Notes from traveling across country.
Yesterday my journey eastward took me from Chandler, Arizona thru Payson, AZ and then onto Albuquerque, NM. What a magnificent path through the Tonto National Forrest.
Its elongated inclines from seemingly level desert to five thousand feet changed minute to minute. The visual frames from one climate to another, in moments, were magnificent.
Gigantic patches of Saguaro Cactus, stood tall and sprawling. Their community climbed steep crags of boulder mountainsides and then festooned the open ridgeline with their recognized u-shape fingers of upward growth and elegance.
The recent area rain caused a verdant hue of grasses all the way to the top. Beautiful.
Other cactus patches of Saguaro, Prickly Pear, Stag Horn and Ocotillo lingered along the roadside to augment and honor the brief life of yellow flowering Brittle Bush, Desert Coral, Indian paintbrush, and fuschia flowered barrel cactus. Tiny lavender flowers bordered the edges of the road rejoicing in their brief colorful spender of seasonal moisture.
Albuquerque was my destination for the night. If you can spell it you can live there. It is a spreading city of mercantile and homestead lights nestled at the base of protruding mountains and it is the largest city in New Mexico.
Wikipedia (whom you cannot always trust) offers a number of derivations of the name, but this one I like.
“Western folklore traces the name Albuquerque to the Arabic 'Al-Barquq', meaning "the plum", and the derivative Galician word 'albaricoque', the "apricot". The apricot was brought to New Mexico by Spanish settlers, possibly as early as 1743.
As the story goes, the settlement of La Ciudad de Albaricoque was established near an apricot tree. As frontiersmen were unable to correctly pronounce the Spanish (Galician) word, they warped it to "Albuquerque.”
Tomorrow travels continue eastward. More Later.
RGS
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