Chapter 4 ~ Page 63
Relaxed, riding along kicking up great clouds of dust, we weren't too surprised to hear a noon whistle. After all anything could happen in the San Bernadinos. Then, BOOM, something did! Someone had set off one big charge of dynamite. A half-mile further our road ended at the top of a mammoth excavation where we could look down on earth moving equipment the size of ants busily preparing for winter. Where we wanted to go, was gone. I pulled out my maps, but what good is a topographic profile if someone moves the topography. The only way to go was down. We went, horses sliding on their tails in the soft dirt, right across the face of what was to become a giant irrigation dam. At the bottom we shocked cat drivers by winding past their earth moving machinery, rode up to a drive-about canteen, ordered Cokes all around, returned the empties without dismounting, tipped our Stetsons to the hard hats, and disappeared down a paved road. Looking back over his shoulder at the mountains, and the machines ripping away at the mountains, BJ asked, "Dad, do you remember those mountains in Montana called the Crazys?" "Right." "I think they should re-name these the Civilizations."
Text and Photographs © Barry Murray 1971-2007 Mac&Murray Multimedia