This view to the south is from yesterday evening at the Taos Pueblo Pow-wow, which actually takes place in the buffalo pasture. Don’t ask me what they did with them. The pow-wow grounds were dotted with ample evidence of their having been there, though!
On the same theme, one of the sponsors of this year’s pow-wow is the Buffalo Thunder Casino & Resort down Pojoaque way. What’s not to like about a name like “buffalo thunder,” eh? There was a little booth with a couple of casino employees sitting in it looking quite forlorn, peering out at the buffalo-flops and wondering why they drew this duty with their rustic northern cousins. It should be a bit livelier today, of course. Still, I had the impression there wasn’t as much “oomph” at the pow-wow this year. Maybe that was because of all the people staring at their goddamn phones instead of seeing things like this!
Those mountains in the background are of course the Truchas Peaks. (Truchas means “trout.”) All of those are over 13K feet, by the way.
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)
Beautiful photo. It’s amazing how much people miss these days because they’re almost constantly looking at those “smart” phones. I don’t have one, won’t have one.
I guess you can tell that’s kind of a pet peeve with me, idiots almost running over me on the roads because they’re looking at their phone. But, I often have near misses on the roads myself because I’m always looking around at stuff and not where I’m going. But that’s OK…
It’s more than a peeve with me, and I’m a geek. I don’t have one, either. The only reason I’d like one is for the camera.
I couldn’t believe all the people looking at their phones while they were walking around… I saw spectators staring at their phones. Dancers with their phones. Even the cops were looking at their phones! Truly, I think this saps the person-to-person electricity at an event like this.
John, wouldn’t it be great to train for and then scale the highest of the Truchas peaks?
You know, I’m not aware of trails going up there, but they must exist. Mt. Wheeler is actually higher and very accessible, however, and next month I’m tackling that. My fast hikes in the desert are pretty decent training (I hope).
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