Ssomething made me want to head up north, so of course I had to take the Dodge. The high desert primeval. The landscape is so brutal there this time of year. Mountain ranges on every horizon, jagged peaks like bright white teeth. The Dakota’s 4.7L V-8 singing through the dual exhausts is comforting at speed in these environs. The automatic downshifts on the hills in cruise control to maintain speed and holds it well. Nice to have the power! Humming along in cruise control at 65 to 70, the 17-year-old Dakota feels tight and strong.
We had lunch inside the truck after taking a public access road [not the one above] some distance into the boonies. We’d stopped there before but hadn’t gone nearly so far. I’ve always wanted to see what was over a certain ridge, you see, and now I could. For the record, the east side of the ridge is the same as the west side of the ridge, but now I know and I am better for it.
On the way back we came across a herd of antelope. There had to be at least thirty of them in a long line, moving toward the highway. About a dozen made it onto the road, but by then our presence on the shoulder spooked the others. The ones in the road high-tailed it back the way they’d come to join them. We sat and watched them for a long, long time.
[See the next post for a photo.]
John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on .png)
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