A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day....10-03-03....New Mexico ~ "The Land of Enchantment"

Mama_Bear

[Mama_Bear]

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day

Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world.

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in need; and congratulate those deserving. We strive to keep our threads entertaining, fun, and pleasing to look at, and often have guest writers contribute an essay, or a profile of another FReeper.

On Mondays please visit us to see photos of A FEW OF FR'S VETERANS AND ACTIVE MILITARY

If you have a suggestion, or an idea, or if there's a FReeper you would like to see featured, please drop one of us a note in FR mail.

We're having fun and hope you are!
~ Billie, Mama_Bear, dansangel, dutchess, Aquamarine ~

Please join us for a cyber-tour of another great state in this Union of ours. As we discover and spotlight each of our 50 states we also salute the proud FReepers who call their state 'home'.

Over the coming months each "Finest" hostess will profile her own home state - I will be presenting all the other states in random order. Please FReepMail me if you would like to participate in spotlighting your state. I would love to have your input on what you would like to see highlighted.

These are the states that have been presented to date:

05-23-03 Alabama
06-27-03 Maryland
07-11-03 Vermont
07-25-03 Utah
08-05-03 Texas
08-22-03 Nevada
08-26-03 Washington DC
09-05-03 Tennessee
09-17-03 Florida
09-19-03 Minnesota

Today we shine our Finest spotlight on New Mexico and the 88 FReepers who hail from "The Land of Enchantment". Click on the graphic below to visit FreeRepublic's New Mexico message board.

The first observation newcomers make about New Mexico is its vast geographical openness. Whether on winding mountain roads, long stretching highways or out on the wide open plains, the blue skies reach into distant horizons. New Mexico is actually the fifth largest state in the United States with 121,335 square miles.

The vast tracts of land in New Mexico provide a wealth of natural resources for farming, ranching, and manufacturing.

New Mexico's economy is as diverse as its cultural roots. It includes hundreds of art galleries, challenging ski areas, a booming dairy industry, international trade with Mexico, and a proliferation of technological breakthroughs due to the presence of national laboratories in Albuquerque and Los Alamos to name but a few. New Mexico is also one of the largest energy producing states in the nation, ranking fourth in natural gas production in 1992.

New Mexico is a blend of ancient cultural traditions and striking environmental diversity. Its unique multi-cultural personality and character truly make it America's Land of Enchantment and a state worth further exploration.


A bit of history about Santa Fe,
the Capitol of New Mexico.

Thirteen years before Plymouth Colony was settled by the Mayflower Pilgrims, Santa Fe, New Mexico, was established with a small cluster of European type dwellings. It would soon become the seat of power for the Spanish Empire north of the Rio Grande. Santa Fe is the oldest capital city in North America and the oldest European community west of the Mississippi.

While Santa Fe was inhabited on a very small scale in 1607, it was truly settled by the conquistador Don Pedro de Peralta in 1609-1610. Santa Fe is the site of both the oldest public building in America, the Palace of the Governors and the nation's oldest community celebration, the Santa Fe Fiesta, established in 1712 to commemorate the Spanish reconquest of New Mexico in the summer of 1692. Peralta and his men laid out the plan for Santa Fe at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on the site of the ancient Pueblo Indian ruin of Kaupoge, or "place of shell beads near the water."

The city has been the capital for the Spanish "Kingdom of New Mexico," the Mexican province of Nuevo Mejico, the American territory of New Mexico (which contained what is today Arizona and New Mexico) and since 1912 the state of New Mexico. Santa Fe, in fact, was the first foreign capital over taken by the United States, when in 1846 General Stephen Watts Kearny captured it during the Mexican-American War.


Read more about the history of New Mexico HERE.

A fact unrealized by many is that the great cowboy phenomena of the American West began in New Mexico more than four centuries ago when Spanish explorers and colonizers brought the first cattle and horses to the region in the late 1500s. The ensuing centuries saw the vaquero (cowboy) ranching lifestyle absorbed into the various Native American cultures and continued by Anglo settlers who came en masse after the American takeover in the mid-1800s.

The ethnic diversity of New Mexico's cowboy culture also included many African Americans who wholeheartedly adopted the lifestyle after the Civil War. The faces of the many authentic cowboys working in New Mexico today still strongly represent this historical mix of westerners.

It's been an obvious love affair between the cowboys and the land since the first cattle and horses were brought to New Mexico on Juan de Oñate's colonization expedition in 1598.

The state capitol building was dedicated on December 8, 1966. Its design is a New Mexico territorial style. This type of architecture is of Pueblo Indian adobe, an adaptation from the Greek revival period. The capitol building forms the shape of the Zia Indian Sun Symbol, which appears on the state flag below.

New Mexico's distinctive insignia is the Zia Sun Symbol which originated with the Indians of the Zia Pueblo in ancient times. Its design reflects their tribal philosophy, with its wealth of pantheistic spiritualism teaching the basic harmony of all things in the universe.

Four is the sacred number of the Zia, and the figure is composed of a circle from which four points radiate. These points, made of four straight lines of varying length, personify the number most often used by the giver of all good gifts.

To the Zia Indian, the sacred number is embodied in the earth with its four main directions: in the year, with its four seasons; in the day, with sunrise, noon, evening and night; in life, with its four divisions--childhood, youth, manhood and old age. Everything is bound together in a circle of life and love, without beginning, without end.

Points of Interest in New Mexico

If you are fortunate enough to be able to spend some
time in this beautiful state, be sure to visit...

• The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.
  (but hurry, it starts tomorrow!) 
  
  
  
• White Sands National Monument.
   
• ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO: UFO Festival.
  
   
• New Mexico State Parks.
   
• Carslbad Caverns.
   
  
• New Mexico National Parks.
   
• Billy The Kid National Scenic Byway.
  Read more about Billy the Kid HERE. 
  

***********************

Thank you to the following websites
for information and graphics...

New Mexico Cowboys
Oldest U.S. Capitol
Origin Of The Flag Of New Mexico
New Mexico's Land and People

Thank you for joining us on our cyber trip to New Mexico. I am sure I have overlooked many interesting facts and points of interest, so please help us celebrate New Mexico by joining in and posting what you know and love about this Fine state.



Have a nice FRiday and a great weekend!

THIS WEEK'S THREADS 09-29-03 Military Monday 09-30-03 Hall of Fame #5 10-01-03 Muscle Car Mania! 10-02-03 John's Two Cents

Opinions by our own 'King of Ping' The guy's good, folks!

Thanks, Mixer!

1) Click on the graphic to open the Calendar.
2) Once there you can click on any month and even click to the right to go into next year. Once you are in the month that you joined FR you will need to click on the number in the calendar and then an add item screen will come up.
3) In the next box enter your name in the "Calendar Text" field and then click on submit.
4) If any of the screens fail to load simply click on refresh in your browser and that will usually fix it.
5) If all else fails or simply if you want me to do this for you send me a FReepmail and I will gladly do it for you. ~Mixer

Click on the photo to view the album. To
submit your photo, please contact danbh59@yahoo.com
and include Freeper Photo Album in subject line.

[HiJinx]

I hope people understand when you say missed, they don't think you intentionally overlooked or ignored anything. There just is no way anybody can cover all the neat stuff about a state in the amount of space we have...

And it is truly a pleasure to find unique things to share with my FReeper family!

[LadyX]

"You know I can't go easy on the hostesses. With all the compliments they receive there is a very real danger that their heads could get so large that they would eventually explode. I refuse to let that happen! :-)"

Whatever was I thinking, dear Thin Man?!!
Should have acknowledged you only point these out for their sakes; always striving to elicit Their Best and Phinest Efforts....
sigh... such a dedicated man you are.....

~ The Thin Man ~
circa 1478

[Mama_Bear]

We had a bat get into our house too....and, wouldn't you know, it was on an evening when my husband was working late. I called him in a panic and he came home, but there was no way he could catch the thing, so he called the fire department. Seems they have a big net and are frequently called to remove bats from houses.

By the time they arrived the bat was hanging quietly from the ceiling in the living room and they managed to capture it. I missed the whole thing, as I was hiding out with my two brave dogs in the bedroom. LOL.

[Mama_Bear]

I refuse to let that happen! :-)

What a guy! We owe you such a debt of gratitude. LOL!

[LadyX]

"The Flyboy's missus is, according to her doctor, suffering from a disgustingly normal pregnancy! She's due on the 12th, the full moon is on the 10th, his birthday is the 11th...and we're all on pins and needles!

I'll do a thread for all when our little one arrives!"

Oh, please do, Jinx! Everyone here is 'Family' and so glad to hear of new additions.
Mama_Bear, it was I who pointed out to Calpernia the new granddaughter of ladtx was born on Frankie's and your birthdays.

It's interesting, ladtx, that new ones often arrive around or on the birthday of another family member, such as Ashly on your mother's birthday.

My first son missed my mother's by three days - my second son missed his father's mother's birthday by one day - and there are several other similar happenings in my family tree.

As I pointed out on the other thread, Ashly was born in the very same military hospital as my third child and only daughter - one day after the date for Jennifer's arrival.

Had to explain yes, she is a 'Southerner,' too - the boys born in South Carolina and Virginia, and she in South Dakota...:))

[Mama_Bear]

That midi, rainmaker should be on the CD I sent you.

It did sound familiar. :-)

I had no idea that you just joined us in February. You seem like an old-timer. LOL.

[MEG33]

Hi,LadyX!Hope your computer problems are improving!

[Mama_Bear]

Mama_Bear, it was I who pointed out to Calpernia the new granddaughter of ladtx was born on Frankie's and your birthdays.

Darn! I knew that....I also knew that Ashly was born on her great grandmother's birthday, not her grandmother's.......but I got that messed up too. Sorry you two, I am just making all kinds of mistakes today.

It's T Man's fault, he got me all flustered. :-(

[ladtx]

I also knew that Ashly was born on her great grandmother's birthday, not her grandmother's...

Her grandmother wishes Oct 1st was her birthday, actually Mrs ladtx birthday is April 15th. She always complains she never gets to enjoy it since Uncle Sam is taking our money on that day.(lol)

[LadyX]

"Hope your computer problems are improving!"

Thanks, MEG.

Now it is just as slow as molasses in a snowstorm....think the ISP is trying to force us to accept their New Offer for an only slightly faster connection at a 'slight increase' in price.
Hate it when that happens, sailing along comfortably for a long time, they supposedly upgrade their system, and then they start locking the brakes, one notch at a time..:(

[Mama_Bear]

Now I want a tamale.

Oh no! I hope wolfie doesn't fight you for it. Did you happen to see the big brouhaha over the glazed donut a couple days ago? He got snarly and I got really growly. I threatened to sit on him.......it wasn't pretty. LOL!

[jkphoto]

Another wonderful state page. You do such good work!
:-)

[Mama_Bear]

Another wonderful state page. You do such good work! :-)

Awwww........thank you, honeybear. :-)

[Mama_Bear]

She always complains she never gets to enjoy it since Uncle Sam is taking our money on that day.(lol)

Well, I can understand that. Sheesh! What a nice birthday gift each year. :-(

[jkphoto]

MY LAPTOP IS BACK!

[Mama_Bear]

MY LAPTOP IS BACK!

Yippee! I know how much you have missed it. :-)

[jkphoto]

MY LAPTOP IS BACK!

Yippee! I know how much you have missed it. :-)

Not as much as I miss you.

[Mama_Bear]

Not as much as I miss you.

Awwwwwwww........just for that, I'll let you take me out for dinner tonight. ;-)

[jkphoto]

Awwwwwwww........just for that, I'll let you take me out for dinner tonight. ;-)

I bet you want to go to Baker's Square in Fresno.

[deadhead]

Sunset. Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

Good evening all. Thank you for the cyber tour of New Mexico, Mama_Bear. Lovely.

The Mayor, I was so touched by what your son did. Loving families are wonderful :-) My Prayers are with your friend.