The View From Santa Rosa

We be leaving Bernalillo, New Mexico … finally. We were here a week, waiting for the Village of Bernalillo to approve a letter of
introduction. Didn’t feel we could start the job without it, since the Coronado Campground is operated by the village of Bernalillo. Never did get it, though, which should have been a clue that they weren’t totally committed to the map project. We made up a letterhead for the campground, with Bernalillo’s okay, and went with the signature of the Campground Manager, who is totally committed.

It was a hard job and took us two more weeks. Coronado Campground is a gem, but it’s small, not very visible and has never had a map. But we got it done. Made enough money to cover our expenses and worked another Albuquerque park while we were here. It’s our second year on that park, and we did very well. So, three weeks, two parks, not bad.

We have been here through the high colors of New Mexico’s fall. Thescreaming yellow Cottonwoods are brown now. Every day we hear the stressed and pitchy warbling of the Sand Hill Cranes flying overhead, aimed at the Bosque del Apache just south of us. The Inca Doves and jays have run me out of seed and the prairie dogs have gone to ground. Time to go.

The Coronado Campground is on or close to the area where the Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado bivouacked with his soldiers and many native slaves the winter of 1541-42. He left colonists when he continued his search for the fabled seven cities of gold. Considering this information, Bernalillo is older than St. Augustine, Florida, and thus, the oldest city in America. Verification of the colony left at the Bernal Ranch is apparently a problem.

We’re always tickled to find people with ties to Bend, Oregon. Sold an ad to a woman in Bernalillo whose mother, Jewel Stewart, worked for The Bulletin in the 60s. We bonded over a couple of great Bob Chandler stories. Made my day.

We really like Bernalillo. The to-be-expected shopping strip is small and confined to the highway. The dusty little section of old town is full of little adobe dwellings, all with some kind of fence. Fancy houses have an adobe wall, lesser buildings have stick fences, many of them very old, just cut poles planted tightly together. Bernalillo is on the Camino de Real, approximately 20 miles north of Albuquerque, 50 miles south of Santa Fe. People here are very warm and welcoming. While I was waiting to talk to Erasmo at the Chevron Auto Service a Navajo woman explained to me the clan system of her People. It took a long
time, but then I’m still waiting on Erasmo.

We drove to Santa Rosa today, 130 miles east. We are still at 5,000 feet but it is much colder. Temps are still close to 70 during the day, but down in the teens at night. This is another tough job; we’ve done it twice. This park sits at a major crossroads and needs a lot of maps, which raises the print price. There are only so many people in the town of about 2,500, only so many businesses. We’ll give it our best shot, and hope some of those businesses that turned us down last year will
sign on now. We have to be able to make print cost and make enough to cover our costs for fuel.

After Santa Rosa we are still headed south to savor Louisiana, but have found a job in Biloxi, Mississippi. We can probably get a little gumbo there. Many RV parks were shut down after Hurricane Katrina and are just now back up and running, so they need maps. With the temps what they are here, the Gulf Coast is looking pretty good.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. We count you all among our many blessings. I leave you with our favorite Navajo proverb: “Never go to sleep when your meat is on the fire.”

Love,