Hello, I Must Be Going

Well, hey there, everybody. A dear friend of mine recently brought to my attention that I've been a real sluggard where my blog is concerned, and I have to admit it's true. As I'm preparing to head back down the road toward the next Pot O' Gold, I thought I'd better pop in and say something. This season hasn't really been a good one for this kind of activity, as due to my relocation to Panther Junction (instead of the modular housing unit in Persimmon Gap), I'm afraid I just haven't had as much free time as I'd like due to the long drives. That and my sister Lyn has been keeping me fairly busy updating the family photo albums (both Duncan/Mather and Moore/Smith) I've put up online with photos dating back to our great-great-grandparents.

Great-great-grandfather, Andrew Mather




I've also been scanning some old photos of my own in the off times, such as this one of me and my Nash Metropolitan (now how many of you have ever owned one of these little jewels?) as well as scanning all the aircraft photos I've ever taken and putting them in their own online gallery, such as this aerial shot I took in 1973 of the Bell P-39 Airacobra "Mr. Mennen" for Sport Flying magazine:


All that scanning and uploading of all those aircraft photos prompted me to offer them up to my favorite online aviation photo website, 1000AircraftPhotos.com, and they started my very own collection last month, with further additions to come at the end of every month, at least until I run out of photos. If you'd like to check it out, you can open up the title page by clicking the link below:
1000AircraftPhotos - Doug Duncan Collection


And while I was poking around in my old photo albums, I came across another image I love dearly, this one from my very first trip out here to Big Bend on a photo workshop in 1986. This was taken Homer Wilson's Blue Creek Ranch and has most of the instructors and attendees in it. (Except for the head honcho of this little expedition, the very edge of whose duster you can see on the far left-hand edge of the frame. You really have to look hard.)

But, all this doesn't mean I haven't had any time to go out and poke around this big, beautiful park. Thanks to all my prowling around on back roads last season, I decided to assign myself the personal project of heading out and photographically documenting as many ruins out there as I could this season. Two of the top nominees for this little project were the Mariscal Mine . . .


. . . where they smelted cinnabar ore into mercury, and a rather obscure old ranch house practically no one ever hears about, the Bone Spring ruins . . .


. . . located out in middle of nowhere off a dirt road at the end of an abandoned road that abandons itself completely the farther along you go, until you standing there in the middle of the desert going, "What the . . . ?" The Mariscal Mine you can drive to; this one takes some real effort and a good dose of navigational ability -- and binoculars. I do love a challenge.

So, I guess that'll just about catch you up on my doings for now. I hope when I hit the road in a couple of weeks I'll be able to pop in from time to time and give you updates along the way. I'll do my best, okay? Till then, hang in there and don't forget about me. I'm still out here, I promise.