The beaches of Cheyenne Albuquerque

I went for a walk along the Rio Grande river with Mom and Dad, and found something unexpected - the Siegfried Line, New Mexico Extension. I would have fixed bayonets, but was sadly bayonetless.

Actually, this was a flood control project from the 1920s. It wasn't trying to stop flood water; instead,it was to protect the river front from what was being swept downstream by the flood waters. Water is bad; big old tree trunks moving at 8 mph are battering rams.

Still, Albuquerque appears to be impressively defended from seaborne invasion. Pretty, though.

And can I just say that chipotle salsa is the shizzle? If this was to be found in Boston, I'd buy it by the 55 gal drum.

Later, we went to Belen, 30 miles south of Albuquerque, to see an art show. Mary Richardson, a local artist, found some Vietnam War photographs at a flea market. To her, seeing these pictures on sale for pennies struck her as the same as the way that whole generation of soldiers were screwed when they came home. And so she turned them into paintings.

Apologies for the glare on the picture - I snapped this shot with the iPhone's camera.

Sgt. Richard Watkin's memoir, Vietnam: No Regrets (see the sidebar on the right hand side) would be an excellent companion to this exhibit; he was a combat radioman just like the GI in the picture.

The exhibit was held at the Harvey House Museum, a preserved Harvey House restaurant on the Santa Fe rail road. Harvey House was a chain of restaurants (and sometimes hotels) along the trunk rail lines. Since there were no dining cars before 1939, trains had to stop to let passengers get off and eat. Most eateries along the lines in the late nineteenth century were pretty bad, and old man Harvey convinced the executives of the Acheson Topeka and Santa Fe rail road to build a set of high quality eateries along the line. Not only was the food better, but telegraph communications between the trains and the station let dining be very efficient. The waitresses were called Harvey Girls, and this was a sought after job for young women.

Of course, the definitive pictures of the Harvey Girls is over at Paladin's place, where they appeared last year in his Girl Friday posts.