Bob Wells died today.

Great picture! I am so glad that the red Porsche was part of it. Bob loved that car and was always talking about it and now you all surrounded the car.
Bob is in a beautiful resting place and many many people will stop by to visit - he won't get bored

Thanks for the photos Thomas, have followed this story with interest.

Thanks for the photos!

Thomas is such a sweet man with a wonderful smile on his face.

BBB

I'm at work, so I don't have time to post much yet, but I do want to say one thing.

I was not at all sure that Diane forgot Bob. You know how grumpy he could be. I think Bob didn't want to go. If he had made us late, I was prepared to tell everyone it was his fault.

Eva, even if you are cranky about Bob, I still think you are one of the most interesting and fun persons I've met on A2K. Your dog is cute, too. It was fun to have a few hours with you.

BBB

Time for me to tell a few stories.
The first one is about myself. I did it again.
I fell on the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge - not over the railing, eh, but from the sidewalk to the road.

The bridge is fairly narrow - two traffic lanes and two sidewalks, of, I'd guess 30" width, possibly 32". Anyway, people would walk on the sidewalks in both directions, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. So, I was on the outside and my foot slipped on the curb edge, whappo to the road. I wasn't hurt, past the odd bruise or two later, just shaken up. I just wanted to slump there in the road for a while until my adrenalin tamped down. Michael, of Michael and Beva, rushed over and helped me get up.

Tres embarrassing, but I am somewhat used to all this, with my longtime messed up peripheral vision, and am pretty adapted to watch out for curbs. It seems that I have only done this in recent years when meeting a2kers. Years go by between these episodes -

First, when I met Diane in New York City in 2003, we went to dinner at a place near our YMCA hotel, and I tripped going out the door. Welcome to knowing me...
Then, when I met Calamity Jane in California, 2009, I rushed up the steps in my cousins' front yard to open the gate for her, and tripped, getting up laughing.
That broke the ice.
Then I was talking away to Dlowan in the Old Town Plaza here in Albuquerque (last year?), plotz down I go, not seeing a step. (Dlowan beat me to it by falling in London).

Thus I can only conclude that a2kers are dangerous for me.


An allied story was that Hector, of Connie and Hector, uses a wheelchair to get around. He did fine at the restaurant. Anyway, we all got to the bridge and there was no way for his wheelchair to get up there, no ramp, and even if there were, no proper width on the sidewalk to accommodate wheelchairs (if I remember, ubc regulations or at least the ones I'm used to in CA are 4 ft width). I was horrified and threatening to write letters to the state about it, and felt bad for him. He was a least temporarily angry and disappointed.

I figured out later that the narrow sidewalks were some protection for truck traffic - and also other ordinary traffic - on the bridge and that the lanes had to be whatever width (10 ft?) and the bridge was just not wide enough.
Bummer though.

I've since been fantasizing some way for people in wheelchairs to see the river from above, but even if I could figure it out - pylons and cantilevered and fenced platform from the top of the ground level? - it would be prohibitively expensive.


Next story - where were Michael and Beva, with porsche? The rest of us made it by hook or crook to meet for lunch at the Taos Diner, and lunch was fairly leisurely. Diane called their cellphone a few times, busy, or no answer.
We all paid up and were just about to get up to leave when I saw a red porsche out the window.

It turns out they'd missed a turnoff and didn't catch on until they saw the Welcome to Colorado sign....... quite a bit to the north.

Well, so, their racing back and being with us at the bridge was a matter of good fortune.

Yep....insegrievously grumpy.

Osso, now you know why I didn't risk going with all of you to Taos. If you think you took bumps, can you imagine how I would go flopping all over the place.

BBB

Back in 2006, I've been to Taos for the first time.

On our tour with the RV, Bob just drove through it, I only had a glance of this lovely place, but he gave some background informations when we had lunch in a small, family run café, which was .... of, course, the Taos Diner. [Leaving out now my choice of menu for various reasons ]

As we drove over the gorge bridge, the first thing Bob told me, that littlek has been on a boat below it.

I really like Taos (I/we stayed there there twice overnight), even if Bob hadn't taught me so much about it (and the pueblo, and ...).

Taos must have been an actually nicer place on those days, when you sit on the plaza and have a joint while talking with one of the three policemen there about the good, the bad and the ugly ...

How sweet of you to say that! I never got a chance to say goodbye to you and BFN the other night. I went to the ladies' room and said I'd be right back, but when I returned you were already gone! Drat! I missed the hugs!

You have no idea how funny your comment is!!! For the occasion, Diane wore a black t-shirt with the word (yes, it IS a word!) "insegrevious" printed on the front. In Bob's honor, of course.

She did have to explain it a few times, especially after we got to Santa Fe that night.

Good times.

Osso, you failed to mention that curb was almost 2' high. That was quite a fall you took. You really scared us!

Don't give me that, I saw you sailing around the Flying Star..

I'm not entirely kidding re your sailing around when you have a flat floor under you - but that narrow walk with passing traffic (I was lucky) can be problematic re the people, especially when people have canes.
I hugged the rail as I walked out on the bridge but got too comfortable re the edge on the way back. My own obliviousness in action.

Adding -
On the cantilevered thing, that was a fantasy. I'm not interested in messing up landscape like that gorge area (reminds me of that cantilevered rigamarole I hate on the Havupai (sp?) reservation, over the Grand Canyon.)

So, BBB, maybe a balloon for you?

Great post.

I remember why you don't mention what you ate. I ate them too. Very messy.

That's what I forgot to mention - I remarked at the lunch at Taos Diner that the waitress reminded me of littlek a lot. Not that they are twins or anything, and I haven't met her in person, but similar, and she was a smart cookie handling the group of us. I did remember that K really liked the area and that you do too, Walter.

Taos as a town might get to me, sort of like Ojai, California, which it reminds me of in certain aspects - I'm more the type to live out of town. I probably like more northern NM generally better than Albuquerque. (But at heart I'm an urban soul, fish out of water.)

Really? I'd guessed 10" - 12". I'm pretty good with measures, given my work life, usually, but I was otherwise occupied. . .

Oh no. Definitely over 18" tall. Scary, it was.

In my experience she falls very gracefully....kind of as though she's suddenly decided to have a little nap and just lies down.

That's me... grace under pressure.


On the sidewalk, this brings up what I as a designer faced with this would do - something like a brick veneer and lights on the edge. Now, I'd probably invent some edging metal corner with various safety attributes.

Eighteen inches?? Forget what I just said -
never mind me, that is a danger to children, but so is over 7.5 inches as a generality. Railing....

I tripped (yes, yes, I did) at a restaurant in Venice, CA, home town, one of the first to yup up our once quite desolate area street that is now home of chic...
as usual, I wasn't hurt (famous last words). But I talked with them about it a day or so later (I'd had had a business on that street, wasn't hostile) re some kind of warning markings) and they said that legally, such marking could be an admission of danger/culpability, or some such words. I don't know how true that is by now, if it even was back then, say late eighties.

In my work life, I would do things like change brick patterning or align concrete to brick, and as all this stuff got more sophisticated, lighted steps and lights in steps.


Thinking, one big sidewalk with rail, move the lanes. But then other problems would ensue, big trucks..