Swiftly across the ocean we will go…

D’s UK visa has been issued without issue…

 

The sunshine on the Potomac is brightly chopped within the blue…

 

1000 words of a fresh start into The Millenial, and a refined outline that has settled the main character into deeper tracks…

 

Cold War Ghosts

We drove off over the gentle, bush covered hills. It might have been Northern Italy, close to the Dolomites. The search was on for a campsite to stay in for the night – something we always left until the sun had begun to dip, since putting up a tent under the full weight of the day did not seem a good idea. All throughout the drive, we were both still trying to process the eeriness of Tierra Amarilla. The countryside, though beautiful, was unnervingly empty. I couldn’t help but wondering why, when it was so fertile looking. People lived in the stark arid plains miles from anywhere, where cows only had dusty brown plants to chew, but not here? It all felt very wrong.

The few houses we saw were off in the distance, placed along a secondary road we hadn’t seen the entrance to. At one point we saw a police car parked on that road, nose pointing in our direction, as if staring.

Lake Vado Campground

When we got to the park, located in Carson National Forest (an inescapable collection of forests broken by towns and mountain ranges and plains – apparently all part of the same biome), a sign told us it was closed until the spring season. Given that this was May, that was quite odd too. There was a ranger’s house, looking like a transplant from suburban Albuquerque with about five cars parked outside. The lake and campground were otherwise accessible, though there was a sign to pay a fee if we were staying for a picnic.

D turned the car down the dock road to look at the lake.

My camera doesn’t catch it very well, but the prominent feature of all the lakes in New Mexico that we saw was the amazing turquoise colour of the water. So incredibly blue that it becomes unnerving (even outside of this deserted setting). The colour, in my mind, of lakes poisoned by acid rain, or runoff. Fishless, unable to support even micro-organisms. I’m sure this is not actually the case, as obviously people come to the lake to fish. Nevertheless, the mood I was in turned the bright, beautiful scene vaguely sinister.

The sun bright on the lake...hairs up on the back of my neck.

The option was there to find a part of the campground to set up a tent and count on no one kicking us out. But I just couldn’t do it. I am far too easily swayed by feelings of the uncanny. So off we went, planning to get ourselves to a motel at some point, but before then to explore this little turn off we had seen further back down the road:

Inviting, isn't it? Look, no 'No Tresspassing' sign!

Now, I am a complete coward. I’m scared of the unfamiliar dark (not my own house, you understand, just dark places I haven’t been. Excuses), I’m scared of the possibility of random thugs or wild scaly clawed animals. D is not at all. And I am also curious despite that. So we parked the car at the barriers, and walked up the road. I had seen the tops of buildings – something large was up there. A ranch, we thought, or a small village.

We were soon disabused of that notion, and so of being caught by gunshot from overly-private ranchers. But then, the fear of security dogs presented itself nicely.

D walked ahead, of course, with me scrambling behind him in my sandals and skirt, noticing, as he blithely did not, the paw and hoof prints on the ground.

We crept up the slope and around two of the first buildings

These two looked an awful lot like barracks.

The first of the many small snatches of graffiti we found. Good advice, we took it. The place was riddled with asbestos, chunks of the fluff had drifted outside and lay in the long grass amongst broken off pieces of wood and shards of glass.

We came to the road where the buildings lined up on either side. Maybe about eight or nine of them. I was too busy nervously checking for any sound of human or animal activity.

Another, more official sign. Obviously this was some kind of barracks, but for what? The forestry? The army? Those home guards who had fought in Amarilla?

"Bat Cave". That's D lurking in the shadows.

In this one, somebody had burned what may have been a bed. D found a gunshell on the floor, and a shot-through tin can a little outside. The noise of creaking metal - old pipes about to fall- from the wind, just about made me run. But if I hadn't run yet, I wasn't going to.

Whoever burnt the bed perhaps had time to wonder, like we had, what all of this was for.

Another example of the artist's work

on this stairwell, a less refined creation

Don’t worry, we did not attempt to go up those stairs.

And this one was just silly. There was surprisingly little, considering how long the place seemed to have been left. But the area was almost empty, as I said.

This one reminded me of my old high school on Skye - only briefly attended, so I might be recalling it wrongly.

The last room was perhaps a mess hall - connected, by this passage...

...to what was apparently the kitchen. See the extractor fan to the left.

Then there was this, a little apart from the 'village'. It looked almost like a church. Or a crematorium

creepy creepy creepy creepy

Nothing inside but remainders, holes, pipes, placemarks for whatever this place held.

We wandered around more, still stinging from the strangeness, but the only clues were the signs from before, and one cubby room that mentioned the forestry department. Perhaps it had belonged to them for a while, but before that, who knows? We were on our way out, with the shadows lengthening, glad to have found no one who would have confirmed or denied, or shot us.

the checkpoint/guardpost, seen on the way out.

On a lighter note, just as we were about to scramble into the car and flee with out buzzing heads, we saw a little bit of ruinage just before the yellow gate. Not much was left, but evidence of a house, with beams, an old heater, and milk bottles. And this:

Double seated. Ponder that if you will.