I’ve passed through the Land of Enchantment and visited many of its scenic and historic sites in recent years, but there’s always more to see. After a long drive through West Texas, I stopped initially at the Blackwater Draw Museum and then went to the actual Blackwater Draw archeological site. The Blackwater Draw, an ancient watering hole long since dried and buried, offered the first evidence that humans and Ice Age megafauna cohabited the North American continent some 13,000 years ago.
Just south of the city of Clovis, archeological digs at the site beginning in the 1920s and 30s discovered mammoth bones impaled by chipped chert arrowheads--the eponymous Clovis points used by long ago Native Americans. Back then, the landscape was not desert like it is today but lush, woody meadows.
I camped a little further north in Santa Rosa State Park just outside the city of Santa Rosa. The Juniper Campgrounds offered wide open views of sunset and sunrise over the waters of the dammed reservoir. There was hardly anyone around as I followed the results of the Mississippi GOP Senate primary on my iPhone from shore.
The next day, I got up early and drove north towards Taos. I spent a couple hours wandering the small adobe art enclave then headed to the spectacular Rio Grande Gorge seven miles beyond and comparatively flimsy bridge spanning it. Tourists can walk out to the center of the bridge to snap photos and peer down into the muddy river rushing below. I, of course, did this, but was slightly unsettled when the bridge shuddered every time a semi rolled over it.
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