Wednesday, December 23, 2009 - Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu NM

Crosshatch v2, Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu NM, December 22, 2009

"Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they may say something." - Georgia O'Keeffe

It snowed quietly here last night and all day today, about 4 inches. That's the most snow I've seen in 3 years, quite beautiful. Tomorrow Kate and I hope to get out for a drive around the Ranch to see how this gorgeous scenery looks under a blanket of snow. Maybe we can get some more interesting pictures.

I was going to leave Christmas day to begin my trek to Henderson NV but I've decided to stay the weekend in light of all the breakdowns I've suffered with this old rig - especially on holiday weekends! Breakdowns are no fun anytime but getting help on a holiday can be a real trial. Take last New Years eve for instance.

Staying the weekend has its own challenges. The current forecast is for temps of 5 below zero tomorrow night and Christmas night. Yikes! Anything below 20 degrees starts getting uncomfortable in this poorly insulated rig. There is serious downdrafts along the single pane windows and the floor is poorly insulated and cold. It's a good thing we like an occasional adventure.

Night camp

Ghost Ranch Campground, Abiquiu NM

This is a basic, small campground with full hookups.
Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are not available here.
Locate Ghost Ranch on my Night Camps map
Check the weather here

Beware of Hypnotic Media

To live sanely in Los Angeles (or, I suppose, in any other large American city) you have to cultivate the art of staying awake. You must learn to resist (firmly but not tensely) the unceasing hypnotic suggestions of the radio, the billboards, the movies and the newspapers; those demon voices which are forever whispering in your ear what you should desire, what you should fear, what you should wear and eat and drink and enjoy, what you should think and do and be. They have planned a life for you — from the cradle to the grave and beyond — which it would be easy, fatally easy!, to accept. The least wandering of the attention, the least relaxation of your awareness, and already the eyelids begin to droop, the eyes grow vacant, the body starts to move in obedience to the hypnotist’s command. Wake up, wake up — before you sign that seven-year contract, buy that house you don’t really want, marry that girl you secretly despise. Don’t reach for the whiskey, that won’t help you. You’ve got to think, to discriminate, to exercise your own free will and judgment. And you must do this, I repeat, without tension, quite rationally and calmly. For if you give way to fury against the hypnotists, if you smash the radio and tear the newspapers to shreds, you will only rush to the other extreme and fossilize into defiant eccentricity.

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