Day 33 - May 27 - The High Desert

"That way there's just hills. And it's dry."

Hi, and welcome back to my bike blog.

The High Desert

I finally feel like I'm back into the biking routine. Somehow, after Dallas, I was always worried, and felt like every day was an irregularity. It started out with the tornadoes, then the stress of playing some catch-up, and the wind, and trying to make good time into Albuquerque with flat tires and riding into late nights. I could never get a proper day, where I start early, bike, eat lunch, and sleep in a campground or a motel. There were never convenient campgrounds, the property lines were right up to the road ditch, and I finished every day exhausted, in a dirty, crappy motel.

Today I finally broke the streak. I woke up a bit later than I wanted to due to an accidentally-muted alarm, but still set off on the bike. The day was scheduled to be hilly. Again, about 1km total climb, and I feared a repeat of earlier days. The only difference today was the wind. It was calm at times, and either a tail-wind, or a side wind at other times. That has made all the difference.

I could bike in peace, and enjoy my time doing it. I had time to stop just north of Albuquerque for a big burrito breakfast. I could stop to admire the gorgeous landscape, and to talk to Sarah for a long time without battling winds. I have time to set up a tent in a campground, smile at the hills, and go to bed before midnight.

I got to my campground, which was also a hair salon. The elderly lady there didn't know or care how much I paid to stay the night. I gave her $25 for a haircut and a patch of grass. Up here, the nights are cold. My sleeping bag is rated for low temperatures, but it's still unpleasant to be outside. Yet the jumping around getting things into the tent while freezing my ass off was totally worth it for a haircut with the view of the darkening hills.

The last few days have been a trying time for me. I almost gave up on the bike ride altogether. Today it's different. Today I saw the mountains I would be biking through, and gasped in astonishment. Today I weaved through mountain passes, and truly appreciated the American wilderness. Today I feel like I am back in my element - biking for as long as I want, on my own terms, and having a bit of spare time to think. Today I wrote more postcards, ate lovely food, and biked through the New Mexico high desert. This was my fantasy on this bike ride, this is why I'm here today. Today, I want to linger. Today I am happy.

A Guest Post by Marshall Muller

To eat meat or not to eat meat, that is the question. However, I don't think it's such a clear cut question with a yes/no answer. Consider meat obtained two ways:

An animal hunted individually, and as much of the body being put towards various uses
An animal that was one of many on a factory farm, with a sole focus on the meat for commercial purposes.

So to some it may appear that there are differences in the way the meat is harvested, but let's consider first that we see no difference. That killing a living animal is morally wrong. Let us dig in a bit. How do we classify something as living, and what about killing makes it morally wrong. Essentially everything consumed by humans was alive in some form. Plants, fungi, insects, and animals all grow and die, but we don’t consider eating all of these wrong. So what creates the differences? I believe many would say that some animals have various forms of "consciousness" which thus makes it wrong. However, consciousness is one of the least understood aspects of existence, and if we can't even properly define consciousness, how could we hope to start classifying animals as conscious or not? So an argument might be that one should not eat meat because animals seem most likely to be conscious, so let’s play it safe as we wouldn't want to learn later that we had been killing a conscious being for the sake of consumption. Well, what makes us so sure that plants aren't conscious on some level that we cannot fathom? Just as Nagel concludes that we cannot know what it is like to be a bat, we cannot know what it is like to be a plant, so shouldn’t we play it safe and assume they're conscious too? And the fungi and insects too? So what do we eat then if we are averse to living things because they could be conscious? And thus we strike the heart of the dilemma, we need to eat, or else we will die. And this is just part of life, we too will die and become food for some processes of the universe. I don't think there are clear answers to these questions, but from the way I see things, it is a lot more complicated than most people will think. Maybe it's a ridiculous notion to consider other entities like plants as possibly having consciousness, but I just mean to illustrate how unclear the foundations are(or maybe they aren't, feel free to enlighten me on relevant philosophy on the subject!), and how consequential decisions are being made on them. (I could go on about how we often have this idyllic view of the natural world, but the reality of it is quite horrifying - read Pilgrim at Tinker’s Creek by Annie Dillard, or visit www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal - not that this justifies meat consumption, but should get you to think twice about "what is natural").

Let us return to the different methods of harvesting - I believe there to be a difference so I want to elaborate on that. I believe factory farming has issues other than ethical that should be addressed, such as the emissions as a result of them, and the sheer scale of them. A common saying is "everything in moderation except moderation", and I think that holds true to most things. I think one can have moderate consumption of meat, and 'moderate' used here is hard to define. Perhaps moderate consumption can be defined as consumption in a way that animals can be sustainably harvested. It's well known that populations have certain carrying capacities, and predators serve vital roles in maintaining the balance of ecosystems. Human's can be such a predator for animals. In this role, humans arguably help animals by preventing them deaths of starvation — if you believe that dying of starvation is less bad than dying for consumption. What is the right way for these animals to die, and who is to say? Regardless, they are going to die, and they are going to be eaten either by us or everything else. If we can participate in this "natural order" in such a way that we don’t force out other species, then perhaps it is okay for us to join at this dinner table, where we too are part of the entree.

The Image Gallery

Are you ready for lots of pictures of mountains? Well, you better get ready for lots of pictures of mountains, because I'm about to unload a mountainful of them right here.

Runoff water from the mountains nearby. It was gushing, and everything around was bone dry!

I ate a big burrito and a frozen banana for breakfast. Yummmmmmmmy!

A cool beetle I saw.

I passed through lots of Indian reservations, but they all looked like empty land, so I didn't take pictures of anything. Besides, not too sure what to expect there to be on these reservations.

This area seems to be prone to flash floods. I saw a lot of these basins at the lowest points of valleys. Looks very enticing for a tent spot, but that's a recipe for disaster!