| New Site | Old Home | Search | Communities | Counties | Southeast | Southwest | |
 |
| |
| ||||||||||||
Summer
Last updated on Monday, February 24, 2003
Located two miles off U. S. Highway 54 to the east, this large eight-room railroad depot displays the history of a thriving town's brief life and economic demise. It was built in 1902, the same year Ancho was established. On these hot, dry June days when the horizon shimmers, set to dancing by the waves of heat that rise from the ground, I think of beaches. Not ocean beaches - playas -desert beaches. Playas are the dry, incredibly level beds of ancient lakes. Found in desert country throughout the southern Southwest and northern Mexico, and the Great Basin country of western Utah and Nevada, normally-dry playas occasionally fill with a skim of water - sometimes no more than inches deep over many square miles - after a heavy summer rain or spring snowmelt. Such lakes never last more than days or weeks, soon evaporating to leave behind huge expanses of mudflats drying in the sun. Playas were named by Spanish explorers for their resemblance to beaches - very flat beaches. In the thousands of vehicles that travel Interstate 25 between Las Cruces and Albuquerque every day, some occupants have noticed a new highway sign for the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, which spans the Rio Grande a few miles north of Socorro. Not as well-known or accessible as its more famous neighbor to the south, Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, Sevilleta nevertheless occupies a special place in the hierarchy of protected lands due to its stark beauty, diversity, and research activity. Summer in the Southwest is a beautiful season, but the beauty can be harsh and heated. How do you know when summer arrives? Don't bother with the calendar. June 21 has about as much bearing on the Southwest's summer season as both Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays do with the third weekend in February. Is windsurfing a popular sport in this desert land of ours? Travel only as far as Caballo Lake on any breezy day and you can witness a dozen or more windsurfers (also known as boardsailors), sporting wide smiles on their wind-blown faces, as they glide seemingly effortlessly over the white capped waters.
|
||||||||||||