I'm new here and lived in the east all my life. I love New Mexico mainly for the landscape. The electric blue sky. The mountain ranges punctuating the desert. I live a 7,200 ft in the shadow of a 12,000 ft peak and I can be hiking in a wilderness area after only a fifteen minute drive - that's very cool, The people here are so much mellower than back east. In fairness, the problem back east is that there are just so many people. I came from a suburb of Washington DC, Fairfax County, where the 2000 census showed over one million people just in that one county - what's that like a third the population of the whole state here? The only thing I'm having trouble dealing with is the water situation. I used to be a sea kayaker. The mouth of the Potomac river where it enters the Chesapeake Bay is twelve miles wide. Out here a little creek literally 12 inches wide is called a river. I don't think I'll ever get used to that but I do appreciate water now much more than I did before and a trickle of stream gives me a happy feeling - ah, water!
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New Mexico
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Re: Eastern Perspective
Tue, March 25, 2008 - 11:26 PMI knew you were talking about Sierra Blanca just from the description, before I even checked your photos.
There is only one mountain in NM that is almost exactly 12K feet.
That mountain is one of my favorite places in the world.
Where do you live, exactly? Sounds like Ruidoso, probably.
I grew up around there. -
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Re: Eastern Perspective
Wed, March 26, 2008 - 7:21 AMRuidoso - sold our 2 bedroom 1200 sq ft house in Virginia for $530,000 about one second before the bottom of housing market fell out and bought a trailer here on a quarter acre for $79,000 - what a bargain! I call it a cabin and it has a view east of the upper part of town and the sacremento mountains to the east and southeast - million dollar view. I can see Sierra Blanca from the top of our driveway where it looks like it's only a couple miles away but I guess is actually maybe ten miles away. Everyday when I walk the dogs down the road I just look around still in wonder at the high mountains. I've always been an outdoor guy. The highest mountain on the entire east coast is only 6,600 ft, lower than the village of Ruidoso.
Anyone gets over this way look me up for lunch or whatever, that would be cool.
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Re: Eastern Perspective
Wed, March 26, 2008 - 11:03 AMI don't think the entire population of New Mexico is much over 1 million. There are only about 400 thousand people in the Albuquerque area (last I heard anyway, may have increased in the last few years). I agree with you that the crazyness of the big cities is the crowding, I call it 'crowded rat syndrome'. You can't be friendly because half the people will be afraid of you and the other half will think you are stupid and try to take advantage of you. -
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Re: Eastern Perspective
Wed, March 26, 2008 - 1:02 PMwow that's lower than what I though, even. I noticed driving to Rosewell or up to Sante Fe even that there are vast areas of high desert that are virtually "deserted" punctuated with mountains like here in ruidoso, the mountains rising like oasis here and there across the landscape. It's like negative space in art - very beautiful in its openness and emptiness -
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Re: Eastern Perspective
Thu, April 3, 2008 - 10:48 AMI talked to a friend and she said the population of Albuquerque and the surrounding area (100 mile radius probably) is about 600 thousand now. The empty spaces you see are mostly because of military and native reservations, as well as hard land to inhabit. I love New Mexico because of the desert and because of the low population. You can still breathe. -
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Re: Eastern Perspective
Thu, April 3, 2008 - 8:03 PMoh yea, I love it here - the electric blue sky, the laid back people - like Jim Morrison said, "The west is the best"
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Re: Eastern Perspective
Tue, April 22, 2008 - 12:24 PMThere is no other place on the planet like our NM. Really--it's almost like the third world country of the US. Certainly, parts of the Navajo rez are 3rd world. But I love it. The energy here is amazing and the sky is so overwhelmingly beautiful. I moved here from Austin, Texas, and coming back from Peru, I stayed in Austin for two weeks. It just about drove me crazy. I broke out in hives from the stress of being in traffic, seeing billboards everywhere--the energy was stunted there. I am so glad to be here. I live in Pecos--a beautiful small village at the mouth of the Pecos River. I love it!
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Re: Eastern Perspective
Mon, May 12, 2008 - 4:50 PMif you want a lot of water, it's whitewater kayaking season on the Rio Grande around Taos and there's a lot of water this year!!!
