North up Route 25, west between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and west of the Blood of Christ Mountains at the Santa Domingo Pueblo is a National Monument called Tent Rocks. I found it in an article in National Geographic magazine three weeks before Sandy and I were to leave to visit our friends Cactus Kathy and Charles in Bernalillo. (Burn ah leo)
On the way through the pueblo just west of the Rio Grande (it's a river), we saw buffalo grazing. After my Senior National Park card got us in for free, I asked the Indian Ranger why they had buffalo. His name was Chris Joe. He said they were a gift from the Jemez (Hay Mezz) Pueblo, and that they were multiplying, and that they didn't quite know what to do with them.
If you are 62 or older, you can purchase a seniors card for $10 and get into National Parks and Monuments with as many as four people in your car for FREE for as long as you live. What a deal. The National Park series on PBS starts tonight. Have you been to visit the Southwest? Well if not, you should start making plans right now.
Tent Rocks is quite beautiful, as you can see. All the land around it is desert. But watch out for rattlesnakes!
As we were descending Tent Rocks, an easy hour and a half climb through a long slot canyon, we passed a couple heading to the top. They stopped and asked us where we were from. They were from a pueblo (Indian village) on the other side of Tent Rocks, over towards Utah. They had retired to Albuquerque recently.
They asked where we were from and we said Boston. They said they had a son graduate from there as a doctor and they themselves had enjoyed Boston. They also drove the Mass. Pike west to see another son who was playing with the Philadelphia Symphony at Tanglewood. Small world.
Oh! I forgot to tell you . . . they were Apache Indians.
You could try, but . . . you really can't make STUFF like this up.
Roberto "Fat Bear" Baconez
