American Road Trip 1979 on Kodachrome

#USA13-32 San Antonio 77 miles, Texas, 15 May 1979
Heading east on Interstate 10

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Hey, mate - you are almost at New Mexico. My second home. I lived and did a year of uni in northern NM in 1972-1973, mostly in Santa Fe, now and then for long stays in Taos, with fmany un weekends in Albuquerque when I felt the need for somewhat less"rustic" pastimes and more big city life.

I look forward - like the clues cat who ate cheese before peering down the mouse hole - with "baited" breath for your NooMex images. I hope you made it there, a not to be missed destination, long known as The Land of Enchantment, a honor it richly deserves for its diverse landscapes and amazing blend of three cultures.

In May '79 I was in Pinos Altos, a gold mining hamlet just out of Silver City, off the Lordsburg turnoff which you surely would have driven past. Not that far from Tombstone where you were, which I saw two times on day trips from visiting friends I had nearby along highway 80 in Bisbee, and for several memorable photo shoots I went to Mogollon, an abandoned gold mine to the north on the NM-AZ border. Tombstone's unique history was always amusing, but being me I preferred old ghost places to old tourist gunfighter towns.

To keep all this entirely photo-centered, in the early and late '70s I used a Nikkormat EL with a (now legendary) Nikkor 50/2.0 I bought new as a kit in San Diego, California, along with two well-used Nikkors (WA and telephoto) I picked up along the way. To which kit I later added a black Nikon ELW from a used gear shop in Vancouver.

Those two Els stayed with me until late 2020. By which time the ELW was still (sort of) functioning, well enough to risk the by then ridiculously high cost of running film through it, but the EL meter had died (the rest worked just fine). Through a local camera club I found a buyer for a lot of my older Nikon gear and about half my home darkroom and sadly parted company with them, almost half a century later. (The buyer cleaned and restored the Els and is using them.) I still have two FT2s and my Nikkor 28/3.5, 35/2.0, 85/2.0 and 135/3.5, now more sentimental keepsakes. I still have that 50/2.0 I acquired 47 years ago, now with a spot or two of fungus but still sharp.

Enough or I may be accused of trying to hijack your excellent posts and superb images, which is the last thing I would do.
 
DownUnder said:
Hey, mate - you are almost at New Mexico. My second home. I lived and did a year of uni in northern NM in 1972-1973, mostly in Santa Fe, now and then for long stays in Taos, with fmany un weekends in Albuquerque when I felt the need for somewhat less"rustic" pastimes and more big city life.

I look forward - like the clues cat who ate cheese before peering down the mouse hole - with "baited" breath for your NooMex images. I hope you made it there, a not to be missed destination, long known as The Land of Enchantment, a honor it richly deserves for its diverse landscapes and amazing blend of three cultures.

In May '79 I was in Pinos Altos, a gold mining hamlet just out of Silver City, off the Lordsburg turnoff which you surely would have driven past. Not that far from Tombstone where you were, which I saw two times on day trips from visiting friends I had nearby along highway 80 in Bisbee, and for several memorable photo shoots I went to Mogollon, an abandoned gold mine to the north on the NM-AZ border. Tombstone's unique history was always amusing, but being me I preferred old ghost places to old tourist gunfighter towns.
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Sadly I missed all that. There was only 6 weeks to go around the entire country, with any flexibility in the itinerary only with the consent of all 13 passengers. Would love to visit NM one day, but I think that's unlikely in my current situation.
 
So you missed New Mexico. A great loss for you. But yes, true, six weeks to see as vast a place as the American West, means some sacrifices had to be made.

Sad to think we both may not get there again. Me, lucky enough to have stayed almost three years over two periods, in northern NM. The culture unlike any I had grown up with in eastern Canada, gave me many formative experiences in my young adulthood. I still miss that state to this day.

Now I may get busy and fill the gap. Tomorrow I'll look for my NM slides from 1979, and set up my scanner, and try to give you a little competition. Or a boost.

Your (as always most excellent) San Antonio images brought back other memories. Especially of The Alamo. As a Canadian-born kid in the 1950s, I grew up with Davy Crockett and the story of the battle of the Alamo. I believe John Wayne made a film of it, and I probably saw it, way back then.
 
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