Hi Friends! I don’t normally post on Mondays but I’m away all this week, and today I have a special guest post for you from Traveling Pat. I’ll be back next week on Tuesday November 13, and will return to a normal schedule of Tuesday and Thursday posts, plus a bonus picture post on Wednesdays. Enjoy your week!
With love & gratitude,
Wendy Irene
The following is an article from Traveling Pat! Patricia is a regular contributor to Give Love Create Happiness.
With love & gratitude,
Wendy Irene
The following is an article from Traveling Pat! Patricia is a regular contributor to Give Love Create Happiness.
Our Spicy Road Trip!
Aaron and I head back to Tucson once again. We rented a car for a few days and did an impromptu drive into New Mexico. Aaron is a Chile pepper maniac and wanted to go to Hatch, self-proclaimed Chile capital of the world.
Once upon a time Hatch was an adobe post office and railroad flag station, an extension of the Santa Fe Railroad. Appearing on the horizon in 1880 and surviving a few mishaps (floods) and a couple of re-buildings, it is now a funky little village. You can find any variation of Chile products you could imagine: Chile peanut brittle, Chile marmalade, Chile chutney, Chile t-shirts, Chile ristras and smoking hot bags of chile spices!! Every Labor Day weekend, Hatch has a very happening Chile Pepper Festival. Holy hot stuff!!
Chili pepper facts:
Once upon a time Hatch was an adobe post office and railroad flag station, an extension of the Santa Fe Railroad. Appearing on the horizon in 1880 and surviving a few mishaps (floods) and a couple of re-buildings, it is now a funky little village. You can find any variation of Chile products you could imagine: Chile peanut brittle, Chile marmalade, Chile chutney, Chile t-shirts, Chile ristras and smoking hot bags of chile spices!! Every Labor Day weekend, Hatch has a very happening Chile Pepper Festival. Holy hot stuff!!
Chili pepper facts:
- One fresh medium sized green Chile pod has as much Vitamin C as six
oranges.
- There are 26 known species.
- Very red Chile pepper color is used in lipstick and processed meats.
AARON HAPPY IN RISTA HEAVEN
HOT STUFF!!
NOT YOUR AVERAGE PEANUT BRITTLE
CHILE ROASTERS
Once we had our fill of all things Chile we jumped back in the car and headed to SILVER CITY. Got there, pulled in to park on the street outside the Palace Hotel and while I was unloading, a car full of inebriated kids drove by and chucked a piece of pizza at me! Nice touch. It’s a throwback I guess to the wilder days when Dangerous Dan Tucker and the notorious Billy the Kid roamed the streets. After all they have a reputation to uphold!
Surviving its rough start as a mining town with violent crime running rampant and its unruly wild-west reputation, it is now touted as one of the top 50 places to live in the USA. There is a harmonious balance of university students and retirees and loads of things to do. Funky coffee shops, galleries and a profuse choice of noteworthy restaurants line the main street. (Aaron had his first beer margarita here!) I read an article that said Silver City is what Santa Fe was before the “trustafarions” moved in…...
From Silver City we did the two-hour, very narrow, very curvy drive through the Gila National forest road to GILA BEND to see the Cliff Dwellings. Along the route we crossed over the CONTINENTAL DIVIDE…on one side water flows east to the Atlantic and the other side flows west to the Pacific.
When it comes to Gila Bend there are more questions than answers. They were built and inhabited by the Mogollon people who were part of the American Indian culture. Living there from around 150 AD To 1400 AD, they predicted the end of their culture and mysteriously abandoned it.
After that no one lived in this area for over 100 years until the Apaches moved in around 1500 and stayed until they were forced from their land and on to reservations in 1886. Geronimo was born near the Gila River headwaters in the early 1820s.
The cliff dwellings unfortunately have been looted in and much of the archeological records obliterated.
Surviving its rough start as a mining town with violent crime running rampant and its unruly wild-west reputation, it is now touted as one of the top 50 places to live in the USA. There is a harmonious balance of university students and retirees and loads of things to do. Funky coffee shops, galleries and a profuse choice of noteworthy restaurants line the main street. (Aaron had his first beer margarita here!) I read an article that said Silver City is what Santa Fe was before the “trustafarions” moved in…...
From Silver City we did the two-hour, very narrow, very curvy drive through the Gila National forest road to GILA BEND to see the Cliff Dwellings. Along the route we crossed over the CONTINENTAL DIVIDE…on one side water flows east to the Atlantic and the other side flows west to the Pacific.
When it comes to Gila Bend there are more questions than answers. They were built and inhabited by the Mogollon people who were part of the American Indian culture. Living there from around 150 AD To 1400 AD, they predicted the end of their culture and mysteriously abandoned it.
After that no one lived in this area for over 100 years until the Apaches moved in around 1500 and stayed until they were forced from their land and on to reservations in 1886. Geronimo was born near the Gila River headwaters in the early 1820s.
The cliff dwellings unfortunately have been looted in and much of the archeological records obliterated.
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Thank you for sharing your adventure with us Traveling Pat, and for the delicious spices! See you next Tuesday (Nov. 13) friends :-)
Thank you for sharing your adventure with us Traveling Pat, and for the delicious spices! See you next Tuesday (Nov. 13) friends :-)
