Contents

Introduction

Practical Stuff

NORTHEAST

1. ALONG THE DRY CIMARRON: The Backroader’s Backroad: How Switchboard Operator Sarah Rooke Saved Folsom and Buffalo Soldier George McJunkin Changed History by Discovering the Folsom Points

2. ENCHANTED CIRCLE: Striking Gold in High Places Where the West Was Once Really Wild

3. CIMARRON CIRCLE: Meandering Along the Santa Fe Trail: Finding Cowboys, Outlaws, Boy Scouts, and the Hemisphere’s Most Powerful Land Baron

SOUTHEAST

4. AVOIDING THE INTERSTATE: Bosque del Apache to Mesilla: Following the Rio Grande through Chile Fields and Pecan Orchards into the Mesilla Valley

5. VALLEY OF THE FIRES TO THREE RIVERS TO CLOUDCROFT: Lava Flows, Petroglyphs, and the Cloud-Climbing Railroad

6. TRACKING BILLY THE KID INTO HISTORY’S HIDEAWAY: Capitan, Lincoln, Fort Sumner

CENTRAL CROSSING

7. OLD US 66: Mother Road Mystique Endures

8. US HIGHWAY 60: Sailing the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway to the Pieway

9. SALT MISSIONS TRAIL: Holy Ruins and Homesteaders

10. TURQUOISE TRAIL: Back Door to Santa Fe: Mining Towns and Artist Havens from Tinkertown to Madrid to Cerrillos

11. THE HIGH ROAD: Forgotten Villages from Santa Fe to Taos: Stories of Santeros, Survival, and Faith

SOUTHWEST

12. BLACK RANGE: Seeking Silver City: Ghost Towns and Forgotten Glory in the Gila

NORTHWEST

13. THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL: A Woven Road from Abiquiu to Chama

14. JEMEZ BYWAY: Ancient Pueblo to Secret City: Hot Springs and Spanish Missions

15. FINDING THE FOUR CORNERS: World of the Ancients: Rock with Wings to Chaco’s Outliers

Acknowledgments

Index