Magical Mystery Tour

Originally Posted Sunday, June 15, 2013

(this is an internet image and not my own--I haven't been out of bed in the daytime to take a photo yet)

(but this is the hotel where I am lying in bed at present)

I am lying in my bed at the Pagosa Springs Hotel.  It is not actually called that, but that is what everyone called it at the workshop.  They all told me to stay here because I had free access to all the hot springs there (it costs $25 if you are not staying at the hotel) 24 hours a day (the public must leave at eleven).  So after the workshop, I boogied on up.  And. . . oh, my. . . what a drive.  It is now one of my favorite all time drives in the world (and I HAVE seen and driven many of the good ones), and I'm not certain it could be replicated.  It was late afternoon (5:30-8:00) and I swear that for the last hour and a half, there was nobody else on that road.  It was just me and a setting sun that at altitude just blinded me and lit up the mountains so strangely that I can't say for certain that it was real.  I am certain, though, that it was mystical.  It was like flying through some eternal, sacred time.  I am terrified that it was all illusion.  I go back to Santa Fe on the same highway, but I know it will be different.  Still, I will try to make some pictures when I do. 

I got into Pagosa around eight and got the very last room at the hotel except for the "O" suite which was $390/night.  It has its own hot spring, a shower with six heads (whatever that means), etc.  I would have had a swell time in it by myself, I am sure, but I settled on the one with a king bed and an old t.v.  I asked about a place to eat and was told there were two places.  I went to both and neither looked good, but I chose one because it sat on the river looking back to my hotel (the photo is similar to the view).  It was Mexican and lousy.  I left most of it on the plate.  Then I came back to the hotel and put on one of the best robes in the universe and walked out expecting to frolic with beautiful naked girls in the hot pools. 

Ho!  Only couples, fully covered.  Boy were they surprised when I dropped in naked like a baby to slither around like an eel. 

No, I didn't. 

I soaked in different pools for about an hour, then came back to my room for a scotch and some PBS American Masters.  This one was on Garrison Keillor. 

I DO live an exciting life. 

In a while, I will be on my way to Durango to find a cheap hotel for the night, though I am tempted to stay in Strater to say I've stayed there.  You'll be the first to know.

I should say something about the workshop.  It was a success for me.  I didn't know the first thing about printmaking and inking plates and presses, and now I do.  Indeed, I was as good at it as anybody there, I think.  The images others were working on were landscapes and abstracts and fish bones, so I used my tourist pictures from Taos for the most part.  But I had an unprocessed bunch of images from my last studio shoot and decided to use one on the last day.  I wanted to wait so that I was not the club pornographer all week long.  Why was I surprised, though, that they liked the image that I used (not the one above)?  In the final critique, they kept coming back to it over and over again.  They were artists, though I am never quite confident that people will get what I am trying to say in an image, especially a single one.  I shouldn't be so timid, I think.  I was quite pleased. 

The image above was made with the Impossible b&w film in the 8x10 camera.  I'm hoping we're all artists here.

O.K.  The morning has drifted away with coffee and internet and now I must hurry if I want to get a soak before they kick me out of my room.  Until then. . . .