Images of a Beautiful America - New Mexico in the 1980s

 

In the 1980s in wandered around The Land of Enchantment armed a variety of primitive cameras that ranged from from my first Kodak box camera that I inherited from my parents to a 35mm job that I purchased from a drug store. What I lacked in quality photographic equipment I tried to make up for in content along with some heart and soul.

Albuquerque residents get used to seeing hot air balloons floating around the city from time to time culminating in the fist part of October when the city hosts Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in which balloons from all over the world fill the sky.





To be quite honest I never thought that this shot would turn out and I was pleasantly surprised when the image of four US Air Force Thunderbird jets in a diamond came back from the Photomat.  This was shot over Kirtland AFB in the early eighties.


Okay, I know that this photo is bit of a cheat because it was shot just over the border in Durango, Colorado. Steam locomotive 478 of the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad prepares to pull a tourist train high into the Rocky Mountains.


If hot air balloons are a common sight to Albuquerque residents then snow atop the Sandia Mountains in the Winter would be considered equally as common. This photo was taken off Interstate 25 between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.


If you look very closely at the center of this shot you should be able to see a structure that we used to call the Rock House at the base of the Sandia's just off Tramway Blvd. What the structure is, we never took time to find out but we always assumed it was some old abandoned home.


If you head east in Interstate 40 out of Albuquerque and then head north up New Mexico State Road 14 (also know as the Turquoise Trail) you will come to a fork in the road where there are a few abandoned houses. Luckily for me on this Fall day the area was blanketed with sunflowers.


Just north of that location is the small eclectic town of Madrid. The town has a rather unique a fascinating history, which I won't get into in this post but I urge you to read an article that I published last year about it (Discover New Mexico: Madrid - A Small Town That Is More Than It Seems). Remnants of the large-scale coal mining operation that once dominated the region were still present when I visited the town in 1988. Today Madrid is a wonderful collection of unique shops and restaurants. 
 









I will conclude this post with three photos I took on a cold and wet Fall day on the road up to the Jemez Mountains. The Jemez was always a place that my my crew would frequent on weekends and holidays when we needed to get away from it all and enjoy some pure natural splendor.




The 80s were a far simpler time.

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