New Mexico (or Land Of Enchantment?)

Inside the Jemez Indian Reservation

New Mexico is by far my most favorite state of the union (with Oregon coming in a close second). I was born in Michigan, but have spent most of my life in California. I know most consider California to be the idyllic paradise of environmental beauty, and truly there is no shortage of it here, but I have found a new love, and it is New Mexico.

A couple of years back, Vera and I got to discussing the need to connect Polina and Jeff to more of my family and decided that we would make efforts to visit my cousins on my father's side, whom no one but myself had ever met. So, Vera and the kids went to Washington D.C. to visit my cousin Soraya, and I took the kids to visit my cousin Matthew in Albuquerque. I was in for a shock.

Sure, south and west of Albuquerque is pretty much as I expected from movies, TV, and some nebulous assumptions I had picked up from somewhere (ie Desert), but to the north and east of the city is fertile farm lands and alpine country. The environment here is just as stunning and beautiful, if obviously different, as any place to be found in California.

What is more, the culture of New Mexico is fascinating and irresistible  - being a blend of Native Indians, European Spanish, and a culture I will simply refer to as American. In fact, despite the name, New Mexico has very little in common with actual Mexico - something I had witnessed first hand, been told by locals, and backed up by research of my own.

I love the New Mexican cuisine (Red or Green?), the architecture, the people, the art, the history (my God! The history!), the weird blend of conservatives and liberals - sometimes all in the same person, and yes, the landscape. Side Note: While visiting the Valles Caldera, I became alerted to the presence of the TV show Longmire which is filmed exclusively in New Mexico, and also became aware of the sheer amount of shows and movies filmed in this state.

There is so much to say about New Mexico and each point (eg food) will eventually get a post for itself. Given half an opportunity I would move there in a heartbeat. In fact, until a recent situation required me to stay put in California there were actual plans in motion to move. I will get there someday.

In the meantime enjoy these vacation pictures (including the one at the top) from my first trip the Land of Enchantment.

A pair of extinct volcanoes (named Black and JA) just west of ABQ.

From the top of JA Volcano looking east towards ABQ.

A Pueblo Indian petroglyph at the Petroglyph National Monument

Santa Fe National Forest near Sulphur Springs

The "crater" of the Valles Caldera National Preserve

Adrian, Matthew, Jeff, and Polina outside the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi (Santa Fe)

-Brent

"It is all very beautiful and magical here - a quality which cannot be described. You have to live it and breathe it, let the sun bake into you. The skies and the lands are so enormous, and the detail so precise and exquisite that wherever you are you are isolated into a glowing world between the macro and the micro, where everything is sidewise under you and over you, and the clocks stopped long ago." - Ansel Adams (speaking of New Mexico)