Refuges, Missions and Adobe 

Adobe home in San Antonio, New Mexico. Hanging chilies called Ristras bring luck.

    Along with going to the Trinity Site yesterday we also managed to take in a national wildlife preserve and landmark archeological site as we were already in the southern part of the state.

    We spend the night in the tiny village of San Antonio (unlike Texas there’s no Alamo here). Nestled on the banks of the Rio Grande there’s a 100-yard long Main Street that boasts on blinking traffic light, a railroad crossing without gates, two bars, a boutique, a farmer’s market, and a two-pump gas station. The saving grace is the San Antonio General Store a 500-square-foot establishment that in addition to beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets also sells local handmade items, prepared foods and really tasty ice cream.

    Our Airbnb is a two-bedroom, vintage adobe home located about a block from the main drag. It’s clean and neat and at just 12 miles from the outer fence of White Sands Missile Test Range, perfectly located.

    Adobe is an excellent, locally sourced material for building in desert climes as it weathers well and the significant mass of the mud-brick walls tempers the temperature swings between the scorching days and chilly nights. Bricks are made of mud, water and usually straw. Once stacked in the desired configuration, a plaster of mud and water is usually applied to both the interior and exterior walls.

    Older adobe buildings, however, are not known for having a lot of windows or natural light. The living room here has just one small window and it’s under the front porch roof. Artificial light is needed even on a bright afternoon. It’s also eerily quite inside and frankly a bit stuffy.

    After visiting the atomic bomb test site, we headed farther South from San Antonio to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Established in 1939, it is a critical stop over for migrating wildfowl such as geese, ducks and especially Sandhill Cranes.     Unfortunately, the Cranes don’t begin arriving from their nesting grounds in the Arctic until late October. And, due to COVID, we find the refuge offices, visitor center and restrooms closed to the public. 

    We grab lunch in Socorro, home of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, then point the Urban Assault Vehicle due north on Interstate 25. The tallest peak overlooking the town has a large “M” drawn with powdered limestone on a steep slope near the top. It was reportedly done by students in 1910 and stands for Mines, Minerals, and burning the Midnight Oil.

    Deciding whether or not that midnight oil burning was associated with studying or the consumption of adult beverages before climbing a steep cliff shouldering 50-pounds bags of lime, I’ll leave to you.

    Half an hour later we exit onto State Route 60 for the arrow-straight 50-mile run east to visit the ruins of Abo, part of the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. Three locations in the monument preserve 17th century Franciscan missions and the pueblo communities they served.

    The ruins at Abo tower over the nearby rolling hills and a ravine with small stream here at the southern edge of the Manzano Mountains. Most walls were built with slabs of the local red sandstone, held in place with mud mortar. At one time they would have been covered in mud plaster.

    The main complex is surrounded by unexcavated mounds beneath which rest the remains of other buildings in the sprawling complex that was home to an estimated 1,500 people. Native people are believed to have lived there for a thousand years. The Spanish first arrived in 1581. In 1622, two years after the Pilgrims reached Plymouth Rock, Franciscan Monk Francisco Fonte reached the community and over the next few years he and other monks built an imposing stone church that also incorporated elements of the native inhabitant’s religion such as circular Kivas. While the struggling Pilgrims shivered through the winter in hovels, in this isolated outpost the community enjoyed foods and fruits from both cultures, Chinese porcelains from the Philippines, as well as pottery and manufactured goods from Mexico.

    The mission at ABO only lasted about 50 years before disease, famine, drought and raids by Apaches forced it to be abandoned. Rattlesnakes now outnumber the human inhabitants in the surrounding area.

    You have to marvel at the determination of Fray Fonte, who spent seven to eight weeks at sea traveling from Spain by ship and later walked for weeks more through unforgiving desert to establish the mission. His efforts, although ultimately doomed, spotlight the intersection of cultures, religions and traditions that helped set what’s now New Mexico on the path it follows today.

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