After our trip to Arizona Harold and I decided we liked the Southwest and wanted to explore more of it. A couple of years later in November 1996 we took our first trip to New Mexico. Luckily for us we had a friend in Santa Fe who had a lovely home where she entertained us. My high school friend Linda moved to New Mexico sometime in the mid 1990’s and of all the places she has lived, I have to admit that Santa Fe is the most enjoyable to visit. I for one am glad she made that move. The first time we visited Santa Fe it was a strange trip. Harold flew to Phoenix a few days early and he rented a car and drove to Santa Fe. This gave him the opportunity to visit Canyon de Chelly, something I have never done but have always wanted to do. Work kept me in Maine until the weekend and then he picked me up at the Albuquerque airport and we drove to Santa Fe.
Linda’s home was in a subdivision out in the desert, a newly constructed adobe beauty. She only kept that home for a few years, sold it at a profit, and moved to a much more sensible house in the city proper. On subsequent visits we stayed in the city of Santa Fe at her current home, but our first New Mexico exposure was to beautiful high desert landscapes. The Santa Fe area presents a cornucopia of opportunities for exploration. Harold enjoyed a train ride through the mountains from Santa Fe to Albuquerque. I have enjoyed walking around Santa Fe, visiting the markets, the federal courthouse, the farmer’s stands, and the art galleries. It is an easy day trip outside Santa Fe to visit Abiquiu, home to Georgia O’Keeffe. https://www.nps.gov/places/okeeffehomeandstudio.htm If learning about the ancestral Puebloans is high on your agenda, day trips to Taos or Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos can be accomplished during a long day with a bit of driving. https://visitlosalamos.org/bandelier You don’t visit both in the same day, they are in opposite directions.
But a trip to New Mexico should not be limited to a visit to Santa Fe. On one of our trips Harold and I took a circle route from Santa Fe into Colorado and Utah at the Four Corners and back to Santa Fe with a stopover in Farmington, New Mexico and a drive through the Navajo Nation tribal lands. If you read Tony Hillerman’s mysteries, you know the country I am describing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hillerman As you drive through the high desert you view Ship Rock below you on the far horizon for miles and miles. https://newmexiconomad.com/shiprock/ Another very interesting stop on our five day circle route from Santa Fe was at Chaco Canyon. https://www.nps.gov/chcu/index.htm When I think of the hordes on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and compare that to the wonders of this circle route through the Four Corners (the spot where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet) I am always amazed at the sheer idiocy of the American touring public. This tour can include a detour into the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Yes, it is a long drive, but if you are concerned with making good memories and not with checking items off your bucket list, you have to do a little ‘splorin’. According to the Government’s website only 10% of the visitors to the Grand Canyon have ever been to the North Rim. Yet we found it far more beautiful than the South Rim. When we got there on a cool cloudy day a thunderstorm had moved into the canyon below us and we stood on the rim among the green pines and watched the lightning flash below us. The North Rim’s elevation is 8.000+ feet. The National Park Service describes it as the road less traveled. I guess that is why it suited our itinerary. https://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/north-rim.htm
One more thing before I move on from New Mexico. It is a state to which I will return and I hope to do so in the near future. As you will learn when I get to Nebraska, I am enamored of sandhill cranes. Many of them winter in southern Arizona and New Mexico and there is one special place I intend to visit some November or December. You will learn about the migratory patterns of the cranes when I get to Nebraska, but their winter refuge intrigues me. My friend Charlie in Bisbee has gifted me with a photo of them and he tells me another photo he just took is in the mail headed my way. You can learn a little about the sandhill cranes at this link to Bosque del Apache National WIldlife Refuge. https://www.fws.gov/refuge/bosque-del-apache/species
I have mentioned Linda many times in this journal. When you have been someone’s friend for over sixty years and that person moves around as much as Linda you are bound to encounter her in many places. We started out together in Western Pennsylvania and traveled to Cheat Lake in West Virginia in our teens. She tried valiantly, but ultimately unsuccessfully to teach me to water ski. I visited her in Boston during her time at BU and she was instrumental in drawing me to Maine. I visited her homes in Florida and California. I ultimately found her settled into Santa Fe for the last 25 plus years. I may have mentioned Linda in seven other posts from different states, but ultimately it is New Mexico where she found a place to call home just as I had found a place in Maine. Part of the adventure of traveling through the fifty states is the chance to see old friends and visit the places important to them. My good memories include all the time spent with friends along the way. Stay on the train, remember, the scenery is bound to change.
Memories - A Second Chance at Happiness 