I'm awakened at 5 in the morning by the sound of gunfire. No, it's not some gang bangers blasting away in the dark, nor even hunters harrying doves; it's something entirely different, my neighbors in nearby Tortugas pueblo beginning their dawn ceremony in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

You wouldn't expect to find a world-class air museum in tiny Santa Teresa, just outside El Paso, Texas, but there it sits. The War Eagles Museum is an eye-opening find for nostalgia buffs such as Lt. Col. (Retired) Lloyd Mettes of Oxford, Indiana, who said, "I flew seventy P-38 missions during World War Two - reconnaissance mostly, but a few combat missions." Looking at the black beauty (one of only seven left in the world) sitting on the hangar floor, he said, "This is really an early version of the P-38."

The high valley in which the tiny town of Luna, New Mexico, sits is surpassingly beautiful. The San Francisco River courses by under enormous cottonwood trees, and the green valley stretches between piney mountains. Luna itself, rustic and basic, could hail from an era when cowpokes rode alongside their herds, ropes a-twirl, spurs flashing in the sunlight. Actually, an even more radical time shift is required of the visitor who would take in everything Luna has to offer. With the re-opening of the Hough Ruin (pronounced HUFF), one must stretch one's imagination 700 years back in time, when another civilization peopled this lovely valley.

The Catwalk, a National Recreation trail along the canyon of Whitewater Creek, is a unique feature of southwestern New Mexico. Located five miles east of Glenwood (take Hwy. 180 to 174), it presents an always vibrant journey along a path reflecting the region's mining history. The canyon was used as a hideout by both Geronimo and Butch Cassidy. The Catwalk follows the path of the pipeline built in the 1890s to deliver water to the mining town of Graham. Workmen who had to enter the canyon by crawling atop the narrow pipeline named the route the "Catwalk."

The Bursum Road runs through the middle of Mogollon. Photo by Carla DeMarco One of my favorite drives is along the Bursum Road, which turns east from Hwy 180 about 4 miles north of Glenwood and climbs to Mogollon, Willow Creek, and Snow Lake. The Bursum Road takes the traveler from desert heat at the San Francisco River to alpine woods of aspen and fir in the Mogollon Mountains. It came as a surprise to find out that not everyone finds this enchanting drive the perfect summer outing. What's the problem?

January, the start of a new year, a new century, a new millennium. A year, a blank slate in which the furnace hasn’t yet broken, the road hasn’t mudded out, the chimney hasn’t caught fire, the pump hasn’t quit. All these joys of winter life in Datil’s Swingle Canyon are yet to come.

If the perfect dayhike combines beauty, drama, and moderate physical activity, then a dayhike to the Frisco Box is perfection. The drive to the trailhead is scenic. The walk is pleasantly level. And the 3 mile trek climaxes in a startling box canyon the width of a large living room. Through this room flows the San Francisco River. Craggy rock walls rise above the stream bed, which in many places is also the canyon bottom. Amid this harsh geology, cottonwoods and alders have found a foothold, adding further lushness to the green of Virginia creeper, grapevine, willow, and wild rose.

Day One of the Atomic Age, I imagine during the eighty mile drive from Alamogordo to Trinity Site, New Mexico, was much like today except for the early morning rain postponing the experiment from 4:00 to 5:30 a.m. Darkness filled the elongated valley bordered by mountains of hard granite, solidified lava flows and eroded mesas. The rain was undoubtedly welcomed by the sparse yet hardy vegetation decorating the valley floor. The rare summer moisture provided relief from the searing, relentless desert heat - a brief chance to rejoice and replenish moments before disappearring in an unnatural and previously unknown manner. Except for the sound of our 200 vehicle convoy headed to Ground Zero, Day One was sunny, windless and serene, just like today.

On a time line, the two and one-half year operation (1857-1861) of the Butterfield Overland Mail was but a flash in the history of transportation in the United States. But this short-lived operation captured and held the imagination of Americans because it stitched together the growing country from sea to sea.

"The Santa Rita is, perhaps, the most famous mine in Western America, for it was here that the techniques of copper mining were first developed in the Southwest." So wrote Carey McWilliams in his 1949 book, North From Mexico.

It is winter in Mogollon, and in winter it becomes readily apparent why Mogollon is a ghost town. At last measurement, the snow on the shady side of the street was eighteen feet deep. This measurement was taken by having Joe Malloney, who is six feet tall, stand with a surveyor's stick on his head. Unfortunately, Joe froze stiff, and while the local rescue crew was digging him out, the surveyor's stick got lost in the snow. It is probably deeper by now, though no further measurements have been attempted.

The road to Mogollon is justly notorious. It is not a bad road...not especially rough. And it has been worked on recently. It is not even all that steep. (At least some of it isn't.) However, with the exception of one flat stretch over the top of Whitewater Mesa a third of the way up, all of it is a grade. And all of it is narrow and twisty, with solid rock straight up on one side for hundreds of feet and straight down an equal or greater distance on the other side. The Mogollon Road rises about twenty-five hundred feet and then drops back about twelve hundred - all in the space of nine miles. It makes for wonderful views.

Twenty-six people attended the annual meeting of the Silver Creek Temperance Society. That is more than the resident population, let alone nondrinkers. And two of those present did appear to have been exhumed for the occasion. Elvira Sonderfeld hosted the event, as usual. Her cooking undoubtedly drew the crowd. Everyone was on their best behavior too because liquor makes the bears ornery.

As most people in the Mogollon area are aware, there is lots more silver and gold in the ground here. However, several high tech, and no doubt high priced, tests have concluded that most of it is either spread too thin or too deep to be worth the cost of getting it out. At least that's what the big companies thought. Local folks figured there had to be a way to get some of that ore close enough to the surface to make it profitable.

This past weekend, Armand Tremolo received a visit by his niece, Martina Solari, and her nine children, of Tucson. Armand, at fifty-seven, has never married. There are no children currently living in Mogollon. Armand is not used to kids. Things generally went all right, however, till Martina realized she had forgotten to bring an extra box of pampers. She took the baby with her. The oldest girl, Natalie, rode along too, to get in a talk with her mother. This left Armand with seven children ranging in age from just two to thirteen.