Category: Albuquerque & New Mexico

God bless you

NewMexiKen attended the Beausoleil performance at the Rio Grande Zoo Friday night. As always the world’s best Cajun band was terrific. The evening was lovely, illuminated as dark came on by lightning to the north and west. The only problem for performers in coming to the zoo is that they have to share the green room with the seals getting ready for their own show.

Anyway, they sell refreshments at these outdoor concerts, including beer, wine and margaritas. I decided on a Corona, but just as the barmaid was pouring the bottle into the plastic cup she sneezed. Now, I’m not horribly fussy, but …

After she finished pouring, the barmaid lifted the cup to her nose and smelled. This doesn’t smell right, she said. What did I think.

Knowing an opening when I’m offered one, I smelled the cup of beer and said, no I don’t think it smells right.

She poured me another; I asked for a Heineken this time.

Nights with a heavenly view

From Laura Bly in USA Today:

Chaco Culture National Historical Park, N.M. — Several years ago, a woman approached the visitors center desk at this remote Southwestern outpost, eager to report that she had spotted something remarkable the evening before.

Bracing for another overwrought tale of alien UFOs, park ranger and amateur astronomer G.B. Cornucopia listened politely as the bedazzled tourist described a “lane of white powder” spanning the heavens above her campsite.

“It was my great joy,” Cornucopia says, “to tell her that for the first time in her life she had actually seen the Milky Way.”

*****

One of the best-known portals to New Mexico’s nighttime marvels is Chaco Canyon, eerie, windswept desert ruins about midway between Grants and Farmington (or the proverbial Middle of Nowhere).

Chaco began offering astronomy programs in 1991 and opened its own observatory — the only one in a national park — seven years later. Park managers have designated Chaco’s night sky a critical resource in need of protection, and they have retrofitted all park lighting to enhance after-dark viewing and reduce light pollution from cities as far afield as Albuquerque, about 150 miles to the southeast.

Today, about 14,000 self-sufficient visitors a year come to gaze and graze on ancient tales.

Link via Ah, Wilderness!

NewMexiKen visited Chaco last autumn and posted some photos.

Capulin Volcano National Monument…

was authorized on this date in 1916. The monument is located in northeastern New Mexico.

Mammoths, giant bison, and short-faced bears were witness to the first tremblings of the earth and firework-like explosions of molten rock thousands of feet into the air. Approximately 60,000 years ago, the rain of cooling cinders and four lava flows formed Capulin Volcano, a nearly perfectly-shaped cinder cone, rising more than 1000 feet above the surrounding landscape. Although long extinct, Capulin Volcano is dramatic evidence of the volcanic processes that shaped northeastern New Mexico. Today the pine forested volcano provide habitat for mule deer, wild turkey, and black bear.

Souce: Capulin Volcano National Monument

For Albuquerque readers only

The limitations of Albuquerque sometimes get the better of me — e.g., the Sweeties are too far away, no Crate & Barrel — but Friday night the city won me back. First, margaritas outdoors at Garduno’s Balloon Saloon; then, hitting a few more balls at the New Mexico Golf Academy driving range at dusk, thunderstorms and the smell of rain all around; last, strawberry-rhubarb pie at the Flying Star on Rio Grande.

Ernie Pyle…

was born on this date in 1900. Until he was killed by enemy fire in April 1945, Pyle “blogged” World War II for millions of Americans.

From The New York Times obituary.

Ernie Pyle was haunted all his life by an obsession. He said over and over again, “I suffer agony in anticipation of meeting people for fear they won’t like me.”

No man could have been less justified in such a fear. Word of Pyle’s death started tears in the eyes of millions, from the White House to the poorest dwellings in the country.

President Truman and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt followed his writings as avidly as any farmer’s wife or city tenement mother with sons in service.

Mrs. Roosevelt once wrote in her column “I have read everything he has sent from overseas,” and recommended his writings to all Americans.

For three years these writings had entered some 14,000,000 homes almost as personal letters from the front. Soldiers’ kin prayed for Ernie Pyle as they prayed for their own sons.

NewMexiKen has twice before posted this quote from Pyle, but decided to do so again on his birthday, and because for me, returning late last night, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

Yes, there are lots of nice places in the world. I could live with considerable pleasure in the Pacific Northwest, or in New England, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, or in Key West or California or Honolulu. But there is only one of me, and I can’t live in all those places. So if we can have only one house — and that’s all we want — then it has to be in New Mexico, and preferably right at the edge of Albuquerque where it is now. Ernie Pyle, January 1942

Santa Fe

NewMexiKen spent late afternoon and early evening Thursday on the Plaza in Santa Fe, the nation’s oldest capital city (1608). It had been a year or possibly two since I’d been there (though it is one of America’s premier tourist attractions and I live just an hour away). I am always ready to dislike Santa Fe — and it’s always like a new love when I get there. Yes, it has the so-so affected galleries and their so-so affected clientele; and yes it has too many places to buy T-shirts (I got two) and laser art. Still, the setting itself is authentic — like me, people have been drinking tequila on the plaza for nearly 400 years. And weather! Yesterday evening was stunning. Low 80s, clear, with a few white clouds, slight breeze. Blue sky that North Carolinians can’t even imagine.

Two years ago NewMexiKen saw Bonnie Raitt in Santa Fe at the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater (four days after seeing the Eagles in Albuquerque). Here’s the review I wrote then:

Saturday was entirely different. The Paolo Soleri is an outdoor amphitheater behind the Santa Fe Indian School. It seats maybe 2,500 and most of the seating is unreserved. We had reserved ninth row center seats for just $45 each, close enough to see the welt on the performer’s forehead after she whacked herself with a guitar.

Bonnie Raitt, 52, has also been recording and performing since 1971. She came into her own in 1989 when she won the Grammies for Album of the Year (Nick of Time); Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female; Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female, and Best Traditional Blues Recording (for a duet with John Hooker on I’m in the Mood). She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years ago.

Unlike the Eagles (excepting Joe Walsh) Bonnie Raitt was an entertainer, not just a musician. She had a lot of banter with the crowd, giving every impression she was having a great time. “You can leave if you have too, I’ll understand, but I’m staying a little longer.” It actually appeared as if her third encore was genuine; that is, a salute to a particularly appreciative audience. She had a guitar player and bassist behind her that have been with her for more than 20 years, plus a great new keyboard player and a fine drummer. She included all the essential hits, except sadly not Runaway, but a fair number of new songs as well from her new album, Silver Lining.

Bonnie Raitt is a great guitarist. I think I wasn’t as aware of that as I should have been before last night. She’s got the blues down when she needs to, and she can rock. It was wonderful to be close enough to see the playing; close enough to count the picks on her fingers (and not on a big screen – there are no screens at Paolo Soleri). Her voice was great, though she complained a little about some smoke from a concession early in the performance – it was like being at someone’s backyard charcoal barbeque for a while. She commented she preferred the “smoke” at Red Rocks (near Denver), which she claimed had been thick enough to make her high by the third song. She may have been particularly chatty Saturday night, as she needed to catch her breath between numbers at Santa Fe’s 7000 feet. Whatever, it was welcome and fun.

The Santa Fe Birkenstock crowd was interesting on its own. Seldom have I seen so many Earth people this side of Fourth Avenue, Tucson. I was expecting the glitterati of Santa Fe I suppose, and they are probably waiting for the Santa Fe Opera to begin its season.

Nevertheless, we did have one celebrity in the audience, two rows down, and five seats over. Jane Fonda, an apparent friend of Ms. Raitt. She looked good, but not unlike any other 64-year-old, exceptionally rich woman might. No Birkenstocks on Jane.

Mrs. Mayor

Interesting follow-up at Metaquerque to the continuing saga of Mayor Martin Chávez and Mrs. Mayor, Margaret Aragón de Chávez.

Chavez has been publicly humiliated by his wife twice in the last few weeks, first when she filed for divorce on June 11 and then with the picket line fiasco in Boston. Now she’s telling people she’s thinking about running for mayor.

She’d surely be better than her husband.

Metaquerque has a link to a news video that includes some of the disagreement in Boston.

Albuquerque first family update

From the Albuquerque Tribune:

In Albuquerque, Mayor Martin Chavez and his wife, Margaret Aragon de Chavez, have kept any disagreement private since filing for divorce this month.

But in Boston, at a dinner for the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting Friday, a disagreement over crossing a picket line caught the attention of protesters and reporters.

Mayors arriving at the event faced a gauntlet of hundreds of jeering, chanting police officers and other city employees trying to embarrass Boston Mayor Thomas Menino over pending contracts with city unions.

Picketers chanted “Don’t go in!” and “Shame on you!” as buses ferried mayors and their families to the red-carpet event at the Boston Public Library.

Chavez, a Democrat, walked past protesters with his wife and daughter saying, “We’re going in. Tom Menino is a great friend and a great Democrat.”

But then Aragon de Chavez and their 13-year-old daughter, Martinique Chavez, pulled aside metal barricades and joined the union protesters, sparking cheers from the crowd. She was handed a Boston Fire Department T-shirt and a sign.

“There were all these union firefighters and police looking at all the people going into this extravagant party,” Aragon de Chavez said in a phone interview. “And they were saying `Don’t go in, don’t go in.’ I was raised in a blue-collar family. I looked into their eyes and I couldn’t do it. . . .

“I wasn’t trying to draw attention to myself. It just reminded me of my upbringing.”

Aragon de Chavez said her husband went into the dinner and that she encouraged Martinique to go in as well. But her daughter also decided not to cross the line of protesters.

Without knowing the issues in the Boston dispute, it still occurs to NewMexiKen that the wrong Chávez is mayor.

Link via Metaquerque.

The ‘Topes

NewMexiKen got out to see the Albuquerque Isotopes Pacific Coast League baseball team last night and alleviated my radioactive jones.

The ‘Topes continued their slump, losing to the Oklahoma Redhawks 6-0. The Oklahoma pitcher took a no-hitter into the ninth inning before he gave up a one-out single (and was taken out of the game). With only one hit and just five base runners all evening, there wasn’t much for the 10,000 Albuquerque fans to cheer.

Well actually, we did cheer for the race around the infield between the person dressed as a green chile pepper and the person dressed as a red chile pepper. (You know, the New Mexico question — Red or Green?). The crowd also liked the scenes from the Simpsons shown between innings on the big screen, especially the part where Homer discovers “the Albuquerque Isotopes?“.

Life is good in the Duke City with a baseball team named by an animated character. Now, if only we could get the pro football team Al Pacino was going to coach at the end of Any Given Sunday.

This is getting serious

Another wildfire in the Albuquerque bosque today; the bosque is the grove of trees that lines both banks of the Rio Grande. Fortunately, there’s no wind and the fire appears limited to about 50 acres. Even so, they are still spraying water on the Bueno Foods plant to protect it.

Destroy the trees, burn down our houses, but leave the chile peppers and salsa out of this!

You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’

Albuquerque’s first lady, Margaret Aragón de Chávez, announced last Thursday that she was divorcing Mayor Martin Chávez. This came as no surprise to those of us who attended a major charity event earlier this year. The Mayor was a no show at a ball that was honoring his wife.

And it was Valentine’s Day.

Senior in a hurry

The Forest Service closed the La Luz trail today due to the danger of fire. The trail is a 7-mile trek from the high foothills near Albuquerque to the Sandia Crest (10,678 feet/3255 m). It is an extremely popular hike and run. Among those interviewed for an Albuquerque Tribune article on the closing was this fellow:

Lionel Ortega, 82, said he wouldn’t run the La Luz this year because he was training for another trail run up Pikes Peak in Colorado.

Ortega, who would like everyone to know he’s single, said he was up early because it was cool and also so he could complete his run in time to get to the senior center before breakfast closed.

“If you’re not there on time, you don’t eat,” Ortega said as he hustled down the trail.