To reach Glenwood New Mexico, from this hidden river/forest paradise, one has to leave the Apache Nation and travel through a hundred miles of high desert forest. Then you drop down thousands of cliff covered feet into the arid jagged rock which rings the west side of the Gila Wilderness.
Our little group of adventurers left the forest later than I would have liked, but ended up discovering the hotel we stayed in last time was condemned. Found a newly renovated place and strangely spike the high life in the middle of potential future tribulations.
Almost nothing in the way of business is alive in this shady ghost town. I have been coming here for over a decade and each time I see it die in stages. First time, both the hotel I stayed in and the lonely lost tavern I enjoyed, both gone. The only store in town, now gone. This trip. Sad attempts at restaurants leaves only a single pizza parlor open three days a week for four hours a pop.
Odd to see things go ghost in just part of your lifetime, but shouldn’t this mean the rent would be cheap here? Desert shade and hey a river runs through it. Sure, a lack of money or any normal type of job might slow me down, but hey. Still, when the reality store says open, but the dust covered door is locked, it might be hard to find an angle.
The one thing which is progressing in this town is the recently remodeled, Los Olmos Lodge. One can tell a lot of love, thought, and sweat went into making a relaxing gathering of cabins near both the river and several frog covered ponds. I love my frog friends. With this couple striving to open a restaurant and re-open the general store, they have more work ahead. Yeah, I offered to help, but might be taking nine months before the caretaker’s job opens. Ergg.
Is there such a thing a fate? Why were my thoughts drawn here so often over the past few months? Still the nearest place to buy beer is 20 miles away and uphill. That could prove pretty rough.
Funny how me staying here today is a reality check of sorts. There is no place to buy food, ale, or anything else. If I didn’t bring it with me, I don’t have it. Unless I go hunt wild game, going to be hard to increase the larder.
Life without a store… (Or I have food I bought at a store with me.) still feels weird to need to stock up, not be able to, but yet be in a place where people live. Look there goes two now? I wonder if they brought their own dinner?
Could this be what civilization means. Spending money on food. Maybe it just is that simple. Water, food, shelter.
I have some cans of food several years old, which have already been used today. Another odd thought, I worked for a company, I haven’t been with for over a year, but today, I will be surviving off this old effort. It’s my older son’s 6th birthday weekend and he’ll have a few days in the rough lands, half steaming desert and abandoned shops with a little pool time thrown in.
So I’m shutting this down so I can live off the corpse of my former life as this place of luxury and fun battles against the tide of the crumbling forgotten years which surround it.
You can grab some of my fiction here, which I promise has nothing to do with this.
WildernessPunk 