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June 2021

Home of the Stars

Home of the Stars

  • Travel
If you find yourself traveling along Interstate 40 near Gallup, New Mexico and in need of a place to lay your head, you could do worse than to check yourself into the El Rancho Hotel. It’s an historic hotel built by R.E. “Griff” Griffith, the brother of film
Soda Water

Soda Water

The area along NM Highway 4 south of Los Alamos has a number of hot spring spas. Perhaps it’s because the Valle Grande volcanic area is nearby.

One hot spring, rich in calcium carbonate, slowly built the Soda Dam through pretty much the same process that forms stalagmites and

A Matter of Scale

A Matter of Scale

The Earth will kill you.

This green field beckons. People seem to have a hardwired affinity for green. This particular patch is deceptively huge. There are herds of elk roaming down there that look like ants from there I was standing. In fact, the meadow is fourteen miles in diameter.

Visiting Dr. Atomic

Visiting Dr. Atomic

  • Travel
Prior to the Second World War, there was nothing much to Los Alamos except for a private boarding school for rich Eastern boys and a few homesteaders. When the government decided that Los Alamos was just the place to try to develop an atomic bomb in complete secrecy, the boys
Taos

Taos

  • Travel
Taos has a reputation far beyond its size. You have to endure a long drive through strip malls that your screaming brain thinks will never end to reach the rather charming old core of the village.

Taos has a reputation as an arts community and if your taste runs to

Cool Junque

Cool Junque

Do you have the Roadside America app for your phone? You should if you like finding quirky stuff as you travel. That’s where I found Camel Rock and that’s where I found this jewel.

This collection of, well, “stuff” sits beside the highway with no explanation of who

259

259

  • Travel

We are not given to returning to the same places to do the same things as a way to relive the past. But when we visit Santa Fe we always stay at The Inn of the Governors.

Painted Desert – Part 1

Painted Desert – Part 1

  • Travel

Here’s what I don’t get: the Painted Desert covers thousands of acres, but doesn’t merit national park status on its own.

Get Your Kicks… in the Badlands

Get Your Kicks… in the Badlands

  • Travel
You know why they’re called the Badlands, don’t you? It’s because the area is … bad … land. Having the afternoon temperature pushing 110 degrees – and that’s at 5000 feet – didn’t make them any better.

But I don’t mean to whine about the heat. For someone