Stonehenge comes to New Mexico

 

Okay, so Stonehenge didn’t really come to New Mexico—not even a replica of it like the one in central Texas. That said, naturally occurring groups of upright boulders that we visited on October 12th did remind me of Stonehenge, and also of the moai on Easter Island. The “native” groups of giant stones in southwestern New Mexico have become centerpieces at City of Rocks State Park.

 

 

One grouping of stones sits on a hill apart from all the others in the plain. We drove up there first, and although we had a good view of all the other groupings below, I took very few pictures looking back down. That’s because the state has put campsites right at the base of many of the boulders, and any detailed photograph of the whole layout inevitably includes a slew of recreational vehicles. (If you want such views, you can have them.) In the few photographs I took that included the majority of the stones on the plain, I used a wide-angle lens to make New Mexico’s “Stonehenge” minuscule, thereby hiding the camping vehicles that were there. The top picture is an example of that: the main group of stones appears in the distance at the left.

 

 

Mostly I played nature purist and took pictures which included no human elements. That often meant having to scrunch down and aim upwards, something I’m used to doing anyhow to avoid unwanted objects.

 

 

Some formations are more suggestive than others.

 

 

© 2022 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

Easter daisy

A fringe benefit of my trout lily quest at Nan Hampton’s country place on March 13th was the chance to see a plant that’s widespread across much of the western United States and parts of western Canada but that reaches the southeastern limit of its range in Lampasas County and therefore doesn’t quite make it to Travis County and Austin: Townsendia exscapa, known as Easter daisy. The best little clumps of these flowers I found on my visit were the ones in the seemingly (to people) harshest conditions, which is to say that the plants grew in caliche and amid stones but seemed to thrive in that environment, as you see here in a photo that marks the first appearance of this species in these pages.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman