Shelflife

SHELFLIFE TURN A PAGE WITH OUR LOCAL AUTHORS ADVENTURES AWAIT IN NEW MEXICO’S LANDSCAPES

Outdoor excursions run the gamut in the Land of Enchantment. There is plenty for the young and the young at heart to experience. Learn about the best spots for outdoor recreation and more in Christina M. Selby’s guidebook, New Mexico Family Outdoor Adventure: An All-Ages Guide to Hiking, Camping, and Getting Outside.

Selby provides helpful tidbits, including the nearest town, best season to visit, hours of operation, and driving directions. Hiking trail maps also are provided. The guidebook gives a practical approach on how to enjoy New Mexico’s natural landscapes.

ATM: Why did you decide to do a guidebook such as this? CHRISTINA M. SELBY: I did one other guidebook before this, it was about wildflower hiking and I really enjoyed the process and I’m always looking for ways to bring my family life and professional life together and this just seemed like a really good fit.

ATM: How did you go about gathering this information including the maps of the trails and photos included in the book?

CMS: About 95% of it, I had done with my family over the years and so just kind of needed to sit down and organize all that material. The trails, I often use this app called AllTrails and it keeps a record of your GPS track of where you’re going so that was really easy to then transfer into these beautiful maps that the UNM (Press) graphic designers made. And we really wanted to give it a broad geographic diversity and so I was looking for opportunities in all sectors of the state.

ATM: I like how you give a variety of suggestions on activities and places families can enjoy. CMS: I really tried to focus on families who maybe are on the one hand newer to outdoor activities and give them information on how to get them started or where to look to get started. But, I think it also serves families who have more experience

NEW MEXICO FAMILY OUTDOOR ADVENTURE: AN ALL-AGES GUIDE TO HIKING, CAMPING, AND GETTING OUTSIDE

By Christina M. Selby University of New Mexico Press 200 Pages $21.95

just in terms of ideas of where to go and what to do and I really tried to give a balance of sort of naturalist activities so there is information about birding and watching wildlife and just sort of learning about nature. There’s lots of nature centers around the state that are listed in there. And then, I also give activities for families who want a little more active experiences (such as) climbing, mountain biking, hiking and paddling.

ATM: When people would ask you about trails and hiking and outdoor adventures, what are some of your favorites that you and your family enjoy visiting more frequently? CMS: There’s a few that come to mind when people ask me about that. One that really comes to the forefront is the Bisti Badlands in northwest New Mexico. My family and I spent, I think two nights there, and it is pretty rustic…. It’s such an incredible place to explore.

ATM: Is there another area in a different part of the state that you like to visit?

CMS: We really look forward to going down to the Organ Mountains in the spring. That’s like the first place that really greens up and the weather’s nice… There’s several things in the Organ Mountains like there’s climbing and lots of biking. So that is a really fun and active place to go. One more area we really enjoy going to is up in the Cuesta/Red River area. They’ve done a lot to kind of cater to adventure type experiences for families. There are several campgrounds along the road between Cuesta and Red River. We just base camp at one of those campgrounds and from there we can go up to the reservoir and go fishing. There’s several smaller fishing ponds for young kids in that area and in Red River and you can catch trout and fun things like that… If you need a little more stimulus, their ski area in the summer has really fun high ropes courses and tubing down the ski slopes and just kind of fun extra things to do right in the town there… Last time we went up there, we just had a really good time.

—RM

LIFE OF A PROGRESSIVE TRAILBLAZER

Journalist turned author, Sherry Robinson, uses her background of digging to find the truth in her newspaper days to finding the facts surrounding New Mexico’s first territorial governor. Her book, James Silous Calhoun: First Governor of New Mexico Territory and First Indian Agent, details the history of Calhoun from his early life in Georgia to his military service in the Mexican War to what led him to head west. Robinson also delves into Calhoun’s stints as an accomplished attorney, judge, legislator and businessman. ATM: Why were you inspired to write about James S. Calhoun?

SHERRY ROBINSON: In the course of my other research, I had come across some mentions of Calhoun and that raised my curiosity and what I found was that we didn’t know much about him. We knew hardly anything about him really and yet he was here at a critical time for New Mexico just as New Mexico was making the transition from a remote outpost of Mexico to a possession of the United States.

ATM: To find out all this information what resources did you use? SR: Normally for my other books I spent a lot of time in university archives. For this one I used archives somewhat, but I actually found more information online. That’s because the software for searching terms in very old newspapers has gotten better and a lot of old newspapers have now been scanned and are in collections all over the country and so because nobody had written about him before, I was relying on newspapers for a lot of information. I used Georgia newspapers, New Mexico newspapers, I used newspapers all over the country… He was also quite a prolific letter writer. I found his letters in several collections and archives and that helped a lot.

ATM: What did you discover from reading his letters? SR: Among the many things he was, he

JAMES SILOUS CALHOUN: FIRST GOVERNOR OF NEW MEXICO TERRITORY AND FIRST INDIAN AGENT

By Sherry Robinson University of New Mexico Press 408 Pages $34.95

was a newspaper editor, this was after he lost his shirt in the economic downturn and one of his friends gave him a job as a newspaper editor. Then he entered my line of work and he did that for about six months or a year and then the war broke out and he signed up. He volunteered and offered to raise troops and so he became a captain, but he hadn’t lost all of his editor chops because while he was in Mexico he wrote letters to the Columbus Enquirer, which was the newspaper that he had worked for. He wrote regularly informing them on progress in the war and his observations of Mexico and Mexican life and the places he was in and the terrible disease that had taken of the troops.

ATM: How long did it take you to complete the book? SR: Because I was doing freelance work at the same time, I think this book took me six years from the time I started. I kind of lose track… It really is fun to delve into a subject and go very deep into a subject and learn everything you could learn and then keep writing. You don’t have a length limit or a page limit or anything like that. You can keep researching and follow every thread that you want as long as it’s interesting to you.

ATM: What was one of the things that stood out to you about Calhoun? SR: Something people should know about Calhoun is he was very open and very supportive of the native New Mexicans becoming a part of the new territory and becoming active citizens of the United States. There were a lot of Americans who came to New Mexico and they were opportunists. They saw a chance to make money and establish themselves and didn’t particularly care about the people who were here, but Calhoun did. He wanted them to participate. He wanted them to vote. He wanted them to serve in public office. He made a huge number of appointments of Native Hispanic people and some of the Americans who were here gave them a hard time about that… There was a lot of racism at the time and so for a Georgian he was surprisingly open-minded about New Mexico and its people and its culture. —RM