Donald Judd & the Dodge, cont.

This from our No. Calif./Nevada correspondent, Michael S. Moore.
"I'm still just trippin' on the Donald Judd truck, and what it says to me about his whole desert deal...also, of course, the thought that Evan Hughs [a worthy custodian of the artifact] obviously never got out of town the whole time he was in Marfa...jeez, the terrain down there would eat what passes for mountains upstate in New York for brunch and still be looking for another pitcher of margaritas...

 "I keep thinking about Don ordering that thing up to spec back then [he was, of course, quite adept at ordering to spec, as everyone in the art world knows]...a 360 with creeper gears, four wheel drive of course, and then the winch... I woulda gone with a beefier front bumper but in '82 I was just cobbling my whatevers together [I think by then, having rolled the Willys, I was back with my faithful 4x2 1967 Chevy, 350, four on the floor compound low]...and carrying, of course, a whole lot of the kit described as still being on the Judd truck.  Sweet...never ever did I have to replace a fan belt, or any of that other stuff [distributors, waterpumps, etc.] they always tell you to have [some of which I didn't...including, knock on wood to this day, that elaborate sort of first aid kit he has there in the door, but since I faint at the sight of blood, particularly my own, so a t-shirt tourniquet is about the best bet].  
Anyway, I wrote the above day before yesterday but superstitiously didn't want to jinx my trip to the Seven Toughs Range by possibly becoming stranded without a fanbelt or emergency amputation materials, neither of which seem to be onboard the Tundra so tossed the second spare in the back and had a lovely trip over the ranges to the abandoned town of Vernon, where I'd hoped to take some enticing pics of vintage vehicles in the landscape..."

"But I didn't; these were all taken by my brother, William Kirk Moore [], from a trip there several years ago; now everything's gone!  Having always been of the opinion that these relics are, beyond the picturesque, a poignantly evocative manifestation of the history and labor of the places they came to rest I was devastated.  I'm currently trying to find out whether this was the result of some misbegotten BLM cleanup policy or renegade scrappers...or scrappers working at the behest of some misbegotten BLM policy. A friend of mine who photographs old industrial sites and prisons came upon a crew carting off a whole junkyard in the mountains south of Battle Mountain last summer under contract to a big mining company, but the ones I was looking to revisit were just individual, and to my mind historic, vehicles resting in place...kiinda like you're not supposed to pick up arrowheads or something.  Particularly something as unique as the Walter, a huge old front wheel drive mine truck at Porter Springs;
"Anyway, such is my lament the day after [hopefully I won't have a more serious lament tomorrow]; I'm putting together a portfolio of the day's adventures sans camiones] and will send that out subsequently..."--MSM