Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu NM

Crosshatch, Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu NM, December 22, 2009

"You know I never feel at home in the East like I do out here and finally feeling in the right place again I feel like myself and I like it . . . Out the very large window to rich green alfalfa fields-then the sage brush and beyond-a most perfect mountain-it makes me feel like flying-and I don't care what becomes of art." - Georgia O'Keeffe, in a letter to Henry McBride, 1929

Ghost Ranch is the most photogenic spot I've been in in a long while. I drove through Abiquiu on a road trip back on April 5, 2006 and I somehow forgot just how gorgeous the scenery is here. Driving US 84 through the valley is beautiful in itself but getting up close and personal with the multicolored rock formations here is something else entirely. It's no wonder Georgia O'Keeffe was so at home here. Kate spent the whole morning giving me a photo-op tour of a tiny portion of the 21,000 acre Ghost Ranch and the Conference Center. It's no wonder she and Terry are so in love with this place.

Night camp

Ghost Ranch Campground, Abiquiu NM

This is a basic, small campground with full hookups.
Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are not available here.
Locate Ghost Ranch on my Night Camps map
Check the weather here

Heliograph route between Fort Cummings NM and Tubac, AZ

1886 heliograph transmissions between Tubac near Nogales Arizona/Mexico, and Fort Cummings New Mexico: Joe Marques (Flagstaff) was doing some research in old Flagstaff newspapers and found something that might interest. In the Arizona Weekly Champion, Saturday August 7, 1886, page 2 column 1, it says: "A message was recently sent by the government heliograph (signalling by sunlight flashes) from Fort Cummings, N.M. to Tubac, Ariz., a distance of 400 miles, and an answer received in four hours." What a great [research] find! This was during the Geronimo Campaign of 1886, and the heliograph system at that time did indeed extend between the two stations. From Tubac, the most westerly terminus, the intermediate stations were Baldy Peak or possibly Josephine Peak just a little south of Baldy), Fort Huachuca, Antelope Spring, Emma Monk, White's Ranch, Bowie Peak (or Helen's Dome), Steins Peak, and Camp Henely (east of Fort Cummings). This means the message would have been relayed seven times, one way. It most likely was a test message, and relatively short, but I would love to know what it and the reply really said. The 1886 "airline" distance between Tubac and Fort Cummings; and of course on to Fort Cummings. I calculate the one-way distance between the two extremes as being 241 miles, with round trip of course being 482 miles.

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