From the Archives: “The Solitario Dome” – C.M. Mayo's Book Notes & Convos

I am off again this week, dear writerly readers, but I offer you this post from the archives about one of my very favorite and most secretly wondrous places on the planet.

THE SOLITARIO DOME

Originally posted on Madam Mayo blog March 13, 2015

Inside The Solitario. Photo: C.M. Mayo, March 2015

For my Far West Texas book-in-progress and the Marfa Mondays Podcasting project, I am working on an interview with Texas historian Lonn Taylor, plus a short piece about the Solitario Dome of Big Bend Ranch State Park in Far West Texas, which is to say, US-Mexico border country.

Meanwhile, a few items about the latter:

Chase Snodgrass’s flight over the Solitario:

Flora and Vegetation of the Solitario Dome
by Jean Evans Hardy, Iron Mountain Press, 2009
(Whoa, call the chiropracter, I brought this one home in my carry-on!)

Geology of the Solitario
by Charles E. Corry, et al. Geological Society of America Special Paper 250, 1990.

“Igneous Evolution of a Complex Laccolith-Caldera, the Solitario, Trans-Pecos, Texas: Implications for Calderas and Subjacent Plutons”
by Christopher D. Henry, et al.Geological Society of America Bulletin, August 1997 (Super-crunchy PDF)

The Solitario: Sentinel of the Big Bend Ranch State Park”
Megan Hicks, The Big Bend Paisano, Winter 2004/2005
(PDF)

“Geology at the Crossroads”
By Blaine R. Hall, Big Bend Ranch State Park
(PDF)

“Solitario: A Separate Place” and “Fresno Creek:” Desert Cloister”
Texas Monthly, April 1977

Entering the labyrinth of the Solitario via Los Portales (That’s my guide, Charlie Angell, he’s the best, check him out on Tripadvisor.com). Photo: C.M. Mayo, March 2015

>Listen in to all the Marfa Mondays Podcasts anytime. The most recent is “Tremendous Forms: Finding Composition in the Landscape,” an interview with Paul V. Chaplo, author of the magnificent Marfa Flights.

> Marfa Mondays #2 Charles Angell in the Big Bend

12 Tips for Summer Day Hiking in the Desert
(How to Stay Cool and Avoid Actinic Keratosis,
Blood, and Killer Bees)

The Strangely Beautiful Sierra Madera Astrobleme

Biographers International Interview with C.M. Mayo:
Strange Spark of the Mexican Revolution

Find out more about
C.M. Mayo’s books, articles, podcasts, and more.

Tip Jar? No… But you can buy my books!

You can always buy my books here. And by the way, you can now also find some of my longform essays not-yet-in-print on Kindle, among them: “Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla” and “From Mexico to Miramar or, Across the Lake of Oblivion.”

On a tight budget? It is also possible that you can find some of my books in your local or university library. If not, don’t be shy, ask the librarian to consider ordering it for the library. Guess what, sometimes they do!

Official disclosure: this blog is an affiliate seller for amazon.com, which means that if you click on a given link and then purchase that book on amazon, I receive a sliver-thin commission. Dear writerly reader, know that these modest sums go not towards additional polar bear fur upholstery for the narwahl-tusk armchairs in the mahogany-paneled library of my trans-Arctic yacht (where all naughty children may slurp hot chocolate whilst fingering the first editions) but rather, towards covering the costs of this self-hosted blog and the podcasts.

Any links to amazon.com are for books I sincerely recommend and/or by request of many of the authors who appear here in the monthly by-invitation-only interviews. (That is to say, many of the authors I interview specifically request that I provide a link to buy their book on amazon.com; as a courtesy to them, I do so.)

I am well aware of the problematic nature of Amazon’s outsize market power. If you wish to make your book purchases directly from independent bookstores and small publishers, I would celebrate your doing so by your going directly to their webpages.🍀