August 2, 2005 @ 5:30 am
During the next four weeks Ojo Caliente will be changing. The most immediate change will be a re-christening. When this blog started the name "Ojo Caliente" simply floated into my mind from the mists of past experience, from travel, and from a desire to identify the blog with its southwestern roots.
The notion of a hot eye casting its critical and laser-like gaze on the events of the day appealed to me. What I had completely forgotten was that Ojo Caliente is a town in New Mexico…named for a hot spring, I believe. People googling for information about their vacations got bumped to a column of grumpy complaints about neo-conservatism.
There will still be grumpy complaints about neo-conservatives, but a new name will spare the vacationers. Just what that new name will be is still to be decided. Whatever it turns out to be we’ll launch it on September 1st.
August 2, 2005 @ 6:25 am
Back in Tucson last Saturday after more than four thousand miles on the road…certainly a good ride. My dirty little secret is that I actually like riding the interstate highways. I like the speed, I like charging the traffic, and when the road is clear I like being able to take a look at the scenery.
Motorcyclists are supposed to prefer "blue highways" with plenty of curves to hip-swing their scoots through. Those roads can be a fun challenge, but they force maximum attention to the yellow line. Coming home from Chattanooga I rode to Memphis on US 64. I saw the trees along the side of the road, but it was only when the route had been improved to four or six lanes that I could see the rolling sweep of the Tennessee landscape.
I don’t ride at night as much as I used to but on the run home I did one of my favorite tricks…I ghosted out of town…Roswell, New Mexico long before sunrise. This meant riding the length of Roswell’s main drag between rows of shuttered businesses with no one on the road except a city black-and-white nosing out of a cross street intersection.
I waved, and got a headlight flash in return.
Out of town I was alone on the high plains and watched the sunrise in my mirrors. The sky got gray, then a kind of dirty yellow with a mound of pink light where the sun would be. When the sun jumped over the horizon’s edge it was huge, and the color of a blood orange.
And then it was full daylight and I could no longer see my headlight beam on the road.
