One of the nicest aspects of our RVing journey is that our traveling plans are very flexible. Originally, our plan was to stay in New Mexico only through the end of May and then start our journey into Utah to explore the national parks in that state. However, as we were getting toward the end of the month, Karen felt that we really hadn’t given ourselves enough time to explore Santa Fe and its surrounds, so we changed our plans and decided to go to an RV park near Santa Fe and stay for another 3 weeks. One of the reasons that doing so was important to Karen is that it is the area in which her mom grew up and she wanted to spend time exploring an area that was so meaningful to her mom and her grandparents. In addition to that, I’m sure that her mom was instrumental in planting the seed of Karen’s interest in the Native American culture and its arts, which was another reason that Karen wanted to spend more time in this area – to thoroughly explore the pottery, weaving, and jewelry that are so prevalent here.
During the last week of May, Karen and I decided to start making more trips into Taos and the surrounding area to visit some Native American pueblos and other areas that had special significance to them. One day, as we were driving toward the Los Alamos area, we decided to stop at the San Ildefonso Pueblo. There are a lot of rules regarding outsiders coming into the pueblo and one of them was that we weren’t permitted to use our cameras during times when they are having public celebrations/dances, so, unfortunately, we couldn’t take pictures when we were there since a celebration was happening. However, we did get to walk into the center of the pueblo, which is essentially a cozy town center, and observe some of their singing and dancing. This wasn’t a show being put on for tourists – this was a part of their heritage/culture that we felt fortunate to witness. A couple of days later, we visited the Taos Pueblo, which is a little more “commercialized” because their main source of income is from tourists. We were able to take photos in this Pueblo, so I’ve included some in this blog post. As you’ll see the buildings are of adobe architecture, though in the style that dated back to the 1500s. More modern adobe architecture can be seen pretty much all over northern New Mexico. I have to admit, I would love to have an adobe home – the look is so unique and appealing to me!
Over the Memorial Day weekend, the cute little town of Red River hosts a massive biker and veterans rally that claims to attract up to 20,000 attendees…most of whom arrive on motorcycles. Karen and I have been in the town during the quiet times when it is mostly empty and you see few of the 460 residents, so we decided to head up there for the spectacle of seeing this big celebration. I brought my drone with me and flew it up over the town to see if I could get some decent photos that would capture it. I’ve posted a couple below, with the first photo being one that I took a few weeks before when it was empty (for comparison), followed by a couple others showing the mass influx of people for the celebration.
When we started our RV trek by heading down to Big Bend National Park in mid-March, the Rio Grande River was a major focal point of that part of our trip. It seems that everywhere we have gone in Texas and New Mexico since that time has continued to bring us in contact with the Rio Grande. It is clear that this river has been the life-blood of many of the towns and cities in south Texas and most of New Mexico. It’s fitting that on our last day before heading to Santa Fe, we decided to go on a hike in the Rio Grande Gorge just outside of Taos because there is a hot springs right next to the Rio in that gorge. Well, to our dismay, because the weather had been so wet in May, the Rio was running really high and was overflowing into the area that normally holds only hot springs water, so they were anything but hot…and we had to bag the idea of relaxing in the “hot” springs. As we hiked up out of the gorge to where we had parked our car, I decided that I’d give flying my drone in the gorge a try. I’ve posted a short video clip from that flight. Without a doubt, some of my favorite landscapes offered in this part of the country are the canyons and the gorges – it’s something that you just don’t see back east.
In June, we drove our RV further south to a park on the southern edge of Santa Fe. One of the first places we visited was a small town called Madrid (pronounced “MAD-rid”). It used to be an old mining town that has since been converted into an artist community that is home to about 200 residents. Speaking of mines, this area of the country is where most turquoise is mined in the US. Karen had done some research and learned that Madrid has several shops that offer jewelry made from Cerillos turquoise, which is one of the rarer types of turquoise. It is a lighter shade of blue…almost greenish in color. Since I had been asked to work on a project for MCPS during the last couple of weeks in May and into June, it was a perfect opportunity for Karen to visit Madrid multiple times on her own while I hung out in the RV to work on the project.
On our last day in the Santa Fe area, we went to visit the small town of Los Cerillos, which is often just referred to as Cerillos. And, yes, this is the town that has the turquoise mining district that produces the Cerillos turquoise. The town has tried to preserve its old west history/look dating back to the late 1800s. In fact, the movie Young Guns (1988) was filmed in and around Cerillos. That movie is considered the most historically accurate film about Billy the Kid. I’ve included a few photos from Cerillos below. As an aside, it’s interesting to see how many towns in this part of the country have stores that call themselves “trading posts”. The ones that I’ve been in primarily sell southwestern stuff –pottery, weaving, jewelry, rock/minerals, crystals, clothing, etc. My understanding is that the use of the term “trading post” generally dates back into early American history and it referred to an establishment, typically in remote areas, in which items of all kinds could be traded. I’m not sure much actual “trading” still occurs – it appears that the only trading I see is the handing over of currency by a customer to the store owner in exchange for some goods!
As I’m writing this blog post, Karen and I are wrapping up our two months in New Mexico and are now on the road to southern Utah. Our current plan is to try and see the “Big 5” national parks over the next 2 ½ weeks: Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and Zion. These are supposed to be some of the most spectacular of our national parks, so we’re really excited about going to see them. Hopefully, my next blog entry will be about all of these parks and will have some great photos to go along with it!
