In Las Cruces on the banks of the Rio Grande where the old highway to Deming, Tucson and California crosses the river is La Llorona Park. The river here is shallow and slow even during the summer when water from Elephant Butte reservoir is released for the irrigation needs for farmers. In the lean precipitation years — which happen most of the time — the river is bone dry in the winter while water is diverted upstream to fill the lake about 75 miles north of Las Cruces. At night, it is the perfect place for a ghostly apparition.

The city park is the dedicated to the legend of La Llorona, a legendary figure in Mexican and New Mexican folklore. The story of La Llorona is about a tortured woman who drowned her two children in a fit of rage, then drowned herself after she realized the terrible thing she had done. It is said that she now wanders the banks of the rivers or other bodies of water while searching for her dead children. The legend says she floats effortlessly just above the ground while moaning in sorrow for her lost children.

Sources say the legend began in Mexico in 1850, possibly out of an Aztec folk story. One version says she fell in love with a man who loved her two children more than he loved her. To spite him, she drowned her children.

In New Mexico, there is a story about a Native American woman named Malinche, who was an assistant to Cortez in his conquest of Mexico and the Southwest. When Cortez married a Spanish woman and spurned Malinche’s love, it is said she killed her two children for spite after being betrayed by the explorer.

There have been many reports of sightings of La Llorona over the centuries in New Mexico. In the 1930s, a young man in Santa Fe said he saw a woman wearing a shimmering white dress gliding effortlessly just above the ground near his home as she floated toward a body of water. No footprints were ever found.

During my current job as an early voting clerk for the Nov. 4 local election, two people told me stories about La Llorona in Las Cruces. One main claimed to have seen her when he was fishing one evening near the Mesilla Dam. A woman said her mother would tell her if she wasn’t good “La Llorona will get you.”

And now, just in time for Halloween and Day of the Dead, Mattel has introduced a La Llorona Barbie. You could have had one for just $110, but they’re already sold out. In fact, a story in the El Paso times last week said they were sold out almost immediately after the dolls were offered.

The story in the El Paso times says the doll “is is a hauntingly beautiful representative of the Mexican folkore. She is draped in white lace with a corset bodice, blue underskirt and sleeves that lay over her frosty blue hands.” Her neck and face are painted in traditional Day of the Dead designs and she wears a black rose headdress.

No doubt it will be a valuable collector’s item.

Our daughter had various Barbie dolls when she was growing up, but she didn’t treat them like collectors items. In fact, when she was done with them, some looked more like “Weird Barbie” in the recent Barbie movie. Some of their hair was whacked off and on one of the dolls, the toes were chewed off.

If she had treated the La Llorna Barbie like that, she might have been haunted for life. But our daughter is now a successful young mother of two and I’m glad she’s moved beyond the Weird Barbie phase.

The Albuquerque Journal carried a story this week about a plan floated by University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University students to establish some kind of traveling trophy to be awarded to the winner of the annual football game between the two rivals.

Their idea was to mount a table-top chile roaster on a wooden platform, with the logos of each school literally burned into the wood that holds the metal contraption.

I own one of these devices myself, and find it’s rather unruly to move out of my garage and set it up on an outdoor table during chile roasting season. But for some strong young men who have massive doses of testosterone and adrenalin pumped into them after winning the rivalry game, it should be no problem to hoist the roaster into the air to seal the victory.

There was an earlier trophy used to commemorate the winner of the annual UNM-NMSU game. It was the idea of the late New Mexico businessman George Maloof, who wanted a rifle reportedly owned by famous New Mexico frontiersman Kit Carson to be awarded to the winner of the UNM-NMSU game. Everyone assumed it was to be a traveling trophy.

UNM won the trophy the last time it was presented and the story goes that then Lobo coach Rocky Long simply decided to keep it permanently for the school or maybe in his personal collection of sports memorabilia.

College football rivalries have many unusual trophies presented to winners of the annual matchup. For example, there is the “Little Brown Jug” awarded to the winner of the Michigan-Minnesota football game. Minnesota also vies for winning the “Paul Bunyan’s Axe” when they play Wisconsin.

Oregon and Oregon State just competed for the platypus trophy, a wood carving of an animal that appears to capture the features of both a duck and a beaver — those schools’ mascots.

There’s also the “Keg of Nails” trophy between Cincinnati and Louisville, the “Old Brass Spittoon” between Michigan State and Indiana and the Jeweled Shillelagh for the USC-NotreDame game.

My favorite is “The $5 Bits of Broken Chair” trophy presented to the winner of the Minnesota-Nebraska football game. The award didn’t exist until Nebraska joined the Big 10 Conference several years ago and fans wanted a trophy of some kind to commemorate the event. The trophy was established in 2014 prior to the November Big 10 football match-up between the two schools. In an exchange on Twitter, accounts for Minnesota’s mascot Goldy Gopher and a parody account of then Nebraska football coach called Fake Bo Pelini (@FauxPelini) made a wager. With a good amount of humor and teasing between the two schools, “The $5 Bits of Broken Chair” was created.

The unusual trophy has continued in use and has also become a focal point to raise funds for charitable purposes in both Minnesota and Nebraska.

Here’s a link to most of the rivalry trophies in college football:

https://www.picksixpreviews.com/trophy-case.html

As I researched this, it occurred to me that there might be more iconic things to represent the essence of New Mexico in the UNM-NMSU football rivalry.

How about the “Plastic Wal-Mart Bag tangled in a Tumbleweed or Mesquite Bush” trophy? We seem to have those everywhere in the Land of Enchantment.

Or how about the “Green Chile Cheeseburger” trophy? We have contests at the New Mexico State Fair for our favorite burger in New Mexico. Why not preserve one in plastic on top of a Coors beer place mat?

Then there’s the “Rubber Tire Roof Protector” trophy idea. How many times when we’ve driven around New Mexico do we see car tires spread across the roof of mobile homes to protect them from the howling springtime winds that we tolerate in our state.

Or how about a “Book of Espanola Jokes” trophy? Nothing says New Mexico like a rude joke about that city.

Or we could dig up a piece of greenish glass Trinitite from the first atomic bomb test site near Socorro. Of course, it still might be radioactive, so it would probably need to be encased in a large lead box — maybe a little awkward to carry on the football field after the rivalry game.

Since New Mexico is one of only a few states that has a state insect, we could create the “Tarantula Hawk Wasp” trophy. The wasp is known for paralyzing tarantula spiders, then laying eggs in the arachnid’s body. The eggs hatch and then devour what’s left of the spider. The idea for the state insect was promoted by some ghoulish school children several years ago.

And what’s even more traditional in New Mexico than people not using their car’s turn signals. How about the “Never Been Used Turn Signal Assembly” trophy. There are lots of pristine examples out there

The list could go on forever. Send me your suggestions and I’ll post them in a follow-up. In the meantime, let’s all cheer for the chile roaster trophy to be brought to Las Cruces this weekend.

The town of Ruidoso had its beginnings around 1868 with the construction of a water powered mill that was first used to cut timber, then later used to grind grain produced by farmers in the area.

It became the hub of activity in Ruidoso in the late 1800s, attracting such visitors such as Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing and the Apache chief Geronimo. It served as a post office for many years, as well as a general store and blacksmith shop. It was a regular stop for travelers from El Paso, Fort Stanton and the Mescalero Apache reservation. At one point, the name “Dowlin’s Mill” was considered for the name of Ruidoso. Anyone who has driven along the main drag in Ruidoso — Sudderth Drive — has seen the structure that gives such historical significance to the southern New Mexico mountain community.

Known originally as Dowlin’s Mill for its builder, Capt. Paul Dowlin, and later as just “The Old Mill,” the historic structure is still standing. Its iconic water wheel is still visible but currently not operating and in need of repair.

The building, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013, has had its share of hardships in recent years, including an explosion in 2017 from a gas leak which severely damaged the adobe and rock structure. At one point, plans to demolish the structure were considered.

I remember the Old Mill fondly from my childhood in Ruidoso. It was owned and operated by the family of Carmon Phillips. Phillips was a good friend of my father’s, who operated it as a bookstore. He was also a photographer who also processed film for others, including photos for my father’s newspaper, the Ruidoso News.

I also remember that years ago, my wife’s former boss at the New Mexico State Library in Santa Fe was Ed Dowlin, who claimed to be a descendant of the mill’s founder.

I got a tour of the work underway to restore the Old Mill two weeks ago when I attended a Ruidoso High School reunion. The tour was given by Michael and Delana Clements. Delana is the daughter of Carmon Phillips and she and her husband have started an effort to restore the historic structure and turn it into a gift shop, museum and performing arts venue.

The mill itself has an interesting history. It was first built on land just north of its present location across Sudderth Drive, but a flood severely damaged that structure and it was moved south to its present location. Ironically, that original location was swept clean again just last summer in one of several flooding events following heavy rainfall on burn scars on the slopes and foothills of Sierra Blanca.

The water-powered mill was first used to cut timber for use at nearby Fort Stanton, then later powered a grinding wheel inside the main structure to process grains.

It is said that outlaw Billy the Kid of Lincoln County War fame was a frequent visitor to the Old Mill. Apparently well liked, he occasionally attended dances there. However, one day when authorities were searching for him, friends hid “The Kid” inside a flour barrel in the building to help him avoid capture.

In the mid 1870s, mill founder Paul Dowlin sold half of his interest in the building to Frank Lesnett, who operated the mill part of the operation. Dowlin, who was also the village’s postmaster, was fatally shot in 1877 outside the building by a local cowboy and mill employee during a heated argument. His brother, John, then took ownership of Paul’s half interest.

The building was originally made of adobe and rock, which has held up surprisingly well for more than 150 years. There are still places that you can look from the inside the building through cracks in the rock and adobe to see the outside, but the walls seem to be fairly sturdy.

The wheel was powered by water that was channeled to the site from nearby Carrizo Creek by a viaduct, parts of which can still be found today. The wood and metal wheel — more than 20 feet in diameter — was in bad repair when the Phillips family acquired the property in 1950. They rebuilt it with timbers from a nearby abandoned mine and put it back into operating condition. I remember its steadfast rotation during my years growing up in Ruidoso, kind of like those big clocks on large urban buildings that were a reassuring reminder that things were always in motion but running smoothly.

But now, according to Michael Clements, the wheel in need of another restoration.

“It’s more bolts than wood,” he lamented.

I’d strongly recommend going to the website devoted to restoring the Old Mill to learn more about it and its history. Here’s the website:

https://historicoldmill.com/

There are a couple of videos on the website you can watch and there is a link for making donations to the restoration project, which I also recommend.

The Clements say they hope the restoration work will be completed next year. If you’re driving through Ruidoso sometime next spring or summer, I recommend stopping by to see what it looks like and enjoy being in a building with a lot of character and history.

As I’ve done many times in the past, I did a presentation to a group of elementary school students last week about hot air ballooning. I usually did a demonstration with my balloon on the school playground, but since I no longer have a balloon and stopped flying about four years ago, this presentation was just in the classroom.

The students were third graders at White Mountain Elementary in Ruidoso, where you may remember that I’ve done work with the Trout Unlimited “Trout in the Classroom” program. One of the teachers at White Mountain Elementary remembered that I was a hot air balloon pilot and asked me if I’d talk to her class about that. I was honored that she had asked and agreed to do a presentation to about 140 third graders since I had to travel to Ruidoso last week for another event.

The presentation by PowerPoint went well enough, I thought, based on the attentiveness of most of the eight- or nine-year-olds and the questions they asked. They usually want to know things like how far I fly, how high above the earth can I go, where I can fly and whether I get scared when I’m in the air.

I tried to be sure to answer questions randomly around the group of students gathered in the school cafeteria. Toward the end of my time, there was an especially attentive young girl who kept poking her hand up every time I paused for a new question. I decided to call on her and her question was this:

“Why would you fly in a balloon when you could just walk?” she asked.

I have to admit I was perplexed with that question.

I attempted to answer by rambling on about why we should be curious about discovering new things, like flying, and saying that the view from above would be much more interesting than just walking the three or four miles traveled in a typical balloon flight.

But she did have a bit of a point, except that you usually don’t travel in a hot air balloon just to get somewhere. In fact, most of the time I flew balloons, I never knew exactly where I was going to end up, given the variables of winds at different altitudes. I think that’s one of the things that makes ballooning interesting — it’s an adventure, not just a boring destination-specific exercise.

And to add a bit of historical background, some early ballooning did have destinations in mind, such as in the Siege of Paris in 1870-1871 when the Prussian Army surrounded the French city. Unmanned hot air balloons — no doubt following the discoveries by the Montgolfier brothers — flew mail and communications from the inside the city to sympathizers in the surrounding countryside to help with breaking the siege.

But I was really more curious about why this young girl didn’t see the value in pursuing the unknown — like giving humans an opportunity to fly above the earth.

As I pondered her question the rest of the day, I could think of other examples. What if we hadn’t pursued inventing a phone that we could communicate with anyone else on the earth. What if we just continued to use smoke signals to communicate with nearby friends and neighbors? What if we hadn’t invented a phone that we could take with us anywhere?

What if we hadn’t invented things like comfortable homes, plumbing, electricity, heating and cooling so we didn’t have to live in dark, cold caves the rest of our lives.

What if we hadn’t become interested in fire and figured out a way to harness it to cook our meals and heat our homes.

In the end, I’m not sure I ever understood the core of her question. But she was right. Flying in a balloon just to get from point A to point B is a pretty dumb way of doing things, involving a lot of work that good two feet could do more efficiently.

This blog started off in my mind to determine if there were any cobblestone streets in New Mexico like the ones we encountered on our recent trip to San Miguel, Mexico, where virtually all streets in the historic downtown area are paved in rounded rocks.

I was fairly certain that we’d find none of those in New Mexico, despite Spanish and other European influences in our state’s early history. What was prevalent in most of New Mexico towns were basically just adobe streets that were dusty during the dry times and muddy bogs during the monsoon or winter seasons.

I did, however, suspect that the next closest thing to cobblestone streets would be streets paved with bricks, most likely in cities in eastern New Mexico. Many towns in west Texas that I’m familiar with had brick paved streets, particularly in the downtown areas. Lubbock and Amarillo specifically come to mind. Some brick streets in Lubbock were partially built by the Works Progress Administration, an effort by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” program to pull America out of the Great Depression. None of Amarillo’s streets appear to have been constructed by the WPA.

(An interesting side note I found online said that Lubbock decided it wanted to make itself look better with fancy brick streets when a decision was made to locate what is now Texas Tech University in that city rather than competing northern neighbor Amarillo.)

At any rate, the only old brick streets I could find in eastern New Mexico were in Clovis, apparently not built by the WPA. (I suspect there are others, and if you have knowledge about them, let me know. There are currently brick streets around the Mesilla Plaza, the Albuquerque Old Town Plaza and the Santa Fe Plaza, but those are relatively new, added to give character to these historic locations.)

I found an article in the 2018 edition of the Eastern New Mexico news that brick streets in Clovis were being refurbished. Articles I have found only date the brick streets to “the early 1900s.” The area of the brick streets is now a focal point in downtown clovis, including the refurbished “Hotel Clovis” which was claimed by developers to be the tallest building between Dallas and Albuquerque when it was built in 1931.

When doing research on WPA projects to identify possible brick street construction, I discovered that there had been more than 360 construction projects in New Mexico conducted through that program, several here in Las Cruces and in my home town of Ruidoso.

There were several buildings on the New Mexico State University campus that were constructed or expanded by the WPA, including Goddard Hall, Milton Hall, Dove Hall and Kent Hall. Artwork by artist Tom Lee was produced through the WPA program for the Branson Library.

Both the old Court Junior High School Building and the old Dona Ana County Courthouse were partially constructed with WPA program money and there is artwork in the old Branigan library that was funded through the WPA.

In Ruidoso where I grew up, there is an old gymnasium built by the WPA where I once played my only game as a member of the junior high school basketball team. I recall that I forgot which goal was ours and began running toward the wrong one when the coach’s loud yell quickly corrected my lack of directional acuity. That building still stands today as well as an old metal lookout tower in the middle of town where I frequently climbed to take in the views.

One of the most memorable structures near Ruidoso that was done by the WPA was the Mon Jeau lookout tower, a few miles north of the city on the top of a 9,603 foot high ridge. Beautifully constructed of rock in the late 1936 and then updated in 1940, the tower overlooked the northern part of the Lincoln National Forest. It was seriously damaged during the Little Bear 2012 forest fire which raged through area. It was always one of my favorite places to go when I was growing up in Ruidoso.

We are still reminiscing about our memorable trip to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, two weeks ago when we stayed with long-time friends who have a home there and will likely soon move there permanently.

I wanted to share with you some of our favorite photos from the trip with a little bit of explanation for each and some background about San Miguel, the city of about 170,000 (including 20,000 American ex-pats and about 3,000 Canadians).

San Miguel de Allende is probably not known to a lot of Americans, although it has deep ties to the United States. Following World War II, two Americans established an art institute on the then outskirts of the town and attracted many young men who had served in the war to come and study art there. The Americans who established the art program somehow managed to arrange for the GI Bill to cover the tuition costs for the returning American servicemen who were interested in establishing a career in art. Here’s a link about the Instituto Allende if you want to learn more.

https://www.thenotsoinnocentsabroad.com/blog/instituto-allende-the-influential-arts-school-that-shaped-san-miguel-de-allende

In addition, San Miguel de Allende has a prominent place in the history of the Mexican war for independence, which separated the country from the rule of Spain. San Miguel was the first city in present-day Mexico to have been liberated from Spain. Two prominent figures in the history San Miguel were Miguel Hidalgo, a Catholic priest, and Ignacio Jose de Allende y Unzaga, a Spanish army officer who became sympathetic to the quest for Mexican independence. Hidalgo, whose full name was Don Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla Gallaga Mandarte y Villaseñor is considered the father of the Mexico and was also known as “El Zorro” of “The Fox” because of his cleverness. He was recruited to the cause of Mexican independence by Allende, who was born in San Miguel. Allende’s name is now permanently attached to the town in central Mexico.

Here’s a Wikipedia link if you want to learn more about Mexico’s successful struggle for independence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_War_of_Independence

Because of its unique nature, it was also named as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2008. Here’s a link about the city:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Miguel_de_Allende

Enough about the history. Here are some photos with a brief explanation of each:

My wife and I returned last Wednesday from a week-long adventure to San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico. It was a wonderful experience (except for an unpleasant incident at the border when we crossed back into the United States.)

But for now, we remember the trip as something memorable and educational, thanks to two very good friends who invited us to visit that colorful and artistic city that many Americans may never have heard about. I’ll provide more comment with pictures about our adventure there in future blogs.

Getting there and getting around San Miguel involved “Planes, Shuttle Buses (no Trains) and Automobiles,” all of which gave me a unique insight into how different transportation is there vs. here in the U.S.

We flew out of the airport in Juarez, Mexico, because it was cheaper and it had a direct flight to the city nearest city with a commercial airport to San Miguel . Rather than drive ourselves to the airport in Juarez, we hired a young woman who has a side business of shuttling people to and from Las Cruces to the airport. Unless you’re proficient with the tangle of roads and traffic in Juarez, I’d recommend that you not try to the get to the airport yourself and leave the job to a recommended expert.

We got to the airport on time, then because we were flying on Viva AeroBus, the Mexican equivalent of Southwest Airlines, we had to board the plane with portable steep stairstep ramps. Planes flown by the more expensive airlines (Aero-Mexico) got the full jetway treatment and passengers didn’t have to stand outside in in the hot sun.

On board the aircraft, it looked like any other Airbus 320, except the seats were a bit cheaper and uncomfortable and we were not offered any in-flight beverages or snacks since we had not signed up to get them. We were able to communicate fairly easily with the flight attendants, who knew enough English to get by.

Our flight was to take us to Leon, but when we pulled up to the ramp at the airport where we landed, the terminal was emblazoned with a sign welcoming us to “Guanajuato,” which it turns out is the state in which Leon and San Miguel are located. We were a bit panicked for a few minutes, worrying that we had boarded the wrong plane, but were able to quickly figure it out.

Our next adventure was on a shuttle bus, which arrived about 15 minutes late because of a driving thunderstorm that had flooded roads and the airport’s parking lot (and luckily hit only moments after we had landed.) The shuttle bus took us through the urban areas of Leon (including passing by the huge General Motors plant where my GMC pickup was made), then headed out to a winding country road. On the way, our driver seemed to pay no attention to speed limits, lane markings or the physics of hurtling a large clumsy van along a winding road that would be best suited for a Porsche at speed. It was a bit of a white knuckle ride.

Our next adventure involved local cab and Uber trips. The streets in San MIguel are mostly paved with middle-age cobblestones and any ride on them is a jarring experience. I have no idea how vehicles can hold together after even a few months of traveling these roads, but one taxi driver told me that most cabs (usually Nissan Sentras painted bright green and white) can last for about 10 years.

The other issue you face are immense speed bumps, not only on local streets, but on rural roads. Some of these speed humps are more like “speed mountains,” daring you to test the limits of your vehicle’s ground clearance.

All of our drivers in cabs, Uber and vans were very friendly and helpful and knew enough English (along with my fractured Spanish) to get us where we needed to go. Our best trip was when a young driver had his three or four year old son with him on a ride back to where we were staying. He was very cute, engaged with his dad and at the end of the ride gave me a thumbs up and said “bye bye” in English.

Our van trip back to the airport was fine (except that I asked at one point if we were going the right direction). Our flight back was on time and uneventful, in another Airbus 320 that we had to board through steep portable stairs.

The flight reminded me of a trip to Mexico my family and I took back when I was in elementary school. The local airport operator in Ruidoso owed my father some money for advertising in our family-owned newspaper, and as a trade-out, the airport operator agree to fly our family of four in his Cessna 180 directly to Guaymas, on the Gulf of California. The trip down was uneventful. When we got to the airport — basically just a dirt landing strip — we took a cab to our beach hotel. The next day, that same cab driver came to the hotel and announced that one of tires had gone flat and offered to help our pilot fix it. Our pilot rode with him to the dirt airstrip, pumped up the tire with air and injected some kind of “Fix-A-Flat” goo into the tire, which then seemed to hold air. I later figured out that the taxi driver had staged a scam to get a big tip by merely letting air out of the airplane tire, then warning us about the problem and earning a second cab fare.

We flew from Guaymas to Hermosillo, Mexico, the next day and I was terrified as we began our landing sequence that the tire would have gone flat once we touched the runway. I envisioned us flipping over, crashing and bursting in to a ball of flame. But fortunately there was no drama on our landing.

After landing, we had to refuel before continuing on to Ruidoso. While waiting for the fuel, we observed a blue and black Mexicana DC6 airliner getting ready to depart the airport. The pilot had managed to start three of its four engines, but one was being stubborn and would not fire up after several minutes of cranking. Finally, an airport attendant walked out with a 10 or 12-foot 2×4 piece of lumber and began pounding mercilessly on the cowling of the recalcitrant engine. The pilot began the start-up procedure again, and the Pratt & Whitney radial engine sputtered to life, belching both black and white smoke before it finally achieving a regular rhythm of a spinning propeller. I suspect there was a stuck float in the engine’s fuel delivery system, but I’ll never know.

The plane then taxied to the end of the runway and turned to take off. Its four working engines roared as it gained enough airspeed to escape the bonds of gravity and flew off to some other location in Mexico.

Fortunately when we were getting ready to leave Leon, no one had to bang on the cowling of our Airbus 320 to get one of its two turbofan engines started. And the fact that a nun was sitting in our row of seats made us feel even more confident that we would make it home okay.