New Mexico - 2008

These pictures were taken in the spring of 2008 on my road tour of the Southwest. I was in a bit of a hurry to get to the mountains and snow in Colorado, so I'm afraid I gave New Mexico short shrift. Then, of course, I found myself on the Million Dollar Highway between Durango and Silverton in the middle of a blizzard. I need to study both states a little more so I'm planning another road trip. I'm going to delay starting until May this time and, hopefully, I'll see more of the countryside and a bit less snow. Meanwhile, I'll post a few more pictures from the 2008 trip.

This first picture is a view looking north towards Santa Fe with the Sangre de Christo mountains in the background - and the first of a lot of snow I saw in the next few days.

 

These two pictures are of the Rio Grande Gorge, northwest of Taos. Both of them were taken from the bridge, the one above looking north and the one below looking south. I found the area rather desolate but, with the Rio Grande's significance to Texas, I couldn't very well ignore it.

 

This last one is a Google Map showing the location of the bridge over the Gorge in relation to Taos. I knowingly crossed the Rio Grande in two other places (not shown): (1) in 1968 or '69 I was lured to Nuevo Laredo by some of the sailors I worked with in Kingsville, and (2) in 1978, when I was briefly with the FAA in Brownsville I wandered across the international bridge one afternoon just to get an idea of what the town was all about. Oblivious, I crossed it in the summer of 1974 and numerous times since on I-40 heading to or from California. And in January of 1975 Sally and I crossed it on I-10 near El Paso, enroute back to Lemoore.

 

When you look at a map of New Mexico and Texas, you get a surprising idea of just how long the Rio Grande is. But you'd have to include part of Colorado to capture its entire length. It's the fourth longest river in the United States. I couldn't bend Google Maps to my will, so there's no annotated map to include showing its 1885 mile course.