New Mexico Book Settings: Taos
Jul 7, 2017 | About Me, Bullet, Darcy, New Mexico, Travel
This post is dedicated to artist and musician George Chacón who left us too soon. His artwork is prominently displayed in downtown Taos. The piece is signed and his signature is shown at the end of this post.http://taosnews.com/stories/taos-artist-george-chacn-has-died,39640?
In early September 1540, the first European visitors to set foot in Taos were a small artillery detachment under the command of Hernando de Alvardo. As part of Vázquez de Coronado's expedition, they had come in search of the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola. Alvarado's meeting with the Tiwa Indians, who had inhabited the Taos Pueblo for centuries, was peaceful and they exchanged gifts. But over time the peaceful co-existence eroded and led to conflicts between the two cultures over religious beliefs and the treatment of the native people.
In August 1680, a revolt led by Pope, a San Juan Pueblo Indian, resulted in the expulsion of the Spanish from New Mexico. Twelve years later, in August 1692, Don Diego de Vargas led an expedition to conquer and covert souls, but he was probably more interested in locating the local silver mines than converting souls. After he conquered the land, he established Santa Fe as the capital, and the region again fell under the Spanish flag. In 1696, the proud Taos Pueblo Indians made their last stand before surrendering to the Spanish.
I've read several versions of how Taos came to be named. Some Spanish settlers say they heard the Picuris Indians pointing to the northeast where their relatives the "Tao" lived. Most likely, they were referring to the Taos Pueblo Indians. However, between 1796 and 1797 the Don Fernando de Taos Land Grant gave land to sixty-three Spanish settlers in the Taos valley; the town name may have originated from the grant name and was shortened to "Taos."
I first set foot in Taos in December of 1975 during a road trip through the northern part of the state. I was mesmerized by the stark, vast landscape with its honey-brown grasslands that ran on one side of me to red mesas, and on the other, to grassy terrain that touched a turquoise-blue sky. But what really hooked me was the first time I laid eyes on the Taos Plateau, a sheet of white fractured by a massive black chasm, its jagged basalt escarpments dusted in powdery snow and falling to the icy blue waters of the Rio Grande River twisting its way through the canyons.
Late that afternoon I caught sight of Taos Mountain, rising majestically from the desert floor, snow-capped peaks brushing a cloudless sky. Behind me, undulating evergreen hills rose to the ridge top of the Picuris Mountains, the tips of the trees capped in white and dropping to a glowing copper-orange valley under a fiery red-and-violet sunset. I've visited the state often since 1975 and fall deeper in love with the land each time I visit, so it was a delight to set two thrillers in northern New Mexico—Brainwash in Taos and Los Alamos and Gadgets in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Darcy will return to New Mexico in CLON-X and will add Arroyo Seco and Abiquiú to her travel list.
Besides some history of Taos, my main purpose for this post is photographic—to give you a sense of place. In Brainwash, Darcy catches her first glimpse of the historic San Francisco de Asis Mission Church when she meets Elena in Ranchos de Taos to discuss Andrew's mysterious disappearance.
Front of the church and the back with its massive, mud and straw buttresses.
Two breakfast hangouts of ours: Michael's Kitchen and Bent Street Café. Bullet loves the patio.
Out and about, shopping, gallery browsing, and enjoying all the "color."
Photos: Russian Sage and the Taos Plaza.
Photos: Moby Dickens Bookshop (permanently closed). Now, Op. Cit. Books. Outside the bookstore there is a bulletin board. Notice my postings: Brainwash and Gadgets postcards top right.
And I will close as I opened—Rest in Peace, George. Gone, but not forgotten.
New Mexico Book Settings: Santa Fe and Canyon Road
Jun 29, 2017 | About Me, Darcy, Gadgets, New Mexico, Travel, Writing
Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
A Darcy McClain fan once asked me if I knew that Canyon Road was in Santa Fe? Yes, I certainly do, but I see the long, narrow, one-way road as an artistic subculture, a haven onto itself, so in my mind I've always separated the two.
Although Santa Fe was inhabited in 1607, it wasn't truly a settlement until 1609 with the arrival of conquistador Don Pedro de Peralta. The city was the capital of the "Kingdom of New Mexico" (what is today Arizona and New Mexico) and remains the capital of New Mexico. The "Kingdom" was first claimed by the Spanish Crown in 1540 by Vásquez de Coronado, sixty-seven years before the founding of Santa Fe.
In 1680, the Pueblo Indians revolted against their Spanish colonists, killing four hundred and driving the rest back into Mexico. The Pueblo Indians sacked Santa Fe and burned most of the buildings but spared the Palace of the Governors, the oldest public building in America. In 1692, the Spanish returned with reinforcement under the leadership of Don Diego de Vargas and reconquered the region in a bloodless siege.
From 1692 to 1821, Santa Fe prospered, despite constant raids by nomadic Native Americans: Comanches, Apaches, and Navajos who had forged an alliance with the Pueblo Indians. After Mexico gained its independence from Spain in August 1821, American trappers and traders moved into the region. On August 18, 1846, early in the Mexican-American War, General Stephen Watts Kearny took Santa Fe and held it for two years, until Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding New Mexico and California to the United States.
With the arrival of the telegraph in 1868 and the coming of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad in 1880, Santa Fe and New Mexico experienced an economic boom. However, corruption accompanied growth and President Rutherford Hayes appointed Lew Wallace to clean up the territory. He did such a good job that Billy the Kid threatened to kill him. Billy failed and Wallace went on to finish his novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
St. Francis Hotel, mentioned in Gadgets.
New Mexico gained statehood in 1912, and people flocked to Santa Fe's dry climate to cure their tuberculosis. In 1926, Santa Fe vowed to preserve and maintain its ancient landmarks, historical sites, and its rich cultural heritage, making it one of the most intriguing and unique cities in the nation.
The Palace of the Governors appears in Gadgets and will appear again in CLON-X when Darcy stops at the Palace of the Governors to peruse the fine handmade jewelry, mostly silver and turquoise, sold by Native Americans. In such pieces all stones are certified as genuine and there is something for everyone: necklaces, rings, belt buckles, earrings, etc. All are displayed on a blanket on the ground in front of the creator. Take note, most designers selling their wares take cash only. In one instance, I ran around the corner to a nearby ATM, only to return and find my kachina had been sold to another customer. I learned my lesson and when I found a bracelet I really wanted, I asked the seller to hold it for me while I visited the closest ATM. We had bargained on the price, but he was not willing to come down and I was short ten dollars. It is one of my most prized pieces of jewelry. The craftsmanship is superb. I look for him every time I visit Santa Fe, which is often, but I've never seen him again.
Ore House at Milagro was a bar and restaurant located on the upper floor of this building. It was a favorite spot of mine, until I read recently that it had closed. So, it will not be appearing in CLON-X. I was pleased to see that the Plaza Cafe on the lower floor is still going strong.
Canyon Road, which runs parallel to the Acequia Madre ("mother ditch"), an irritation ditch dating back to 1680, is an art district in Santa Fe and has been called the art lover's mecca. I've seen handmade belts from $80 to life-size bronze works selling for $80,000. But the visual feast begins with the street itself. Many of the art galleries are housed in historic adobe buildings, the exteriors dressed up in vibrant floral arrangements, and it is common to see art installations showcased outside. The air is filled with the spicy odor of chile peppers, the tantalizing scent wafting from top-notch eateries like Geronimo and The Compound.
Geronimo Restaurant
In the fall, stroll from one gallery to the next with a glass of wine and enjoy the studio tours. In winter, the cold evenings warm to the soft yellow glow of thousands of luminaries, signaling that Christmas can't be too far away.
New Mexico Book Settings: Albuquerque
Jun 22, 2017 | About Me, Bullet, Darcy, Gadgets, New Mexico, Settings
Gadgets was set primary in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. This blog post showcases Albuquerque Old Town.
Spanish explorers first arrived in Albuquerque in 1540 under the leadership of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, but it wasn't until 1706 that King Philip of Spain gave permission to establish a villa (city) on the banks of the Rio Grande. The colonists chose a spot near the great river, which provided irrigation for their crops and wood from the bosque. Then-governor Francisco Cuervo y Valdés named the newly established villa in honor of the Duke of Alburquerque in Spain. Over the centuries, the first r was dropped from the city's name.
Being religious people, the Spanish settlers immediately erected an adobe chapel, the anchor of the plaza in Albuquerque's Old Town. Surrounding the chapel were adobe homes, clustered close together for protection. Due to unseasonably heavy rains, the chapel collapsed in 1792 and was rebuilt, enlarged, and remodeled several times over the years, and today, San Felipe de Neri Church stands in this location. This is the church Paco and Bullet visited in Gadgets.
In 1979, I attended my first Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Up at 3:00 a.m., I layered on clothes, packed my camera gear into a day pack, and got an early start on the traffic and crowds of fiesta-goers. Shivering in the predawn, I snuggled into my turtleneck and drew my hoodie tighter around my head before I scarfed down a breakfast burrito and polished it off with hot coffee. Minutes before Dawn Patrol, I slung my new Nikon over my shoulder, hoisted the day pack on my back, and roamed the launch field, snapping, rewinding, snapping, and rewinding, rapping off one frame after another. I made a note to equip my Nikon with an autowind motor drive. But at that time my attention was on the sky and mass ascension.
Flashback to 1972, when the fiesta started as a gathering of thirteen balloons and twenty thousand spectators in the parking lot of the Coronado Shopping Center. It has since mushroomed into the largest hot air balloon event in the world. At this year's forty-fifth annual fiesta, six hundred balloons will paint the turquoise New Mexico sky a kaleidoscope of colors. To accommodate the tens of thousands of guests, balloonists, and balloons, the nine-day fiesta is now held at a permanent site called Balloon Fiesta Park.
Stuck in traffic as I left the fairgrounds, I knew it wouldn't be my last fiesta, and who knows, maybe I would top the five hundred photos I had taken that day. In Gadgets the reader can see the event through Darcy's eyes. To learn more about the fiesta–http://www.balloonfiesta.com.
And for the artist in all of us, I thought you might enjoy these photos taken during my jaunt through Old Town. Note the bright colors in the courtyard of the photo of the doorway.
An excerpt from Gadgets
Darcy parked her 4Runner in a visitor's spot and doublechecked the address Randolph had given her. The right address, so she climbed out, pleased by the modern design of the building, from the pink granite to the expanses of turquoise glass banded by chrome to the purple pipe railings on the wraparound balconies. A far cry from the original Colton Aerospace, once housed in an old warehouse in a rundown section of town near the airport.
The building and location for Colton Aerospace was inspired by Sun Healthcare Corporation Campus in Albuquerque's Journal Center. These photos are from the architect's website. The campus was designed by FBT Architects and has panoramic views of the Sandia Mountains. https://fbtarch.com/