Albuquerque in 2006!!

[ferret88]

FF-I think in 20 years of driving I've only been hit once in the widnshield by a rock.

LOL
Well I went to Acoma and Onate elementary schools. But in '79 my parents had a house built in Edgewood (25mi east on the other side of the mountains) so I ended up in Moriarty schools and graduated from there.

[wolf]

I have heard it said that Pennsylvania's state animal is the construction horse.

Originally Posted by ferret88

FF-I think in 20 years of driving I've only been hit once in the widnshield by a rock.

LOL

Yeah. It was that time you were driving through Chimayo or Magdalena, right?

[ferret88]

Marichiko -


where? LOL
i think it was in "the canyon" east of the city

Originally Posted by ferret88

Marichiko -


where? LOL
i think it was in "the canyon" east of the city

They throw rocks THERE, too? LOL!

[bluecuracao]

Originally Posted by ferret88

FF-I think in 20 years of driving I've only been hit once in the widnshield by a rock.

LOL
Well I went to Acoma and Onate elementary schools. But in '79 my parents had a house built in Edgewood (25mi east on the other side of the mountains) so I ended up in Moriarty schools and graduated from there.

Did you knock on wood after you typed about your windshield? It happened to me once, too, but I only drove in ABQ, while a resident, for about three years.

In what part of town are Acoma and Onate? I went to Monte Vista Elementary near Nob Hill (was an experimental hippy-curriculum school back in the '70s), Jefferson Middle School near UNM, and Albuquerque High School (the juvie prison-looking building off I-25).

[xoxoxoBruce]

a good friend sez..... rocks + highway traffic in NM = cracked windshields. they claim that NM is the cracked windshield capitol of the US....

They've never been to Alaska.

[FallenFairy]

I have a good friend in Homer, Alaska- seems the moose are very friendly there.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Moose have been know to crack windshields, too.

Yeah, there's nothing like having a moose fly thru the windshield and end up sitting in your lap. This happened to a friend of mine over on the Western Slope, not with a moose, but with an elk. It wasn't pretty. Bring back the cougar, sez I.

I once accidently managed to get between Mama Moose and her two babies while hiking in Montana. Mama Moose did NOT send out a friendly vibe!

Fortunately, FF need only worry about antelope, deer, elk, and the occasional coyote. Don't know about lions, but we have lots up north if she wants one.

[Tonchi]

The only time I ever saw rocks flying across the road in New Mexico was in that canyon above Taos on the way to Angel Fire. The name escapes me right now. But I have arrived on the scene shortly after rockslides in many places in the Jemez Mountains, even going around curves to discover a huge boulder in the middle of the road. But California takes the prize for cracked windshields in my experience, due to the insane speed that pickups and transport rigs pass you on the highway, kicking up a cloud of gravel and other debris that hits your windshield at 80 mph. I was lucky enough not to collide with any of the 4-footed road hazzards, but I remember an office mate losing his truck to a rather large deer one time. Not only that, but he was really pissed off that the Highway Patrol would not let him even claim the head and its spectacular rack because it wasn't in season and the critter wasn't "taken legally".

Ferret, if you got stuck in Moriarity, I now understand why you are so indifferent to living in Albuquerque. Simply put, Albuquerque is about FREEDOM. Sure, the town is not fancy, public services are primitive, and sometimes it appears to lack any "culture" but it's a place where YOU can be anything you want to be. Anything at all, and nobody cares. Everybody lets everybody else alone to go their own way. No crushing pressure from the religious right, no neighbors spying on your every move and gossiping, no pre-determined work that everybody is expected to get into. You can be whatever you want to be and go wherever you want to go and you will have a warm home waiting for you right there in Albuquerque. It's the only place I've been able to sit in a bar with a PhD in Mathmatics or a rocket scientist on one side and a working cowboy or a full-blooded Indian on the other and find both of them equally interesting. Within a day's drive is some of the most beautiful and varied country in the nation, you are a 1/2 hour plane ride from Mexico, a one-hour plane ride from the beaches of the Pacific, and good red-eye connections to anyplace else you would like to get away to. You can ski in the morning and play tennis in a bathing suit that afternoon, you can ride horses or race sports cars and meet experts in either field just walking around in the crowd. Everybody's friendly, because they have nothing to prove and neither do you. If you like to show off, this is not the place for you. But if you want to meet a lot of famous people who got tired of living where they have to be showing off all the time, New Mexico is where they come to be by themselves. I think Albuquerque is about infinite choices, but only if you like yourself enough to find them. Otherwise, you are just another vaguely disgruntled person "stuck" there, like the characters in The Last Picture Show.

That's how I feel about the 4-Corners, Tonchi. Damn, I hate being stuck here on the Front Range with Focus on the Family breathing down my back. I almost managed to escape last fall, but hesistated at the crucial moment. Now, I'm ready to just go down there and camp on the BLM land somewhere along the Dolores River or maybe Hovenweep. I'm so so homesick tonight, I could almost cry. Last night I ran into a young man who knew about skiing Wolf Creek and Purgie when it was still Purgie. He understood about driving the wrong way over Imogene and hopping out of your 4-wheel to put your hands on your hips and make Texans slink their jeeps back down the road to allow you to pass. Oh, I wanna go HOME!

[wolf]

In Pennsylvania, if you run it over, it's yours.

Actually, if someone else runs it over and they don't want it, it's yours.

In or out of season, you just report the kill to the Game Warden.

In Colorado, if you run over a cow or sheep on open range, you pay the rancher. If you hit a deer or an elk and survive the experience, you notify the highway patrol to come remove the carcass or you just keep driving after having said the appropriate prayers of gratitude to whichever deity you hold responsible for your sorry existance. I have collided with deer or elk three times now and never reported it. On the Western Slope, if your income is below a certain level, you can sign up to receive all the road kill you can eat, free of charge - if its venison.

[Tonchi]

What you have to understand about New Mexico is that RANCHERS are the powers who run the state. Just like the developers run the cities of California, the ranch-rich always hold the governor's office in NM. All the contributions to elect said ranchers come from you-know-where = OTHER ranchers. Therefore the laws of the range and land management regulations which originated nearly 200 years ago are frozen in place in NM. If you hit somebody's cow, even if it ran at you and jumped into your truck with you, YOU pay. Plus you have to pay the Highway Patrol to have the carcass removed and have your own vehicle towed home. I was told the prisons got dibs on such "road kill" if the owner was not readily available to claim it, so they definitely ate better than most of the residents of the state or on the rez as far as high-quality protein. NM residents used to get out the checkbook right after they saw the flashing lights coming. So I can hardly blame Mari for leaving the "scene of the crime" so long as her car was still drivable.