We’re back in Alamosa for the day. I have my trusty guest pass for the campus wireless network at Adams State, and I’m camped out in a sunny corner of the student center with a nice big latte. Things could be worse.

It’s always fun to be in Alamosa, especially after Taos. The difference in topography, facilities, and general ambience couldn’t be more pronounced. I know I’ve said all this before, but it truly is striking. For one thing, from where I sit, I can see actual curbs. The houses are frame and stucco, and the yards are covered with grass. The streets are wide, paved, and clean. It really does feel like a small Midwestern college town, if you ignore (?) the jagged, snow-covered wall of 14,000-ft. mountains to the east.

Alamosa is only about 130 years old and looks like it’s been here forever, in American terms. Taos isn’t America, at least not in this context. It’s much older than that, for one thing, and was built out of mud — people who want to move here need to understand that. It affects everything. Even if you have a modern house, we’re all living in the natural dirt. This both inspires and drives one to other extremes. Alamosa, then, evokes a soothing memory of familiar civilization, the kind of thing that makes you say to yourself, well yeah, it’s kinda nice to be able to walk outside without carrying a stick.

It was glorious and stunning on the way up here, as usual. The purity of the unspoiled wide open spaces always gives me a kick in the head, something the plowed vistas of Iowa or anywhere else can never accomplish. We saw two herds of antelope (pronghorns), a couple of dozen altogether. On the north side of San Antonio Mountain, the inch of snow from last night’s cold front had gotten packed and turned to ice. This was very weird, because you couldn’t see any snow except on the asphalt, and the sun was shining brightly. I had to hold it under 55 mph to keep from getting all loosey-goosey in the wind blasts from the monster hay trucks heading south.

UPDATE: I drove us back in the dark, leaving just after sunset. On the way past San Antonio Mountain, we saw several antelope by the side of the road, ready to bolt. There was hardly any moonlight. We went miles and miles in the empty darkness without seeing another car.

It’s just all so damned bizarre. That’s over 50 miles without a latte or a gas station or any lights at night.

(But there’s at least one stupa, yow!)