldy Camp. Both of my treks were in the south country so I take every chance I get to visit up north. And everywhere are the most amazing things found at Philmont:

My Friend, Kokopelli

Imagine my surprise when I went to the reception at the Philmont Museum/Bookstore and noticed this great book on Kokopellis of the Southwest and opening it, found a section on the Kokopellis at La Cieneguilla (Santa Fe Canyon) where I helped BLM secure some property for public access. (You're welcome.)

Progressive Scouting

Feminism lives at Philmont Scout Ranch, Cimarron, New Mexico

No one would ever say "Liberal" Scouting. The Boy Scouts of America is a solidly conservative organization based on middle-class values transported from Victorian England (Lord Baden Powell, ¿no?) I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. In fact, most of it is quite good. My purpose here is to point out some important, if sometimes glacially slow, movement that Scouting has made in a good, progressive direction, IMHO.

Villa Philmonte - Photographic Tour

The original drive up to Villa Philmonte, Cimarron, New Mexico

So I'm not the best photographer, or architectural or interior-design expert. One hardly needs to be to photograph or comment on the marvelous Villa Philmonte, Waite and Genevieve Phillips's "summer home" outside of Cimarron, New Mexico. Owned by the Boy Scouts thanks to the Phillips's generosity, anyone can visit by signing up for a free tour at the nearby Seton Museum.

The Phillips family was very practical in their generosity. They reserved only the right for family members to come back to visit whenever they wanted. And they provided endowments for less-advantaged youth to come to Philmont and for the upkeep of the Villa so that the BSA would not be stuck with an expensive relic they could not maintain.

Let's start on the outside walkways. There are custom-designed tiles representing the family interspersed throughout the otherwise red tiles - livestock, game animals, Cowboys, Indian, New Mexicans, even the architect got one in for himself. Waite wanted a "W" for his personal brand, but the brand inspector informed that it had already been taken. Being the practical guy he was, he simply chose a "double U" with a bar.

Seton Museum & Seton's Utah

Seton Library, Philmont, Cimarron, New Mexico

Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946)

Perhaps my second favorite place at Philmont, after Rayado, is the Seton Museum. I've certainly spent a lot of hours there. It's a great museum of Philmont and Scouting History, along with Southwestern Art, wonderful books, posters, art, and Southwestern Indian jewelry and pots, etc. Seton was one of the founders of Scouting in America.

The great and somewhat eccentric Seton was most renowned as a Naturalist. In those days, conservation was a little bit different than today as he was an avid hunter and dissector. But Michelangelo couldn't have created his masterpieces without cutting up a few cadavers. Getting the other criticism out of the way, Seton's most famous book "Wild Animals I have Known," was trashed by one reviewer who entitled it "Wild Animals Nobody Knows" because Seton anthropomorphized his subjects ascribing human thought and sentiments. But his actual drawings and studies were incomparable - and the stories are highly entertaining.

The Valhalla of Scouting

The Tooth of Time - an old landmark on the Santa Fe Trail.
The vertical, white rock center is Grizzly Tooth up Urraca Canyon. Trail Peak is to the left,
Black Mountain, and Mt. Phillips just left and past the Tooth of Time. (All places I've hiked)

"The Valhalla of Scouting," That's what one friend called it under some odd circumstances a few years back. And it seems appropriate this year, the 75th Anniversary of Philmont.

Our friend was the Director of the Albuquerque Youth Symphony in which our son participated. He was an Israeli Citizen and far from any family. The Scout Troop in the neighboring LDS Ward had invited him to go on a river rafting trip. The Musician had injured his shin on a rock and his foot then became infected. The Youth Symphony Member in the other Troop had a dad along who was a doctor. Our Symphony Director was treated well, but ended up in the hospital. When released, the doctor's family was leaving out of town and the Scout's mom called my wife to nurse the injured Musician back to health. He spent nights at his own place, but was propped up on pillows on our couch during the day while my wife fed him cookies.

"¡Muerte a los Tejanos!"

My favorite thing about Kit Carson. That was the battle cry of the New Mexican Volunteer Regiment he organized in the Civil War. Let us remember there were Spanish-speaking people in the American Southwest long before there were any African-American or European "Texans." Like 200 years or so. The Tejano guys came by invitation of a new Mexican Republic and then they proceeded to break all the rules, most egregiously, slavery. One of the first things the Republic of Mexico did was free the slaves. The Texans were a bit more difficult to convince.

The Enchanted Walmart

I'm not usually a big fan of Walmart. This not a post for the negatives. This is about the most magical Walmart on the face of the earth! Trinidad, Colorado. Just the name of the otherwise odd, little, red-bricked town is magic - or spiritual. TRIN-uh-dad is how we say it in English. I can't help but go to the Portuguese, much more poetic than Spanish - Treen-ee-DAH-djee. In any language it bounces off the tongue.

Trinidad, Colorado. Where the Rockies break to the Great Plains.

Family Totems III

A couple of weeks ago, I finally had a chance to show my first set of Family Totems and some other postings on my blog to my Dad and Mom and they were quite pleased. So here are some more:

"On the Road to Gettysburg" 1987. © Larry K. Vaughn

My dad had just started with watercolors in those days (after many years of acrylics and oils). He always was good with detail and powers of suggestion. You may have to zoom in to see but there are little blotches of orange in the green trees as this was a cicada-cycle summer in Maryland. The orange ties up with the roof and the farm implement in the barn. The yellow in the grass was emphasized as was the purple-blue of the barn for a good contrast.

This is a real place and is on the road to Gettysburg that our family (and Union Troops) took north many times. It's Highway 97, the Baltimore Pike. It hangs in our front room as a constant reminder of many good family adventures - and the preservation of our Constitutional Union through bloodshed and Lincoln's famous speech there.

Downtown Mormon Lunch: Fun & "Weightier Matters"

Two things came together in my normally confused brain this week as I sorted through them for some sense. First, my "manifesto" the other day led me to a fascinating discussion on my Facebook link to that blog post with some Brazilian friends and I jumping between English and Portuguese in a discussion of the U.S. Constitution. Good thing I know how to switch my keyboard back and forth for the right accent marks, etc. That ended with a Brazilian friend, now U.S. Citizen (I believe) asking me if I knew any of the First Presidency or Quorum of the Twelve who were Democrats. The late, and Portuguese-speaking, James E. Faust was the only one I knew for sure in modern times. He had served in the Utah State Legislature and had been Chairman of the Utah Democratic Party so it was rather obvious. I'm sure there are others, they just keep those sort of things rather private if they haven't been in political office as part of their public life before their calls to the presiding quorums of the Church.

Who's Your Senator? New Mexico Edition

The Honorable Gentlewoman B

The Honorable Gentleman A

The Honorable Gentleman D

The Honorable Gentleman C

Answers after the jump:

Trails Hurt and Heal: In Honor of Milton Smith, 1825-1846

I have a new idea which I think is original on the differences of understanding and perception among humans. At least I think I think it's original, so stop me if you've heard this one.

Santa Fe Trail cut just south of Cimarron, NM, north of Villa Philmont (through the low point of the fence line)

Could it be that the veil that separates us from the Spirit World works the same to cloud our individual minds and cut us off from each other's spirits in the here and now? Otherwise, we would more easily understand, and love, and have no further need for experience in this life to help us learn how to live the Lord's Charity with each other. Yet there are certainly those times where spirit connects to spirit and we understand things we cannot easily express in human terms.

A Philmont Story from 2002

I was driving back into Cimarron from my Santa Fe Trail explorations today and Paul McCartney came out of random play on my iPod. It reminded me of something I had written a few years back in my Albuquerque days wrapping together running, Philmont, and even sort of a love story. 

LAZY DYNAMITE

My wife is getting a little jealous because I’m in love with my shoes.

Running the Galisteo River in Search of the Mormon Battalion Route

I finished last night's posting pretty late with the reference to running the Galisteo. When I thought about it this morning, I realized that was sort of an inside joke if only in my subconscious because, well, I wasn't exactly talking about white water adventures. As I started out with my love and respect for the rivers of the Pacific Northwest, the Galisteo isn't like them. I suppose the Santo Domingos appreciate the huge, monstrosity of the Army Corps Engineers Dam, because there have been flash floods that washed away parts of the ancient Pueblo which has been moved based on those floods. And I am sure there may be 500- or thousand-year floods that might actually float a boat. But in my experience, the Galisteo was for trail-running - on foot. Please note that the information for the recreation site above indicates no "water sports" "fishing" or even "drinking water." Remember, this is New Mexico.

We Explore the Battalion Route on Public Lands, Then I Help the US Give it back to the Santo Domingos

If you look closely at that map from the last posting, the route pretty much follows modern roadways with the glaring exception of that 24-mile, near marathon day from October 20-21, 1846. And if you look even closer, there is one very interesting geometrical configuration, a triangle, the apex of which points sideways, sharply at San Felipe Pueblo close to the number 21, and the narrow base of which is State Road 22 that intersects with the dark, thick line of the route right at another intersection of a broken line that forms the southern boundary of Santo Domingo Pueblo. I thought that might be a point on a map that I could find in real life.

The first time out there with my boys, and there were a few more to follow so I get the trips a little mixed up, I found the spot right on because the diagonal line at the top that intersects with SR 22 is the fence line of the Santo Domingo boundary. Just east and south of that intersection, I pulled over off of 22 and noted that yes, just to the east looked like ruts that went onto Santo Domingo. I did not go that way respecting the Pueblo's land. So I turned to the west on the BLM public lands portion and looked for something on the other side. It was a large, flat space, empty of vegetation other than course grass. I wandered a bit and got over to the edge where it dropped off into some piñon/juniper, and there it was! The old Camino Real that comes all the way up from Chihuahua City to Santa Fe and beyond to the first Spanish Settlements at San Juan, now, Ohkay Owingeh in its original Tewa name.

In which Marc Simmons and the Utah State Historical Society Come through for me.

Marc Simmons is a great guy and one of many interesting characters in New Mexico. I think per capita, New Mexico may outdo California, New York and even Utah for its eccentric characters. Simmons is a great popular historian who writes to explain things to regular people rather than impress the academic crowd. He lives fairly close to Santa Fe but rather far in an "off-the-grid" sort of way. At least when I had my minimal contacts a few years ago, he had no electricity, computer (a manual typewriter kind of a guy) or even a phone.  He picked up his mail at the newspaper office in Santa Fe, where I had left my letter, and with no moral aversions to the telephone (he just preferred not to have one) he gave me a call when he was in town.

 About the same time, I had come across a publication by Utah State Historical Society which was a detailed study of route of the Mormon Battalion Trail. (Yippee!)