new mexico
Snapshots Sunday: New Mexico
This is somewhat of a companion piece to Walsenburg and Fort Sumner. These were shots taken after we left Fort Sumner and were on our way to Walsenburg. We passed by the Raton-Clayton volcanic field, which includes the Capulin Volcano National Monument. The Marine was in a hurry to head north and wasn’t interested in stopping for a volcano. ~Vic

December 2008
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Wayback Wednesday: New Mexico 1912

Image Credit: Wikipedia & Wikimedia
One hundred, nine years ago, today, New Mexico was admitted to the Union, becoming the 47th state. In Spanish, it is Nuevo México and in Navajo, it is Yootó Hahoodzo. It’s capital city is Santa Fe, founded in 1610 as the capital of Nuevo México, a province of New Spain. It’s largest city is Albuquerque and it is part of the Four Corners area of the southwest US. It is the fifth largest state and has a thriving film industry. It is home to the Los Alamos Lab, the White Sands Missile Range and the Sandia Lab. It is home to part of the Navajo Nation, Puebloan Peoples and Apache tribes. At one time, prehistorically, it was home to Ancestral Puebloans, Mogollon, Comanche and Ute Peoples. It has the the highest percentage of Hispanic & Latino Americans and the second-highest percentage of Native Americans, as a population, after Alaska. National New Mexico Day is June 14. Salute!
Snapshots Sunday: Walsenburg

As a companion piece to the Fort Sumner post, my ex-Marine and I headed north, still on our way to Liar’s Lodge. We headed into snow and landed in Walsenburg, Colorado, in Huerfano County, a town smaller than the one I am living in and, as of 2019, continues to hemorrhage people from a peak of 5,855 in 1940. We arrived after dark and stopped to eat. There’s not much there, back then or now. ~Vic

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the diner looks like it’s from 1974.
Alpine Rose Cafe
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We had a decent meal.
It’s still there as of 2018.
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It appears to still be there.
It is the only home of Colorado Rockies Baseball
in Southern Colorado.

The lights in the windows are odd.
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while I was attempting another picture.
Additional Reading:
Returning to the Place I’d Never Been (Acts & Tracks/radioronin.wordpress.com)
City of Walsenburg (colorado.gov)
Walsenburg (colorado.com)
Walsenburg (Uncover Colorado)
Shutterbug Saturday: Old Fort Sumner Museum
I lived in Texas for nearly a decade. My ex-Marine and I did some traveling through the west when we had opportunities. I’ve been digging around in some old stuff and found some photos from a visit to the Old Fort Sumner Museum in New Mexico in December of 2008. We were on our way to Liar’s Lodge. The museum closed in 2017. ~Vic

It was so overcast.
It never occurred to me to take pictures inside.

Lucien Maxwell
Fort Sumner
Bosque Redondo

Joe Bowlin
Notice the reference to Texas International Airlines
Jarvis P. Garrett is Pat’s son.
UPI Article on the 1981 Recovery

Charlie Bowdre December 23, 1880
Tom O’Folliard December 19, 1880

AKA William H. Bonney
AKA Billy The Kid
July 14, 1881
“The boy bandit king,
he died as he lived.”
Late Add:
Photo Credit: Erans World
02-11-2014
Click to view full picture.
Additional Reading:
BTKOG (Billy the Kid Outlaw Gang Site)
Whiskey and the Devil: Taiban, New Mexico (City of Dust Blogspot January 10, 2012)
Billy the Kid’s Two Graves (Roadside America August 15, 2020)
Caught With His Pants Down: Billy the Kid vs Pat Garrett (True West Magazine August 1, 2010)
Brushy Bill Roberts (Wikipedia)
Throwback Thursday: SN 1054

While my nation celebrates its Independence Day (and twenty-six other nations in the month of July), nine-hundred & sixty-five years ago, today, Supernova 1054 was discovered.
SN 1054 is a supernova that was first observed on 4 July 1054 and remained visible for around two years. The event was recorded in contemporary Chinese astronomy [..]. [There is] a pictograph associated with the Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) culture found near the Peñasco Blanco site in New Mexico. The remnant of SN 1054, which consists of debris ejected during the explosion, is known as the Crab Nebula (M1). It is located in the sky near the star Zeta Tauri (ζ Tauri) The core of the exploding star formed a pulsar called the Crab Pulsar. When the French astronomer Charles Messier watched for the return of Halley’s Comet in 1758, he confused the nebula for the comet as he was unaware of the former’s existence. Motivated by this error, he created his catalogue of non-cometary nebulous objects, the Messier Catalogue, to avoid such mistakes in the future. The nebula is catalogued as the first Messier object […].
[Source]

Chinese astronomers watching the sky on July 4, 1054, noted the appearance of a new or guest star just above the southern horn of Taurus. Other observations of the explosion were recorded by Japanese, Arabic and Native American stargazers. In 1731, British astronomer John Bevis observed a cloudy blob in the sky and added it to his star atlas. Although [Messier] credited himself with its discovery in his first publication of the Messier Catalog, he acknowledged Bevis’ original finding in subsequent versions after receiving a letter from the astronomer. Around 1844, [Irish] astronomer William Parsons, the third Earl of Rosse, sketched the nebula. The resemblance of the image to a crustacean led to M1’s other name, the Crab Nebula. In the early 20th century, astronomers (Carl Lampland/1921 & Edwin Hubble/1928, included) were able to take more detailed measurements of M1 and determined that it is expanding. Working backwards, they determined its origination date and matched the explosion up with observations from Chinese and Native American records.
[Source]

Alex Marentes
flickr.com
earthsky.org
It is likely that skywatchers of the Anasazi People in the American Southwest also viewed the bright new star in 1054. Historic research shows that a crescent moon was visible in the sky very near the new star on the morning of July 5, the day following the observations by the Chinese. The pictograph above, from Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, is believed to depict the event. The multi-spiked star to the left represents the supernova near the crescent moon. The handprint above may signify the importance of the event, or may be the artist’s “signature.”
[Source]
Happy 4th, everyone! ~Vic