Meadow Lark

After Breakfast, returned to the Cabin and read--Tony Hillerman mystery....got to the next to last chapter, and worktime....sprinkles, cloudy, warm...at Lunch: paddled over to the Cabin, and finished the mystery!....Hillerman's cool...includes the Landscape, and Critters, here and there...

quote

Leaphorn had been doing some listening too, but mostly he was enjoying his role as passenger--a position that policeman almost never hold. He had wasted a few moments trying to remember the last time he had rolled down the highway without being the driver. Then he concentrated on enjoying the experience, savouring the beauty of the landscape, the pattern of cloud shadows on the hills--all those details you miss when navigating through traffic--happy to surrender the job of staring at the center stripe, reading road signs, and so forth, to Sergeant Garcia.

unquote

quote

Leaphorn again pulled into the Burger King parking lot. He sat. Organized his thoughts.

Was he too tired to drive all the way back to Shiprock tonight? But the alternative was renting a cold and uncomfortable motel room, making futile and frustrating efforts to adjust the air conditioner, and generally feeling digusted. Then he'd have to awaken in the morning, stiff from a long night on a strange mattress, and do the long drive anyway.

... ... ...

Joe Leaphorn awakened unusually late the next morning. Just as he expected, his back was stiff, his nose was stuffy from a night of breathing air conditioned motel air, and his mood was glum. Exactly what he had anticipated.

unquote

quotes from:

Shape Shifter

by Tony Hillerman

I had read almost all of Hillerman's mysteries before going to New Mexcio on, well, it was a bit of a UFO tour, and I had a preconception of the Landscape and Towns from the books. I didn't realize how far apart everything is, and the Towns didn't look quite so antique and quaint. But I did get to talk to the King of the Navajos in the Town Square of Farmington. And much later, befriended a Navajo rug weaver hererabout, who could hike easily from the Valley Floor to Merced Lake and back in a day (another friend, a Russian, went to Hoffman and back). Navajo friend drank himself out of a job hereabout--a too common occurrence! This to say, Hillerman, for the most part, is on the mark, and I attribute this to his 'close observation'. Shiprock was cool, and the climbers were being kept at bay.

no pics, no walk today...

oh...Meadow Lark from Kesterson Wildlife Refuge