Kokopelli Helps Find the Battalion's Way Down La Bajada asking the valid question, "Where's Waldo?"

Santa Fe occupies a beautiful location beneath the south end of the Sangre de Cristo, the Blood of Christ Mountains. However, it the old days, it wasn't that easy to get there. Between Albuquerque and Santa Fe is a very interesting escarpment called La Bajada, "The Descent,"or as I like to translate it, "The Big Downer." Going up is usually the problem as we found trying to make it up I-25 in our old Ford Escort, not a great ride even when coasting downhill. And the freeway climb, while steep, is much better engineered than the original highway demonstrated in this vintage postcard a friend gave me.

There's Always a Trail

Norman Maclean had a river. I was born on the banks of the Snake, one of the true rivers. As a child of the Northwest, I'm always disappointed by "rivers" that don't match up to the likes of the Columbia, Snake, and even the Snohomish and Quillayute. And while rivers were our nation's first thoroughfares, my rivers were always for crossing, or finding a way around (the Quillayute on Scout 50-Miler hikes). My two sets of grandparents lived on opposites sides of the Snake where it forms the Idaho/Oregon border. So maybe you could say the river ran between them, as well as perhaps other things. But it was always the trails that ran through my life.

The Lie of all Munchkins

I was going to say the "Munchkin of all Lies" but I didn't want you to think I was talking about any particular Munchkin (Sarah?)

This theme isn't exactly new on these pages but it came to me in such stark terms last night with Boehner's Debacle and watching a clip of Michelle Bachman going on about "the government this" and "the government that." It's tempting to say the quote: "the government is the problem" is the problem (thank you, President Reagan) but it goes much deeper to the core of a very simple truth. WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT. Of course, it also makes Walt Kelly's immortal turn of the phrase have extra, ironic truth, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Blogging from the Trail

Hopefully, without unduly raising expectations, I have a plan for a series to blog this next week. I have quite a bit of material collected from my experiences in historic trail questing (see, Galahad). I've wanted to put this all into a book or something, but don't seem to be sufficiently organized to do so. Then I realized, "Wait a minute! I'm a blogger!"

Leaving adult children at home, I'll be spending the week at Philmont Training Center, Cimarron, New  Mexico right on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail. My wife is presenting a class, and I am going as a spouse to help her out (a little) but mostly to relax, read, and blog.

The President Is Playing the Lollipop Guild for Suckers

Yes. While it is an artificial and unnecessary crisis, it is a real crisis with significant risks. But it is not all as it seems. And it is certainly not as the Lollipop Guild (AKA tea party) believes or wants it to be.

"The Bigger the Government, The Smaller the People"

The Lollipop Guild

Republican Leadership:
McConnell, Boehner, Cantor 

You said it, John! So I'm thinking maybe they should I will now call it the "Lollipop Guild" rather than the "Tea Party."

Meyers-Briggs INFP: What Sir Galahad and I Have in Common

Sir Galahad by Arthur Hughes (1832-1915)

It's not exactly the purity (although far from me being some kind of libertine!) Rather it's the idealistic temperament we share. I feel the need to explain myself yet again, which, of course, is also part of the psychological profile.