El Camino Real

I decided to drive up the river valley today. The first town is Corrales which dates back to about 1710. It is very traditional looking but I think they work at it It is pretty artsy with galleries and shops. Many of the buildings are old but look like they have been rehabbed or are newer and made to look old. There are a lot of river farms and more wineries. They use an aqueduct system and flood the fields periodically with water from the Rio Grande. Also there are some horse farms and truck farms with produce stands.


The old church of San Ysidro is now the town hall and they use it for special events. Across the calle is one of the old haciendas that has been preserved and is open as a house museum.

The "bosque" is the wooded and well watered area along both sides of the river and that is where the first settlements were. The bosque has some of the biggest cottonwood trees I've seen. Some must be 300 years old. El Camino Real connected most of these little villages and later it became Route 66 in many places. Now it is I-25.

I went back up to Bernalillo which is also an old settlement in the river bosque. Of all the places I've seen, this looks like it might be a place where I can buy a reasonable piece of land. (Did I say "reasonable"??? I've been here too long.) Bernalillo is a broad mix of old and new. The state wine festival is held here on Labor Day weekend (!). Many of the homes are very old while many new ones are being built. It is on the interstate and has a lot of modern stores....even a Starbucks.

Placitas is a little village that is part-way up the slope of the Sandia Mountains just east of Bernalillo. The village dates back to 1750s and a Spanish land grant that still exists today. Descendants of the original settlers still live in the village on the land grant. The village church - San Antonio - dates from the 1860s. The village is now almost surrounded by million-dollar homes which might eventually force them to sell off the land grant. That is what happened not too long ago closer to Albuquerque. I don't know how they figure the taxes on these old land grants. I'm sure developers would love to get their hands on it. Placitas is on the road up to the national forest but they have the road closed to all but local residents due to fire danger. It is up pretty high and has some spectacular views which is why the California refugees with deep pockets are moving in and buying up land.

Tonight I'm going to walk over to a bar-b-que place I've been smelling all week. I'm packing up tonight since I head for home tomorrow. Gas prices here are about $3.19 but you can find it as low as $3.12 at Smith's grocery stores. Looks like the trip home could be a wet one.

East Mountains - West Volcanoes

Went out and looked at some more houses just to get a few pictures of things I like. While I was driving around I found two wineries (Yeaa!) but I didn't get to stop.(Booo!) but I KNOW WHERE THEY ARE (!). The houses were built by my contractor and were, of course, three times too big but I got to see one that was being built and I could see how some of it was done.

People keep saying I need to go to the East Mountains to look at property there....so I went there today. It is very pretty and wooded with cedars and Pinon pines. It is also very high. I was out of breath just walking a few hundred feet. I think I need a place with air. I've been reluctant to consider the wooded mountain areas because of fire danger and, sure enough, the fire department was up there blocking a road and working up in the hills. I didn't see smoke or a fire but it just reinforced my concern. Humidity was 12% earlier this week. I have learned to carry bottled water in the car when I go out. There is less humidity on the east side of the mountains....the river seems to moderate the humidity on the west side where it looks drier.

I had lunch back at the Two Fools Tavern and they had live Irish music which was very good but they had to compete with the Kansas-Davidson NCAA basketball game. Nobody seemed to be a Kansas fan.

I found the Albuquerque Isotopes minor league ball park. Isotopes are a Marlins AAA team. The ballpark has sort of a 1950s retro look about it. I couldn't find a way to sneak in so I had to be content taking pictures from the outside. It was so windy today that I don't think they could have played baseball anyway. This is the windy season here - usually 4 or 5 weeks of windy days...but it hasn't been bad until today.

I went past the Sandia Indian Casino which is the biggest one here. I think there are three Indian casino in all and there is a racetrack that also has a casino. "Sandia" means watermelon and refers to the color of the mountain when the sun goes down. I think it looks more purple than red.

I drove up to see how close I could get to the three volcanoes over on the west mesa. It looks like there are hiking trails that go there but the road doesn't go very close and I think they are bigger than they look from the road. They are on the grounds of Petroglyph National Monument so you probably need a permit. The Rio Grande Valley is a rift valley (like in Africa) but it has largely filled in with sand and some lava from the volcanoes that erupted later. The volcanoes are small stubs of what they once were...reminders of what took place here millions of years ago.

San Jose de los Jemez

FYI - "Red or Green" is the color of the chili sauce. Green chilies ripen into red chilies but you can make spicy sauce from either one. You can't assume that red or green is hotter because it depends on the way it is prepared...so you have to ask. Little Anita's green is milder than the red.

I spent the morning with the contractor's assistant and looked at a model home they have. I have compiled a loose leaf binder of things I like and some questions so we went over that for a couple hours. Everything I've seen is way beyond my price range but they assure me that they can do as much or as little as I want and the small size I want isn't a problem if we can find the right lot. I really like their finished product even though it is a 21st century rendition of a prehistoric mud hut.

This afternoon I went up to Jemez which is about a 45 mile drive. It is a pretty drive but the Jemez Mountains are jaw-dropping beautiful. Each turn reveals an amazing view. The Jemez Creek is a trout stream (Yes!) and there is a lot of stream access. The road goes through the Zia and Jemez pueblos which are interesting. Some of the families live in a more traditional manner and others are more modern. They don't look prosperous by our standards but I'm not sure how they would judge that sort of thing. The high school and some of the other service buildings are modern and look comparable to any other town.


Finally you get to Jemez Monument which is the site of a Spanish mission church (San Jose de los Jemez) located in the old pueblo of Giusewa. The friars got to the Jemez area in 1598 and the original church was built in 1601 and a second larger church was built in 1621. The ruins of the second church are very impressive. There were 3,000 Indians living at the mission at one time. The pueblo revolt of 1680 drove the Spanish out and some of the buildings were converted to kivas when the population returned, briefly, to the old pueblo religion.


Eventually the population moved twelve miles down the valley to the present site of Jemez Pueblo.


That's it for today...there are more pictures posted below.

Coronado Slept Here

Today I went up into the Rio Rancho and Bernalillo areas to see what they had to offer in land and housing. Rio Rancho is a large northern suburb of Albuquerque and the home of a large Intel factory. There is a lot of technology companies throughout the whole area. Sandia Labs is the biggest employer in Albuquerque and there are a lot of spin-off R&D operations. This is also becoming a movie-making center with a bunch of production companies operating out of Albuquerque. Rio Rancho has a lot of growing pains but it is making some progress.

Bernalillo is a place that is in transition from a sleepy little traditional Rio Grande farming town to a growing suburb of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho. This is a picture of a meat market on Camino Del Pueblo...one of the main streets. Bernalillo is the county seat for Sandoval County and has the courthouse and other county offices. The Santa Ana pueblo opened a casino there and there are a bunch of new housing developments moving in even though it is 15 miles north of Albuquerque. It seems that the profusion of small Indian reservations associated with the old pueblos has had an influence on how the housing is expanding since Indian land isn't available for development.

It is a little hard to imagine a house on some of the building sites. Most of what is available on the west side of the river is a desert or near-desert environment. A few places just have scrub plants and tumbleweed while others have juniper trees, some variety of yucca and chollo cactus. Some of this is alright with me -- I prefer the dry desert without snow than the higher mountain areas with snow and forest fires. My plan is not to have to cut grass and shovel snow. I'm seeing that I probably don't need as much land as I originally thought. The 1/2 acre lots all seem to be narrow and deep giving you a large backyard that you won't use. I'm still only looking but some of the places looked interesting.

While at Bernalillo I went to the Coronado State Monument. This is the place where Francisco Coronado had his early run-in with the Pueblo Indians. The monument is the site of the Kuaua pueblo which was abandoned before 1700. There was a whole lot of abuse heaped on the Indians for about 100 years and they finally rose up in 1680 and chased the Spanish out....for a while. The Kuaua site is unique because the kiva where the Indians practiced their religious rites had painted frescoes on the walls. When the CCC excavated the site in the 1940s they found the frescoes and managed to preserve them. They are on display in a museum at the monument...too bad, no pictures allowed.

Tomorrow will be some more of the same I think. I want to go up to Jemez as a side trip if I have the time. I had a late lunch so now I'm going out for some New Mexico cooking at Little Anita's.

PS-The "official state question" for New Mexico is "Red or Green?". At Little Anita's you want green.

Looking for Dirt

I finally met the contractor that I've been corresponding with. She drove me around to about a half-dozen places to look at building lots. There isn't much to see usually....just weeds and dirt and in some cases you can see what improvements have been made already. This was enlightening and not too discouraging although lots that are in town and have improvements are too costly. There are also restrictions and covenants in some cases that require a larger house than I want to build. So I have a lot to think about...especially the lot size I want. I'm going to go look at some new houses over the next few days and see how they sit on the lot and how much land is really needed.

I found my way to an Irish pub for supper and had a drive around town. No pictures today but I'll make up for that tomorrow.

Amarillo to Albuquerque

The motel bed was not the best for my back so I didn't get much sleep. I got on the road and headed for the Helium monument. Yes, there is a monument to Helium that commemorates the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Helium. Apparently, Amarillo is big in Helium. The monument is actually a time capsule that contains artifacts and documents to tell the world what it was like in 1968 when it was build. There are four time capsule to be opened at different times. The first one opened at 25 years probably was not to astounding. This is my 2nd pilgrimage to this monument. Joie and I visited here back in the late 1970s. It didn't seem quite the same to me somehow and I noticed that it was moved with a chinook helicopter to the present site in 1983. The guy that sponsored it was instrumental in figuring out how to transport helium in trucks...I guess so they wouldn't float away. I think the monument would be more fun if they had a little Helium spigot where you could inhale some gas and then talk like a chipmunk.


Next stop was only a few miles away. Cadillac Ranch is about 100 yards south of the interstate and is visited probably much more frequently than the Helium Monument. There are ten old Cadillacs partially buried in the dirt -- all of them facing west. (actually facing into the dirt but the tops face west.) While I was there there were six groups of people stopping by to take pictures and leave their name on the cars. Graffiti is encourageded and there are several spray cans of paint stuck inside the cars for that purpose. A German couple seemed to be the most amused. Some of the others were 'serious' photographers. I put my name on one with nice fins. I suspect it might last maybe three days before it is painted over. Some of the graffiti is touching - like "Get Well Mommy".

There are cow pies all over the field and some people are even painting the cow pies -- day glow orange, candy apple red, lime green...very colorful.

The rest of the trip to Albuquerque was pretty uneventful. I stopped in Tucumcari NM for lunch and hoping to find some more remnants of the old Route 66. There were a few old motels and boarded up businesses but not much left. Most of Tucumcari seems to have migrated south to the interstate.

The flatness of the plains finally becomes broken and hilly in New Mexico. The mesas begin around Tucumcari and the interstate highway slowly climbs until it reaches the area east of the Sandia Mountains and then drops down to the level of Albuquerque on the Rio Grande.

I got to the motel in Albuquerque and eventually made contact with the contractor to get together tomorrow. The motel is an extended stay motel and it comes equipped with a kitchen so I picked up a few things to cook over the next few days. There is a cheesecake factory down the street that I might need to visit.

And The Skies Were Not Cloudy All Day

If this is Tulsa it must be Tuesday.


My original plan for the day was to go find Oral Roberts University to capture it on film but I get lost too easily in Tulsa so I found my way to the highway and headed out of town. I like Tulsa but I just can't find my way around.

I went on to Oklahoma City. I would easily pay $5.00 to drive to St. Louis if the highway was as good as the turnpikes are in Oklahoma...but I digress. I managed to find Bricktown, which is the renovated warehouse district in Oklahoma City. I found the Bricktown ballpark, home of the Red Hawks (AAA-Pacific League). I needed to walk so i walked around the ballpark and managed to sneak in with a maintenance crew. They are getting the field in order for opening day. I didn't know that there were so many ball players associated with Oklahoma City. They have large statues of Warren Spahn, Johnny Bench and Mickey Mantle at the various entrances to the park and busts of a bunch of other players. This is very impressive for a minor league park.


I wanted to see a little of old Highway 66 so I got off the interstate at Hydro and found Lucille's Service Station. This is a relic of the old "Mother Road" days and the place has been placed on the national register of historic places. That doesn't mean that it will last much longer, however.
I followed Old 66 for a while and was surprised to come up in a "Wind Farm". There were wind turbines stretching for as far as you could see to the north and south. These things are huge...easily 200 feet tall and each blade is about 60 feet long. They move fairly slowly which is probably a good thing for the birds. It wasn't especially windy today. I don't know what they would do on a windy day.

I got back on I-40 and into the Texas panhandle. This is really the plains. Oklahoma had scattered trees or even small forests but the panhandle is barren unless there is a small water source or a pocket where rainwater collects. I stopped at a rest area and walked around a little. They have nice picnic shelters and a small visitor's center. Of course, the bar-b-que pits are in the shape of Texas. What is with these people? I've seen pancakes and waffles shaped like Texas. If they could they'd probably poop in the shape of Texas....but I digress.

Another highlight along the highway in Texas was the largest cross in the western hemisphere. They have all of the rest of North and South America beat. The thing looks like it is made od stainless steel and is maybe 300 feet tall. You can see it for several miles. I don't think you can go up in it. The picture doesn't do it justice. I guess this is the biggest cross this side of Greenland. (Who needs Oral Roberts University?)

I pulled into Amarillo arou nd 5 PM and got to my motel and then went out to look for Palo Duro Canyon. This is reported to be the 2nd largest canyon in the US. I think that can be debated (Black Canyon of the Gunnison?) but it is huge and very colorful. It is about 25 miles south of Amarillo and I got there as the sun was starting to set. The canyon doesn't get many visitors but has lots of picnic and camping areas plus hiking and horseback riding trails.


Well...thats it for one day. I'm going to bed. More pictures posted below.