New Mexico

My First Road Trip

Jan 11, 2018 | Bullet, CLON-X, New Mexico, Rescue, Writing

Welcome back. I hope you enjoy reading about my first road trip with my new parents. It has been a little over a year since I’ve been in my forever home, and everything is going great. I love my new parents even though they tend to gush over me sometimes.

In August, we left the Texas heat behind and I went on my first road trip. When my parents loaded me into my 4Runner, I expected to go to the park, maybe Starbuck’s, or lunch at an outdoor café, but something was different about this trip. They had spent a day packing my SUV, and that seemed odd. The last long drive I had been on was when Grandma Jane rescued me in Madisonville, Texas, and drove me to her home. I thought she planned to keep me, but four days later she put me in her SUV and drove me to my forever home.

Are we there yet?

Back to the road trip. I was getting worried when we rode for a really long time and it didn’t look like they planned to stop anywhere. Then I saw a sign for a town called Decatur. I had never been in this part of Texas and I felt a bit nervous, especially after they pulled into a rest stop. But my dad patted me on the head and my mom filled my water bowl, while I hopped out to sniff the freshly mowed grass and to leave a few scents of my own.

A short time later, I jumped back into the hatch of my 4Runner, and off we went to continue our journey—and a very long one it would be. I dozed as mile after mile of grasslands, cotton fields, and milo flitted past the windows. Along the way, we took a few more potty breaks, and every time they put me back in my 4Runner and we kept going. By now, I had come to the conclusion that they didn’t plan to leave me anywhere, so I was feeling pretty good when we filled our gas tank at Clines Corners and Mom sped up on US-285 toward Santa Fe.

Mom loves this stretch of highway, and I could see why. I sat up to take in the view—a sea of green dotted with cholla cacti, and on the horizon the landscape butted to an orange mesa, the flattop scraping a turquoise sky. No wonder Mom surrounds herself with coral-colored and teal-colored stuff. Must remind her of New Mexico. “It has been a wet winter,” said my dad, which was why the trees were so green.

Just beyond the subdivision of El Dorado, Mom jetted up the on-ramp to I-25, and we motored up the freeway to the St. Francis Drive exit. We cruised through Santa Fe, blew by the Opera House, and began our ascent toward Española, headed north on NM-68. Leaving Velarde, we entered a narrow canyon with a two-lane road—the mountains to our right and the fast-moving waters of the Rio Grande River to our left. “Good snows and rains this year,” said my dad.

“Horseshoe coming up,” Mom alerted us as we climbed and climbed, then dropped into a wide U-shaped canyon and almost immediately crested the rise for a breathtaking view of the Taos Plateau and the Rio Grande Gorge. I stuck my nose to the open window and sniffed the dry air. I wanted to hang my entire head out the window, but they wouldn’t let me. Ten minutes later, road weary and hungry for dinner, Mom parked in the garage and the unpacking began. But they fed me first.

Dusk fell, and soon darkness enveloped the house. In the distance, I heard a strange yelping. “Coyotes,” said Dad. But I was too tired to care, more interested in curling up on the sofa, and wondering what tomorrow would bring. More adventures, I hoped.

I was a big hit in Taos on my first visit. Almost every day, Mom and Dad took me to the plaza to walk around or to the local park. People of all ages stopped to pet or hug me, and I socialized with other dogs. I even ate at restaurants with Mom and Dad. Everyone commented on how well behaved I was, so I guess they were happy to have me there. They always gave me fresh water and treats. And when we showed up for a table at our favorite eatery, they made sure we had a big one, giving me plenty of room to stretch out without anyone stepping over me.I sure am looking forward to my next Taos visit.

Next time I post, and I’m not sure when that will be, I’ll write about my second road trip. But for now, we plan to take a break from posting and will be back soon with a new series starting with Pat’s Canadian rail-train trip. Sounds like fun, so watch for updates on her website and on Facebook and Twitter.

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New Mexico Book Settings: Arroyo Seco

Jul 27, 2017 | About Me, Bullet, CLON-X, Darcy, New Mexico, Travel, Writing

One sunny afternoon I drove to one of my favorite villages in Northern New Mexico, Arroyo Seco (known as Seco by the locals) to photograph the town for this blog post. Seco is located approximately seven miles north of Taos, New Mexico, and sits below Taos Mountain. On October 7, 1745, the town’s inhabitants acquired the rights to the lands under a grant by Joaquín Codallos y Rabal. However, as a site, it was first deeded in 1716 to General Pedro Lucero de Godoy by the Viceroy of Mexico, but the general never settled on the land.

Settlement of the surrounding area began in 1804 when two brothers, Cristóbal Martínez and José Gregorio Martínez, planted crops in the region and built homes. According to the Spanish Archives of New Mexico, in 1815 more people began to cultivate the lands in Seco area, irrigating their crops from the Arroyo Seco Creek and the Rio Lucero.

After wandering the quaint village with its eateries and small specialty shops, many exhibiting work by local artists and craftspeople, I headed to the Church of the Most Holy Trinity. Completed in 1834, the original building had a flat roof and a dirt floor. A pitched roof and wooden floor were added in 1915, and the graves buried beneath the dirt floor were repatriated to the churchyard cemetery. The adobe structure has five-foot-thick walls at the base that taper off to three feet at the top. The ceiling has rough, flat, heavy pine vigas that rest on hand-carved wooden corbels. I snapped the photos I wanted and left the church to stroll the village, photographing my surroundings and relaxing in the small-town atmosphere.

I’ve never been starstruck, but some folks are, so keep your eyes open. Among the locals and tourists you might spot a well-known politician or a famous celebrity, as some do call Northern New Mexico (when they are here) home. If you visit, do attend Seco’s Fourth of July parade, an annual event that draws throngs of happy celebrants. You can view the celebration on YouTube. The video was shot and edited by Rick Romancito of The Taos News. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgkDARTbkkQ.

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New Book Settings: Ghost Ranch and O’Keeffe

Jul 20, 2017 | About Me, Bullet, Darcy, New Mexico, Travel

O’Keeffe was the first American artist to practice pure abstraction, and she remained true to her vision during her seven-decade career, always finding the abstract in nature and painting images with subtle nuances of color, shape, and light. During her early career, she produced a series of charcoal drawings that she mailed to a friend in New York City. The friend showed them to the prominent photographer-turned-gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz, who was the first to exhibit her work in 1916. Eventually, Stieglitz would become O’Keeffe’s husband. By the mid-1920s, she was one of America’s most important and successful artists.

In 1929, O’Keeffe travelled to Taos at the invitation of friends. Inspired by the stark landscape, the distinct indigenous art, and the unique style of adobe architecture, her artwork took a new direction. For two decades, she spent part of every year living and working in New Mexico, and during one such visit she heard about Ghost Ranch. But it wasn’t until 1934 that she finally visited and was dismayed to learn it was a dude ranch owned by Arthur Pack and his wife Carol Stanley. However, they had lodgings for her and she spent the night in Ghost House. The “night” turned into an entire summer, and so a pattern was set, one she followed for years. A loner by nature, she wanted to be isolated from the main house, so Pack rented her his own residence, Rancho de los Burros.

One spring O’Keeffe arrived and found the house rented. When she confronted Pack as to why there were people in her house, he pointed out that it wasn’t hers, so she pressured him into selling it to her, along with seven acres. But she wanted a garden and a winter home in addition to the one on the ranch, which she considered only a summer place, so she bought three acres and an adobe in Abiquiú. In 1949, three years after Stieglitz’s death, she left New York and made Abiquiú her permanent home.

In 1955, Arthur and his second wife Phoebe donated Ghost Ranch to the Presbyterian church, much to the shock of O’Keeffe. Now her precious privacy would be gone. The new owners gave their famous neighbor her privacy, allaying O’Keeffe’s fears, and the relationship with the new owners improved to the point where she decided to stay. But she remained reclusive to the end, saying, “I find people very difficult.”

Suffering from macular degeneration, O’Keeffe was discouraged by her failing vision, but her will to create never diminished. She painted her last unassisted painting in 1972. Late in life and virtually blind, she enlisted the help of several assistants to enable her to paint, drawing on her memory and vivid imagination, and at age ninety was still painting. She died in 1986 at ninety-eight in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A museum dedicated to her artistic legacy was founded there in 1997.

Of the flat-topped mountain Pedernal, a favorite subject of hers, she said, “It’s my private mountain. God told me if I painted it often enough I could have it.” And well known is the Ghost Ranch logo. When O’Keeffe set out to find the ranch for the first time, she was told to watch for the skull on the fence post because “it marks the turn-off to the ranch.” She made a drawing of the ox skull and gave it to Pack, and he adapted the artwork for the Ghost Ranch logo.In 1942, in a letter to painter Arthur Dove, O’Keeffe wrote: “I wish you could see what I see out the window—the earth pink and yellow cliffs to the north—the full pale moon about to go down in an early morning lavender sky, pink and purple hills in front and the scrubby fine dull green cedars—and a feeling of much space—It is a very beautiful world.”