Bienvenido a Nuevo México

Let me take you briefly back to San Luis in southcentral Colorado, the state’s oldest continually inhabited town and a stop en route to Taos, New Mexico, during our April road trip. After exploring the Stations of the Cross Shrine, we continued our drive south on Colorado Highway 159, which turns into New Mexico Highway … Continue reading Bienvenido a Nuevo México

Earth Still Spins

Some destinations exert a magnetic force, compelling us to return time and again. New Mexico’s Villanueva State Park is one such destination for me. Reachable only by a little-traveled county road, it is situated at the end of a fertile valley first frequented by Paleo-Indians and farmed in more recent centuries by Hispanic settlers, with … Continue reading Earth Still Spins

Traces of New Spain

It is a truth universally acknowledged that to the victor go the spoils. In the wake of Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of America in 1492 for the King and Queen of Spain, the colonial realm “New Spain” supplanted the Aztec Empire. It comprised much of the land mass north of the Isthmus of Panama and included … Continue reading Traces of New Spain

Ancestral Puebloans-Part 2: Chaco Canyon

This is part 2 of a an evolving series. Click here for part 1, here for part 3,  here for part 4.  Among the best-known architecture of the Ancestral Puebloans is Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park. It was, however, preceded and superseded in significance by New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon. In its heyday, between the 8th … Continue reading Ancestral Puebloans-Part 2: Chaco Canyon