Ye olde move to New Mexico, Worldcon
Aug. 4th, 2008 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zdashamberI'll be gone from the 1st to the 12th, mostly in Colorado, except for this weekend when I'll be "awake" at 6 in the morning driving my sister's stuff to the middle of nowhere, New Mexico, where she has a teaching job on an Indian reservation. It's her first teaching job, 1st grade. I'm looking forward to seeing her bunker in the Pueblo chemical weapons depot: apparently the government made far more chemical weapons storage bunkers than they needed, so they rent the rest out for tiny sums. Bunkers! On a working military base with cameras and checkpoints and everything! The sister has multiple cars stored there and there's still room; I picture it as looking something like Dirk Pitt's house.
Actually, since I wrote that, I came and went on the trip. The getting up sucked, as I flew in from California, and then went to sleep just a bit after sundown so I could get up at 5 AM with a decent night's sleep... That worked out to being the equivalent for me of going to bed at 8 PM. Which wouldn't have worked even without the heat. So I was pretty zoned all through the drive. I left my hat in a coffee shop in Pueblo as we dashed out to catch a cat... It was the hat that had fallen into the Grand Canal in Venice last year and floated around until retrieved by a boathook. Hopefully it just intends to collect an interesting life history and is even now on its way back to me in the mail.
The bunker was pretty cool. One of the things I really like about our government is the times when we go for massive excess in the name of doing a job right. Frex, did you know that all Purple Heart Medals were made in World War II in preparation for the invasion of Japan? Every military injury since then hasn't made a dent yet in what it turned out we didn't need then. It's a very odd thought. Anyway, my sister says that the Pueblo Chemical Depot was initiated in WWII and stores mustard gas along with a lot of things they don't admit. But instead of just building enough to get by back then, they're like, what the hell, we're the US government, we have flat dry western land land like god has little green apples, let's build more chemical bunkers than we think we'll ever need. So they stretch to the horizon...
About 15 minutes east of Pueblo, we drove onto the base, past a bizzarre and sad bomb park with kid's play structures about the size of a back yard... (Bomb park? It had a big atomic-looking bomb shell and some howitzer-looking things and a cruise-missle looking thing, all where the kids of soldiers on the base could presumably clamber around on them. I have no pictures of any of this, because the sister was worried that she and her stuff would get kicked off the base if their cameras caught us photographing stuff.) The guard hut had a couple of guys in it, one of whom greeted us all and made sure we had American accents and drivers' licenses, the other of whom hung back and looked cute. We drove for about five minutes out past brick buildings designed for packing shells and then past rows and rows of bunkers, along rail lines with rail cars waiting. The bunkers are quonset hut shaped things, 2-3 foot thick concrete, buried under at least 5 feet of the local desert dirt and rock with local desert plants growing on top, so they actually looked more like barrows, about 150 feet between barrows.
Oh, wait, it's on Google Maps.
Sister's bunker, like all the others, had a venting chimney at one end and double doors bracketed by floor-level explosion venting grates at the other end. Inside, cool, no light but what came in the door, original paper glued onto the inside of the door talking about rules for handling explosives in original classic 1940s government fonts. Perhaps 25 feet wide and high and 70 feet deep, only the one entrance. While Mom and Sister fussed around with making cat carriers ready, I looked around the stuff piled on the bunker. Sister was convinced I would fall through a small burrow or onto a cactus, but fortunately I was distracted by shiny rocks before it came to a wrangle. There were some really gorgeous glassy rocks in various shades of green and black. I carried off some of the choicest bits found in 10 minutes of scanning, because I am weak, and my determination to not collect more rocks failed. When I get back, perhaps I will run them past the geiger counter. Dad thinks they're some kind of slag, though one does look like bark.
The chemical depot is also a wildlife preserve, and I saw grouse and hawks and bunnies... The grouse/partridge/whatever were the coolest, because I haven't seen that bird type alive before.
Then there were many, many hours of driving. Trucks with regulators suck when the pace is being set by a car without a regulator.
Oh, wait, I forgot the part where Sister rescued two cats from a life of neglect in a shop run by one of her old bosses, a poor bastard who's the primary caretaker for his wife and can't take care of anything else. The cats were obviously unaware that they were about to move to New Mexico. First one went into the carrier without much fuss, but the cannier second one ran behind a wall of bookshelves, all linked together. We left first cat in its box complaining and got coffee next door; when we returned (hatless!!) second cat had come out of hiding and was captured. Second cat peed in its carrier's water dish, so the faint scent of what I couldn't wick out with paper towels was with us for the rest of the trip, as was a two-cat-carrier stack that I held on the turns to keep it from toppling. Cats travelled pretty well, and 8 hours later first cat had mostly stopped its polite complaints; second cat became mostly resigned within an hour of the start.
Unloading happened a bit, sleep was nice. Sister is living a block from work in a brand new trailer which has a good layout and a good swamp cooler. Trailer seems better than most apartments, actually: lots of electrical plugs, washer/dryer hookup, windows all around living room, no neighbors above who stomp at 3 in the morning. Next day finished unloading, walked around Navajo reservation, they have a lot of new good-looking buildings, gym with air hockey table, seems fine. Interesting lizards with longitudinal stripes instead of California's diamond pattern. Lots of wildflowers. New Mexico apparently stole California's rain.
V. disappointed in New Mexico Sundays. Had not realized full potential of state to suck when half of weekend is lost to closure.
Good report of Albuquerque airport. Friendly people, TSA that didn't hassle me about sending a honey packet through in carryon luggage without it being securely quarantined in a quart-sized transparent baggie. Would transfer there.
Anyway, the important bit here is, I'll be going to Worldcon in Denver, arriving at the convention Wednesday morning. I'll be rooming with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elisem in the hotel numbered 2, the Crowne Plaza, and I'll be at the Making Light party on Friday evening. Aside from that, no schedule yet, though I may be at the Hugo announcing thing to see how my votes went. Who else is going to be at the con? (If you're not going, want me to pick anything up for you?) I want to see you! Call me!
Actually, since I wrote that, I came and went on the trip. The getting up sucked, as I flew in from California, and then went to sleep just a bit after sundown so I could get up at 5 AM with a decent night's sleep... That worked out to being the equivalent for me of going to bed at 8 PM. Which wouldn't have worked even without the heat. So I was pretty zoned all through the drive. I left my hat in a coffee shop in Pueblo as we dashed out to catch a cat... It was the hat that had fallen into the Grand Canal in Venice last year and floated around until retrieved by a boathook. Hopefully it just intends to collect an interesting life history and is even now on its way back to me in the mail.
The bunker was pretty cool. One of the things I really like about our government is the times when we go for massive excess in the name of doing a job right. Frex, did you know that all Purple Heart Medals were made in World War II in preparation for the invasion of Japan? Every military injury since then hasn't made a dent yet in what it turned out we didn't need then. It's a very odd thought. Anyway, my sister says that the Pueblo Chemical Depot was initiated in WWII and stores mustard gas along with a lot of things they don't admit. But instead of just building enough to get by back then, they're like, what the hell, we're the US government, we have flat dry western land land like god has little green apples, let's build more chemical bunkers than we think we'll ever need. So they stretch to the horizon...
About 15 minutes east of Pueblo, we drove onto the base, past a bizzarre and sad bomb park with kid's play structures about the size of a back yard... (Bomb park? It had a big atomic-looking bomb shell and some howitzer-looking things and a cruise-missle looking thing, all where the kids of soldiers on the base could presumably clamber around on them. I have no pictures of any of this, because the sister was worried that she and her stuff would get kicked off the base if their cameras caught us photographing stuff.) The guard hut had a couple of guys in it, one of whom greeted us all and made sure we had American accents and drivers' licenses, the other of whom hung back and looked cute. We drove for about five minutes out past brick buildings designed for packing shells and then past rows and rows of bunkers, along rail lines with rail cars waiting. The bunkers are quonset hut shaped things, 2-3 foot thick concrete, buried under at least 5 feet of the local desert dirt and rock with local desert plants growing on top, so they actually looked more like barrows, about 150 feet between barrows.
Oh, wait, it's on Google Maps.
Sister's bunker, like all the others, had a venting chimney at one end and double doors bracketed by floor-level explosion venting grates at the other end. Inside, cool, no light but what came in the door, original paper glued onto the inside of the door talking about rules for handling explosives in original classic 1940s government fonts. Perhaps 25 feet wide and high and 70 feet deep, only the one entrance. While Mom and Sister fussed around with making cat carriers ready, I looked around the stuff piled on the bunker. Sister was convinced I would fall through a small burrow or onto a cactus, but fortunately I was distracted by shiny rocks before it came to a wrangle. There were some really gorgeous glassy rocks in various shades of green and black. I carried off some of the choicest bits found in 10 minutes of scanning, because I am weak, and my determination to not collect more rocks failed. When I get back, perhaps I will run them past the geiger counter. Dad thinks they're some kind of slag, though one does look like bark.
The chemical depot is also a wildlife preserve, and I saw grouse and hawks and bunnies... The grouse/partridge/whatever were the coolest, because I haven't seen that bird type alive before.
Then there were many, many hours of driving. Trucks with regulators suck when the pace is being set by a car without a regulator.
Oh, wait, I forgot the part where Sister rescued two cats from a life of neglect in a shop run by one of her old bosses, a poor bastard who's the primary caretaker for his wife and can't take care of anything else. The cats were obviously unaware that they were about to move to New Mexico. First one went into the carrier without much fuss, but the cannier second one ran behind a wall of bookshelves, all linked together. We left first cat in its box complaining and got coffee next door; when we returned (hatless!!) second cat had come out of hiding and was captured. Second cat peed in its carrier's water dish, so the faint scent of what I couldn't wick out with paper towels was with us for the rest of the trip, as was a two-cat-carrier stack that I held on the turns to keep it from toppling. Cats travelled pretty well, and 8 hours later first cat had mostly stopped its polite complaints; second cat became mostly resigned within an hour of the start.
Unloading happened a bit, sleep was nice. Sister is living a block from work in a brand new trailer which has a good layout and a good swamp cooler. Trailer seems better than most apartments, actually: lots of electrical plugs, washer/dryer hookup, windows all around living room, no neighbors above who stomp at 3 in the morning. Next day finished unloading, walked around Navajo reservation, they have a lot of new good-looking buildings, gym with air hockey table, seems fine. Interesting lizards with longitudinal stripes instead of California's diamond pattern. Lots of wildflowers. New Mexico apparently stole California's rain.
V. disappointed in New Mexico Sundays. Had not realized full potential of state to suck when half of weekend is lost to closure.
Good report of Albuquerque airport. Friendly people, TSA that didn't hassle me about sending a honey packet through in carryon luggage without it being securely quarantined in a quart-sized transparent baggie. Would transfer there.
Anyway, the important bit here is, I'll be going to Worldcon in Denver, arriving at the convention Wednesday morning. I'll be rooming with
elisem in the hotel numbered 2, the Crowne Plaza, and I'll be at the Making Light party on Friday evening. Aside from that, no schedule yet, though I may be at the Hugo announcing thing to see how my votes went. Who else is going to be at the con? (If you're not going, want me to pick anything up for you?) I want to see you! Call me!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-05 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-06 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-05 02:13 pm (UTC)Heh. Those polite cat carrier complaints always crack me up. "I know you'll let me out when you're good and ready. I just want to make sure you know it's still not any more comfortable in here."
no subject
Date: 2008-08-06 06:14 am (UTC)Hee on the cat comments!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-05 02:29 pm (UTC)Please say hello from "Malcolm, from Minneapolis" to Elisem. It's been years since I've seen her, but we've got a lot of mutual friends. Pretty cool you're rooming with her!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-06 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-06 06:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-09 05:15 am (UTC)