Deep roots

Opinion My friends in New Mexico call it the Llano del Norte, the Northern Plains. For their Spanish ancestors, it was the “Northern Mystery” — the land far beyond the rivers and the missions. It was too vast, too cold and forbidding. The native people were fierce and the gold the Spaniards sought was too elusive. The Comanche, the Cheyenne and the Arapaho soon convinced them that it was in their best interest to return to the thick adobe walls and the warm pinon fires of Santa Fe. It was a good decision. We live on the very western edge of the llano, in the basin between the Laramie Range on the east and the Medicine Bow mountains on the west. Native people hunted here, passed through here on their way to someplace else. The Laramie Plains were too high, too cold and too windy to stay very long. It was a good place for bison, not so much for human beings.

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