What we have here is a whole minute of herky-jerky handheld video from the cab of a woodcutter’s truck on its way across the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. The 4wD Mazda was loaded to the gills with what my friend tells me is over 1,500 pounds of piñon. The video is HD, so turn your YouTube player up to 720p for full effect. This will give you a taste for what it’s like out on the sagebrush plains west of the gorge. I think you’ll also understand why the driver keeps three days worth of food and water behind the seats!
Hoo, boy…
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)
The road looks smoother than the camera operator makes it look. Maybe it is an illusion. Must not be any suspension left in that truck if he hauls loads like that.
The road is smooth in places but mostly not. You can’t really tell from the video. I was the camera operator, just holding it in my hand as I sat there and bounced around. The road was much worse when I wasn’t doing video. There were places where deep ruts in the clay had hardened into concrete and some awful holes.
I asked him about this very thing. The truck is fine, believe it or not. He has extra capacity built into the rear suspension. Guy knows what he’s doing. Drives the hell out of it, though.
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