More evidence of man in New Mexico, part 37-E

Last March I began a series here to do with the traces man has left upon the New Mexico landscape as evidence for his existence here over time. A series of blogs over several weeks, parts One, Two, Three, and Four were the result, inspired by a three day, two night exploration of central and southern New Mexico Mrs. Dada and I took in the winter of 2002.

While such a journey could never be all inclusive, it was my hope to hit some of the high points of evidence for man in New Mexico.

I suspect Homo sapiens is on its way to something else, be it an improved model or total annihilation at its own hand. The jury's still out. All traces of his existence highlighted in these blogs will vanish given enough time. But until they do, the evidence here, just as elsewhere globally in ever increasing places, is convicting enough to prove we were here. Of that we are definitely guilty.

Google Maps

To this point, the previous four blogs on this subject occurred all in the same day's travels. I want to wrap this up in this one last blog. Doing so is not to make short shrift of what followed on the rest of our journey of discovery as any less significant. In fact, some of what we saw/encountered our last two days were my favorite parts. I'm simply being expeditious.

Here then, are some pictures from some extremely enjoyable places we visited. From our last stop (Bingham, NM), Mrs. Dada and I proceeded to Socorro where we spent the next two nights.

I can divide desert towns into two main categories: good and interesting, but you wouldn't want to live there. Socorro is one of the good ones, i.e., it has two important aspects every town should have. A small university and an excellent microbrewery.

The Owl Bar and Cafe, San Antonio, New Mexico

On the way to Socorro, you pass through the small community of San Antonio. It's the home of the best green chile cheeseburger I've ever eaten. It has gained a well deserved reputation for serving them up and it doesn't matter the hour of day. If the Owl is open, you can get one - even for breakfast.

But the owners are staunch republicans. As I noted before on another blog including the Owl, pictures hang in the entry of the Bacas schmoozing with president Bush. So if you want to partake of a great green chile cheeseburger, you'll swallow more than just a burger, you'll swallow some of your principles as well. But in this case it's worth it.

The second day of our journey took us further north to Abo (2) and Quarai (3), remnants of two of three Salinas or "salt mine" pueblos where the Spaniards built missions to introduce "civilization" to the local populations they discovered living there.

The once massive Abo mission stands crumbling on the horizon in tribute to the erosion of the once expansive Spanish empire.

This then is a picture of Abo. I call it the "road to ruins". I loved it there. The day we visited we were the only ones there. This gave us a great chance to visit with the park ranger, Ernestine Sisneros. Her family owned this land until 1939 when it was converted into a park. She is a national treasure of information on the area.

The trail to the ruins of this 1629 Spanish mission approaches from the site where the Pima Indian pueblo was located. It is now totally erased to all but those with trained eyes. But Mrs. Dada and I spent some time at that now silent site, reflecting on the activity that must have gone on daily in the community of two thousand that existed there when the Spanish arrived.

After an hour or so outside in the deafening cacophony of voices from centuries old ghosts now silenced and faded into history by progress, we ambled back to park headquarters where Ernestine and we finished sharing our strong distastes and distrust for president Bush we had opened upon arrival.

This was barely five months after 9/11 and more than a year before our invasion of Iraq, but I found our conversation eerily prescient of things to come for the "empire." The irony that we were here on the site of two previous civilizations, one totally erased, the other - its conquerers - now eroding its way into oblivion closely behind them was not lost on me. It was like glimpsing our own future mirroring those who had preceded us, and none of us was happy about it.

As her lunchtime approached, we bid Ernestine farewell and continued eastward towards the second Salinas monument, Quarai. Unlike Abo, we had been to Quarai several years earlier and were pleased to find it precisely as we'd left it - quiet and still crumbling.

While Quarai appears to lag its sister, Abo, by decades in the erosion race to total oblivion, it is located over the mountains in a lusher spot than that of Abo. Yet I felt more in touch with the latter. Maybe it was the politics of Ernestine. And yet, because Quarai was abandoned in the 1670's because of relentless Apache raids, I feel an affinity to its people who eventually settled here in the El Paso area and who, centuries later, opened a very successful "Indian casino" which benefited many of its tribal members with jobs, housing and scholarships until its closure by our now Texas senator, John Cornyn.

As with Abo, Quarai was equally quiet this day. Just as we'd remembered it. Silently continuing its slow rush towards its eternal destiny. Total erasure. There's no denying both of these places are special and their messages to us in the here-and-now are powerful to those who take the time to pause and listen. Sadly, our government is too obsessed with global dominance to foresee its own, inevitable demise.

As the afternoon wore on, it was time to return to Socorro. Once back, there was still enough time to run down to another of man's brush strokes upon the landscape, the Bosque del Apache (1), one of my very favorites. Of course, as always, the challenge exists of how to get there without succumbing to the temptation of another green chile cheeseburger. To get to the Bosque, you must pass the Owl Bar & Cafe.

Obviously, my hopes of wrapping this up in one blog were too optimistic, hence, I will leave its conclusion for the next (and final!) blog on this subject.