The Duke City

Albuquerque has been nicknamed "Duke City" because one of the old Spanish governors named the city "Albuquerque" after a Spanish Duke.

Kim and I just returned from a trip to Duke City to visit our son, Ryan and his wife, Amy. They moved out there a couple of months ago to help some college theater friends renovate and open a theater. Not the movie type, but a live theater with all it takes to put on a play to entertain the people of Albuquerque. We thought it was quite a risky undertaking at first, but having seen their building and heard about all of their plans, I'm excited too. I can't wait to return to see the finished product. For the before pictures, click on my Flickr link from this page.

While Ryan and Amy went to work to earn a living, Kim and I took a look around the dry, hot land outside of the main city. The mountains are filled with ancient markings of people that inhabited Albuquerque long before any Duke ever lived. We walked around ancient petroglyphs in Boca Negra Canyon. That's where I am in the picture posted here. We took several pictures of the drawings as we thought about the people that once lived there and etched their bit of history on the boulders so we could find them today.

While driving back to Texas, we came to Malpais Valley where lava once spewed out of volcanic vents in the earth thousands of years ago. The black oozing stretched over 17 miles. It was most evident that the flowing of hot sticky lava onto a valley floor would forever showcase this bit of history for all to see and learn. I thought this was an extraordinary piece of earth to view.

New Mexico certainly has a lot to teach us about our country's history. Home one day to repack, we will journey to places that will teach us about a different time more closely related to our own. Friday we leave to see New York, Connecticut, and a bit of Massachusetts.

Check back next week when I hope to blog about the last excursion of our summer vacation.