Slow Down William - Slow Down!

I explained in an earlier blog that, when I entered New Mexico and especially coming out of Clovis crossing the Llano Estacado, that I felt like the Land was talking to me.... and I was listening.

I've always been a fast thinker, a planner, then a fast do-er! Once I have a plan.... I wanna stick to it.... come to think of it - maybe that's been my problem all along.... I move too fast and I'm inflexible - unwilling to change.... until this trip.... until now!

I mean you can plan to go from Point A to Point B in X time but everything is not in your control... there's other things out there like Mr. Murphy (Murphy's Law) and Mother Nature... and you know what you don't do with Mother Nature!

So things change and then there's the human element.... I like to talk with people ..... and oddly enough.... people seem to want to talk with me too. That's a change!

I met Lew Hancock this morning and he'd been on my blog and was interested in how I do all this so I showed him how I submitted the posts from my cell phone and then accessed them with my Netbook.

Lew is a kinda Hippy - Renaissance Man who lives in the valley south of Ft Sumner in a house he built himself. Lew's Dad had one of the last true horse ranches in the area that was privately owned - a 10000 acre spread he sold in the mid-60's.

Lew related stories of the conflicts that have arisen in this area over land disputes where the Spanish Land Grants were declared null and void and the land was taken over by the white homesteaders as late as the early 1900s and of people like Race Tijerina who lived near Chama and championed the cause of trying to return the land to its rightful owners.

South of here was the origin of the Lincoln County wars which made Billy the Kid famous.... Lew related how he used to know someone who was a hit man for the white ranchers in the area in their conflict with the Hispanic landowners.

He has a detailed knowledge of this area and all of New Mexico and suggested that I visit Villanueva State Park .... which is about 50 miles northwest of Santa Rosa State Park.

But there's a hitch in the get-along..... seems ALL State parks in New Mexico are closed on the nights of January 14th and 15th, due to budget cuts.... first time in history....

So let me get this straight..... the government can take $1 trillion of our tax money (and that of the next 2 generations) and give it to the banks to bail them out of a mess that they created for themselves...... and they can't give the state governments enough money to pay the hard-working State Park Rangers their salaries to keep the parks open.... don't even get me started on this.... this and a far about yay high burns my ass up!

So's anyway, I had hiked 16 miles yesterday and then talked to Carol Lee and Vern and Linda Emerson and then to Lew Hancock and then Raymond Drake stopped by and I realized.... what's my hurry.... I'm in one of the most beautiful state parks I've ever been in and I'm surrounded by good-hearted interesting people.....

so bottom line is I'm staying another day... more details soon!