An Addition to Current Reading

Slowly but surely I'm updating the Current Reading list here to show you what I'm actually reading. I just added Journey to the High Southwest to that list. This is a really good travel book, as may be evidenced by its having gone through eight editions. It covers the Four Corners area of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah (not in that order), as well as Santa Fe. We traveled extensively in the Four Corners area last fall - see albums at my Facebook page - and we visited New Mexico again in late March, spending two nights in Albuquerque and a night in Santa Fe. We found this book helpful in Albuquerque, as it steered us to the old Plaza area, to La Hacienda restaurant, and to great birding at the Rio Grande Nature Center State Park.

More later.

The Road to Socorro

Friday we left Colorado Springs and drove through a snow-covered landscape down to New Mexico. (The section south of Pueblo down to Raton Pass really was snow-covered.) We were aiming to stay in Socorro, so we could make an early start at birding at Bosque del Apache NWR. But south of Isleta Pueblo, and five miles north of Las Lunas, we were brought to a halt. A convention of law enforcers stopped southbound traffic on I-25 and turned us back to Albuquerque. We never did find out the cause or nature of the accident.

But we found a room at the Best Western Inn & Suites near the Albuquerque airport, and we wandered down to Central Avenue near the University of New Mexico for dinner that night. The Olympia Cafe, it turns out, has a very nice Greek combination plate. So, a very nice experience achieved through happenstance.