Your car is a deadly weapon. Treat it that way.

I recently wrote a sort of opinion piece, okay, tirade, regarding motorists and their attitude towards cyclists. Basically, after venting a bit, I just ask all motorists to please remember that their vehicles are deadly weapons, and that therefore the rage they feel towards bicyclists who annoy them is also potentially deadly. Just be careful, I ask.

Well, they say to never read the comments. And I probably shouldn't have. High Country News posted the piece on Facebook, and a few dozen folks have commented thus far. It's not always pretty: Running through many of them is a current of animosity towards cyclists that doesn't exactly make me feel safer out there on the road. Anyway, read the original column here. And check out the comments on the link below. Yikes!

Post by High Country News.

Fracking O'Keeffe Country

The energy boom's coming back in the San Juan Basin. Only this time, instead of penetrating the earth in search of natural gas, the drill rigs are looking for oil, in the Gallup Sandstone/Mancos Shale formation. And they're apparently finding it. While drilling remains pretty slow in the old natural gas hotspots, it's ramping up further south, near Chaco Canyon, the Navajo communities of Lybrook and Nageezi and near the Black Place, a series of elephantine hills immortalized by Georgia O'Keeffe in some of her most famous paintings.

I wrote about it for High Country News.

These photos are from the badlands surrounding the Black Place.