Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
The morning air carries that peculiar crispness that only comes to the high desert in mid-July, when the sun hasn't yet burned off the cool breath of night that settles over the mountains. I'm sitting here on the patio at Casa Santa Fe, my coffee steaming in the thin air, watching the light creep across the peaks in the distance. There's something about these early morning moments that brings the past rushing back like water through an arroyo after a thunderstorm.
Today, my mind wandered to Velarde—that little jewel of a town tucked away in the Rio Grande Valley, a place that's become as familiar to me over the years as the sound of Paulette's laugh or the feel of morning frost on the windows at Casa Oso. It's funny how certain places etch themselves into your memory with the permanence of petroglyphs on canyon walls. Velarde is one of those places for me.
nmosg.com
The morning air carries that peculiar crispness that only comes to the high desert in mid-July, when the sun hasn't yet burned off the cool breath of night that settles over the mountains. I'm sitting here on the patio at Casa Santa Fe, my coffee steaming in the thin air, watching the light creep across the peaks in the distance. There's something about these early morning moments that brings the past rushing back like water through an arroyo after a thunderstorm.
Today, my mind wandered to Velarde—that little jewel of a town tucked away in the Rio Grande Valley, a place that's become as familiar to me over the years as the sound of Paulette's laugh or the feel of morning frost on the windows at Casa Oso. It's funny how certain places etch themselves into your memory with the permanence of petroglyphs on canyon walls. Velarde is one of those places for me.
nmosg.com
