New Horizons

April 10, 2022

Hello again,

Well, another week on the ranch has passed, this time with a big, local wildfire starting and me and the Mrs. making a run down towards Albuquerque to eat and drink at a wood-fired pizza brewpub while getting a nice, little 3 mile hike in right from the parking lot. As for the fire, the forest service decided to do a prescribed burn right at the base of the iconic Hermit's Peak that's about 12 miles northwest of Las Vegas and it quickly grew out of control. They have all kinds of protocols to follow in order to do a prescribed burn, and had adhered to all of them, but the afternoon of the burn brought some sudden, unexpectedly violent winds that scattered ashes and embers and pretty soon there were well over a dozen 'hotspots' discernible by satellite. Move ahead a few days and it's grown from 200 acres to well over 6000 acres and has caused mandatory evacuations to be enacted in a lot of the region that is northwest of Las Vegas. Many are quick to fault the forest service for such episodes, but multiple, local sources have revealed to Erin that this is a totally new type of weather that we're dealing with that is much more unpredictable and increasingly violent these days. There are ridiculous winds that occur in this area, for weeks and weeks at a time in the spring, that bring steady winds of 25+mph every day, with gusts that double or even triple that throughout the day. Not only is our area drying out and receiving less and less snowfall each winter, but the monsoon season that comes each summer is bringing less and less rain each year. Couple this with the ever-increasing speed of the winds and you see how such a thing can happen. As for our little getaway, we hopped in the car on Saturday and decided to make a run down to Erin's favorite brewpub. We had this planned for the weekend before when we had company, as well as a few other tricks up our sleeves, but it never came to pass as everyone was tired and happy with just running into our new hometown of Las Vegas. So, we left the dogs at home(against their silent protestations...oh, the faces!) and ran up the Pecos Valley to Glorieta, where we turned southwest to drop through the pass. Upon reaching Eldorado, instead of reorienting to the northwest to zip into Santa Fe, we went straight south to hit Lamy and then branched off a little to the southwest to hit Galisteo and then Stanley. At Stanley we abruptly made a hard right and started heading to the west straight towards the Sandia Mountains on the backside of Albuquerque. We had never gone this way before to go to this brewpub. Usually, we'd go all the way into Santa Fe and then go straight south through Madrid, Cerrillos and the San Pedro Mountains before getting to the backside of the Sandia Crest. What a different way to go!

Instead of heading south from Santa Fe through rolling hills and mountains, we ended up in the Galisteo Basin that bottomed out into the biggest bottom of a frying pan that you've ever seen! Just crossing from Glorieta to Eldorado brings in a much more arid climate, but this pushed that quaint notion way over the top. Rolling south from Eldorado we were still seeing junipers, a very few pines and lots of cholla, but sooner than later that changed. In its place became a sea of the shortest chollas that you've ever seen...literally only a foot or two tall instead of the huge, man-high ones that you see around here! And then, as the land flattened so much that you felt that you could see for a hundred miles in every direction, even the cholla disappeared. There was literally nothing except for the faint possibility of grass as far as you could see. That and nothing but sun, sun and sun. New Mexico is widely considered a 'blue' state, but it takes only a very short trip in any direction from our ranch to see that there are multiple points of view just like anywhere else. Suddenly, every place that we were going by was a 1-5 acre piece of property that had room for animals, gardens, trucks and trailers. Just as much as this is the land of enchantment, the land of East Coast artists that have resettled here, the land of hippies and off-gridders, it is also the land of cowboys, ranchers and farmers. This is the type of land that we passed through after getting south of Eldorado and Lamy and before rolling into the backside of the mountain that cuts Albuquerque off to the east. Just as quickly, though, as we rolled through nothing but varying shades of brown and green grass, about five miles from the mountains, first the cholla, and then the junipers and pines burst back onto the scene and it was a completely different landscape again. Quite simply, this is what we love so much about this particular ranch that we've settled on: go an hour in any direction and you're in a completely different environment! Go an hour east of here and you're out on the high plains; go an hour north of here and you're in the heights of the Rocky Mountains; go an hour west of here and you're in the much more populated Rio Grande Valley, between Santa Fe and Albuquerque; and go an hour south and you're entering the much sparser areas that are usually referred to as badlands.

And, yet again, we have another batch of pictures for you, sharing glimpses of this magical land. First up, a shot of Zia exploring the buggy when it was parked out in front of the house, just wondering where it could take her. Then, a shot of Rui, basking in the late-afternoon sun, showing off his well-earned gray hairs. Next, a shot of Erin's newly installed strawberry patch...complete with high walls to protect from the wind. Then, two shots of the wildfire that sprang up in the last week: first, on the way into Vegas on the interstate, showing Tecolote to the left and the smoke running up the cliffs of Hermit's Peak to the right; also, a shot once in town of the fire. Next, a shot of me mowing with the boss's crazy mower that we have out here...there's not much to mow, but it's tough like the rest of the land out here. Then, two shots from our getaway drive: first, heading west from Stanley to Cedar Crest, with the Sandias looming behind; then, on the way back to Stanley, showing how flat the basin is. Along the way Erin's car finally turned 100,000 miles and I took a shot of it to commemorate the moment...her car is the baby of the family with my two cars at 212,000 and 317,000! Next, a series of three shots from our meal at Rumor Brewing Company in Cedar Crest: first, Erin looking pretty for the camera; then, me mugging it for my turn; and, finally, a shot of our wonderful meal. On the way there and the way back we went through Galisteo and fell very hard for it. Here are two shots just from the main crossroads: first, the building on the corner, complete with the obligatory western wagon; then, the pretty, little church that is on the other corner. This whole village was this pretty and this well-preserved! Lastly, six shots that we took on our hike in one of the city of Albuquerque's far-flung trail systems: first, Erin motoring back to the car for a drink of water; then, a shot of me, posing; next, a shot of Erin showing her hiking spirit; next, a shot of the trail as it went through mostly pines and oaks; then, the perfect Southwestern shot showing both forest and succulent; lastly, a shot of some of the little cacti that we were seeing throughout the whole hike.

Take care and be good.