Travels with Twinkles

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Socorro, New Mexico

November 1 - 2, 2017:

A short hop today of about 80 miles to Socorro, New Mexico mostly on I-25 south. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful drive with mountain views on one side and the Rio Grande valley on the other. We arrive at Casey’s RV Park about noon, get set up and then take a ride to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge outside of San Antonio, New Mexico. The Sandhill Cranes, the Snow Geese and many varieties of ducks are now arriving. We drove around the Tour Loop road and with the blue sky and the golden foliage of the Cottonwood Trees it was beautiful. Many areas of the road are presently closed for grass cutting in preparation of the arrival of the Sandhill Cranes. We saw a good number of snow geese, sandhill Cranes and ducks although the migration period is ongoing. The world renown Festival of the Cranes takes place in about two weeks so the arrival of adittional flocks of Cranes are anticipated daily.

http://www.friendsofthebosque.org/festival-of-the-cranes.aspx

Taken from a rest area off !-25

Sandhill Cranes are amazing long distance flyers

The terrain at the wildlife refuge is well maintained for the birds arrival

They come by the thousands here

They are huge birds when you see them up close

The Snow Geese are also long distance flyers

In the evening I go to the Socorro Plaza to the "Capital Bar" which is a wonderfully restored Saloon originally built in 1896. At one time it was owned by Amos Green, the justice of the peace, who held court in the bar and jailed the guilty in a back room. The present owner has done a great job and there was a lively crowd on hand, of course it also was the final game of the World Series.

The Socorro Square is a must see place when in this area with its beautiful pathway with tiled historical signs and a great wheel of history monument. You also don’t want to miss the Socorro County Courthouse, the old Garcia Opera House and the San Miguel de Socorro Church in the vicinity.

Socorro is a very old town that claims to have been established in 1598 when Juan de Ornate led a group of Spanish settlers across the "Jornada de Muerto" (Desert terrain) that ends just south of Socorro. As they emerged from the desert a pueblo of Pima Indians gave them food and water. The Spainards named the the place "Pueblo Socorro" meaning "help" of "aid". The Spaniards established a mission to convert the friendly Indians, but then with the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 the Spaniards were evicted. The Spaniards did not return to resettle the area again until 1815. Socorro seems to have become an official town in 1816 with a Spanish Land Grant. Shortly afterwards in 1821 when Mexico won independence it then became Mexican territory. Then with the Mexican- American War it became US territory 1846. A very complex history indeed ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socorro,_New_Mexico

https://www.newmexico.org/listing/capitol-bar/2613/

The Capital Bar

The Socorro Plaza is a beauty

Elfego Baca who at age 19 held over 50 angry cattlemen at bay
while trapped in a cabin for several days. He went on to become
Sheriff of Socorro County, a District Attorney, Mayor of Socorro
and a US Marshall

The Juan Nepomuceno Baca house, parts of which may
date back to 1816

The circle of history monument

There is much more to see in Socorro than the old historic square.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Miguel_de_Socorro

A field of hot peppers

We do a hike on the Socorro Valley Bosque Trail at
the Socorro Nature Center

The beautiful San Mission Church which recently celebrated 400 years, but I'm not
exactly buying that claim. It seems that this is a newer structure built on the same site that
incorporated a portion of the original mission adobe walls.

The historic Garcia Opera House

You also can’t miss the town of San Antonio and must stop in either the Owl Tavern or the Buckhorn Tavern (or both) for a green chili cheeseburger. They are almost across the street from one another and have both been featured in many publications. The Buckhorn won a Food Network - Chef Bobby Flay throwback competition in 2009 for the best green chili cheeseburger. San Antonio in past years was a much more prominent town with a railroad station and Harvey House restaurant. Except for the two “world famous ”burger joints” there isn’t much else going on in San Antonio these days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio,_New_Mexico

Buckhorn Tavern

The Owl Bar & Cafe a few hundred feet away offers much competition

We take a ride on route 60 about 20 miles away to the town Magdalena in the Magdalena Mountains. On the way there we stopped at the “The Box” which is primarily a rock climbing site in a canyon with sheer rock walls.

A nice view from above "The Box"

Twinkles doing a little rock scrambling

View down inside "The Box"

Magdalena is a few miles downhill from the former Kelly Mine and townsite of Kelly. The Kelly Mine was a very productive lead, zinc and smithsonite mine that operated from 1883 to 1947. At its peak, approximately 3,000 people lived in the town of Kelly. After the mine closed in 1947 everyone left Kelly, it became a ghost town and nothing is left of it today. Anything good was torn down and moved downhill to Magdalena where it was recycled. The only structures remaining at the mine are the steel head-frame, a chimney and a nearby small church.

http://westernmininghistory.com/towns/new-mexico/kelly/

Mine remains along the road

One stone wall is all that remains of this building and an
old safe without doors in the basement

The Mine steel head frame designed by Eiffel and what appears to be a chimney. The open mine shaft with barbed wire fencing around it is said to drop straight down 1,000 feet

A better view of the mine head frame, we had a good time walking around the site looking
for good rocks and old glass. We found little, its been picked clean.

The church appears more recent and still in use

The town of Magdalena has several interesting old buildings including the old Santa Fe Train depot, now used as a library and museum with many old Santa Fe Rail travel ads. It was the "Trails End" for the railroad spur built for the mine. Magdalena is in a remote location, a real dark sky location that has a "Enchanted Skies Star Party" in the fall. It also hosts a "Old Timers Reunion & Rodeo each year. This is a quirky town with its share of artistic types, art galleries and mineral shops. The towns name derived from early Spanish soldiers who saw the profile of a woman on the west face of the current Maddalena Peak. A priest reminded them of a similar peak in Spain called "La Sierra de Maria Magdalena"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalena,_New_Mexico

I loved this entrance sign on the highway

The Saloon looked pretty inviting

The Magdalena Depot with some repair in progress

The Library interior is cozy, it extends to the rear into
what was the freight house

I don't believe I've ever seen this Santa Fe Ad before

The old bank turned general store appears to be under renovation

We now continue south to another favorite New Mexico town, Silver City, Mew Mexico,

Twinkles and Slick

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Albuquerque, Route 66 and Day of the Dead

October 25 - November 1, 2017:

It was a cold start to the day at 29 degrees at 7 AM but the bright sun warmed things up quickly. The drive from Las Vegas to Santa Fe was beautiful, with red rock mountain views, hillsides covered with juniper and back country roads (that I want to explore) winding off into the valleys below. The trip from Santa Fe to Albuquerque was not as much fun, too much traffic and less attractive terrain. We pull into the High Desert RV Park about noon, we have a reservation and quickly get set up. The High Desert RV Park is a good campground with great shower room facilities and decent WiFi during low usage periods.

On the road agin with what looks like a volcano in the distance

A couple of friends, Jim and Criste, who we winter with in Tucson had contacted us earlier in the week. They are heading back to Tucson and decided to stop in Albuquerque for a couple of days and stay at the same RV Park. We went to old town Albuquerque with them to browse around in the shops and have lunch. We also had a couple of practice happy hours with them at the campground.

Waiting patiently for the food at "Casa de Ruiz" in "Old Town"
Albuquerque, it was slow, but worth the wait

Afterwards some browsing in the shops around "Old Town"

We are spending a week in Albuquerque and looking to do some hiking. As we were coming into town the Cottonwood trees along the Rio Grande River were a blazing golden yellow and I thought that would be a great place for a hike. The Albuquerque map showed a trail along the river so we went to check it out. We did a short hike in one area with many interconnecting trails, but it was not the river trail. We then traveled to the Open Space Visitor Center where we found many exhibits, an art gallery, a bird observation tower, a native plant garden, maps and access to more hiking trails. We also found maps for the all trails in the Rio Grande River Bosque area.

It wasn't the Rio Grande River, but it was a nice walk

The Open Space has a roof viewing platform to spot the wildlife

We returned to the Rio Grande River Bosque area for another hike that followed the river. In the afternoon we returned to the Open Space Visitors Center for the opening reception for an exhibit, “A Celebration of Cranes”. The Sandhill Cranes are migrating and landing here as they have large grass field right here in the center of the city.

Albuquweque was originally Indian territory and then "New Spain".
A Spanish Land Grant of 35,000 acres awarded to Captain
Diego Montoya in 1694, a pretty nice award ?

View from the long bridge over the Rio Grande River

View from the center of the bridge

I thought the view straight down into the river was interesting

The Blue Heron was fishing nearby

Zooming in to the faraway mountains

Twinkles posing in front of a tree like cholla cactus

This is all river floodplain with beautiful grasses and Cottonwoods

Back at the Open Space Visitor Center there were Canada Geese and Sandhill Cranes

Albuquerque was originally inhabited by the Tanoan and Keresan Indian tribes. The Tiwa tribe also established two pueblos on the outskirts of Albuquerque which they have occupied for centuries.
Albuquerque was founded in 1706 as a Spanish colonial post along the Camino Real. It then came under Mexican control in 1821 and eventually US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albuquerque,_New_Mexico

I took an afternoon to revisit downtown Albuquerque and do a self guided tour of the “KiMo Theater”. The Kimo was built in 1927 and is regarded as one of the best examples of Pueblo Deco architecture in the US. I also visited the old Public Main Library which is now the "Special Collections Library" where historic materials are available.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KiMo_Theater

The Kimo is amazing from every angle

From the details of the seats and carpets

To the stage

And the details of the ceiling

The Old Main Library built in 1927

We next go for a two hikes in Petroglyph National Monument which protects a 17 mile basalt escarpment that contains over 24,000 images pecked into the rocks. We started with a hike at the Volcanoes area where there are no Petroglyphs, but the remains of Volcanic cinder cones. Around 200,000 years ago lava flowed from a fissure here with eruptions at various points along the fissure. The buildup of lava, layer upon layer, formed what is today known as the West Mesa which overlooks the city of Albuquerque. Our next hike in the National Monument was at the Piedras Marcades Canyon which contains approximately 5,000 petroglyphs. Archeologists estimate that most of the images were made 400 to 700 years ago by the ancestors of todays native peoples although a few may be 2,000 to 3,000 years old. There are also some that are thought to have been made by early Spanish residents in the 1600’s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroglyph_National_Monument

On the trail to a volcanic vent

View from the top looking to another vent

The view in Petroglyphs National Monument

All sorts of weird mysterious figures are gouged into the Basalt rocks

The hands on the rocks is unique

The view from the rocks looking back, notice the houses in the background

Albuquerque is a good town for live music but I seem to be finding it mostly at Breweries or Brew Pubs where it’s usually a solo musician playing in a corner for a couple of hours. It’s OK, better than nothing, but not the real thing. The Marble Brewery is one of the larger Breweries here and they do have a dedicated outside stage area where I saw a band, Isac Aragon and the Healing, who were attracting a large crowd, who I liked. The Marble Brewing Company also has a couple of satellite brew pubs in town with music. I also went to the Tractor Bar (where you get plowed) with a good solo musician, Todd Tijerina, playing on an outside patio. I was disappointed in the Tractor Bar, I anticipated something way better. I tend to be a visual person who is more impressed with the look and ambiance of a bar, or the logo and packaging of a product than the other stuff. I know, its very shallow, but that’s the way it is. The Tractor Bar should look like a barn with good paintings or photos of Tractors, tractor parts hanging on the walls, farm objects displayed and they should have a tee shirt and merchandise playing on the Tractor theme. OK, they do have a Tractor on their logo, but it’s like an abstract tractor, phony.

I thought the Tractor on display was pretty weak

We went to a Dia De Los Muerotos (Day of the Dead) event at the South Broadway Cultural Center. It was an excellent event with a market, an art reception, food trucks, music, folkloric dancing and a car show. These hispanic guys know how to build cool street machines with an artistic flair and their car club, The Drifters cc, had some beauties on display. The Day of the Dead memorials to the departed were just beautiful, very touching and impressive.

A Gangsta 37 chevy

This Chrysler had an amazing paint job and brass plating on many parts

Buick was decorated for Day of the Dead

Albuquerque mural on the side of the Cultural Center

Shrine to honor the 200th anniversary of the death
of author Jane Austin

Liked the one for David Bowie, there was also one for Tom Petty

Also liked this painting

Shrine for a musician

Another very well done shrine

We visited a couple of long time, good friends in the town of Edgewood north of Albuquerque. It’s been four or five years since we last saw them and it was great to get together again. They are two of the most artistic and creative people we know, Susie is a southwest artist who has had her art work in Taos and Santa Fe galleries and Dave is an expert welder who does ornamental iron gates, railings and sculpture.

I spend a few hours looking around Albuquerque for the usual interesting buildings, signs, murals, street art, that attract me to these places. Old route 66 which is now Central Street in Albuquerque is one of the longest stretches of the road through a urban area. A good number of original building still remain and the street retains much character today. Since this is our third time here, I am revisiting much of what I have seen before, but things do change or disappear over time, so I sort of do a photo inventory.