Fred Harvey's Indian Detours crew, Santa Fe, @1926-27

Somewhere in that group is my petite, little grandmother, all 5'1", 110 lbs of her. She was a courier, which was what the 'tour guides' were called.
The faces are far too vague and distant to recognize her.
Harvey organized the Indian Detours in 1925. Up against the slump of business caused by the increasing popularity of automobile, and airplane travel, the Harvey Company began developing the idea of “Indian Detours” at their Southwest hotel locations, from the Grand Canyon to Santa Fe. 
The specialized tours by car were to divert passengers from the train for 1 to 3 days and drive them through the “wilderness panoramas” of Northern New Mexico to Indian ruin sites, and living pueblos. 
 Cars were bought, and drivers and couriers were educated by field trips and up to four months of in-depth study on the area.
In May, 1926, the Indian Detours officially began. My grannie, Farona Wendling (nee Geiser) was among them. In '28, she met the dude whom she'd marry. The rest is (family) history.
What I cannot figure out is what the artillery piece is doing on the roof of the Palace of the Governors, on the Plaza, in Santa Fe?

Verisimilirude, circa 2005.

Say Hello, Tasha!

A Development:
I have a new foster dog.
 She's a former Rez dog named Tasha, and she's a tri-pod. She's about four-six years old, about 40 lbs, probably had never been in a house before today. She's been in a shelter since being rescued and restored to health.
She was rescued in Gallup, where she'd been she'd been shot, which caused the eventual amputation of her right-front leg. Angela and Dawn said she still has bullet fragments in her remaining, "healthy" leg. She has a charming manner. She's a smiler...and they tell me she's a snuggler.  
She and Mr. Smokes are doing dog-bonding things. They seem to have agreed to co-exist, even after only about a 45-minute introductory period, with the folks from NMDOG present at the introduction. I've already noticed a distinct improvement in his demeanor. He's stepping lighter, and he is more interested. Indeed, her's actually up and roaming around the house. either she in his wake or he in hers. 
 She's settled in onto the day-bed, in the corner of the gallery-room where there's window on two sides; where Budreaux usta repose and regard the passing parade, and where his ashes reside.

So the Kono-pak is growing again.
AH-Rooooooo!

SEE YA AT THE BEACH!

A Visitor

There was a lost roadrunner in my house yesterday, a juvenile male.
He probably came in the back door which I leave open, daytime, for the convenience of Mr. Smokes.
I heard him, rather than saw him at first: he'd realized his mistake and was on the front window-sill, trying frantically to get out through the front window glass.
Brandishing a straw broom, I managed to herd him into a corner, where I trapped him, gently, with the broom head, and reached from behind to gently secure his feet and wings in my hand. I then removed the broom and carried my now-unresisting guest to the front door. There I released him, none the worse for the adventure, save the few feathers he shed as I released him at the door, whence he scooted under a near-by cactus.
He never uttered a chirp or cry through the whole proceeding. I was exhausted.
The foto is for illustrative purposes/verisimilitude.

Other Side of the Tracks

.....The D&RGW "Chili Line"* departs Santa Fe, heading for parts north-ward, including Taos Junction, circa 1930s.** The last train left Santa Fe in the late 30s, and all the track in the right-of-way was torn up by the 50s.
.....What remains of the valiant engines which toiled the narrow-gauge grades and curves to negotiate New Mexico's formidable mountains, valleys, and plateaux and bring commerce to a hungry land, from the late 19th Century, is a stretch of about 100 miles between Chama, NM and Antonito, CO, now called the "Cumbres & Toltec Line" (58 mi.) and the line from Durango, CO to Silverton, CO, up the Animas Canyon (about 40 mi.).
.....The trestle pictured here was emblematic of "the tracks" of which there was an "other" side. My father drove a "hack" in Santa when he was a teen-ager, in the 30s. He recounted to me almost 50 years ago, when too I was driving a "hack" in Santa, that in his day, Santa Fe's small" red-light district was located under and a little to the west of the railroad trestle in the foto, which spanned the Santa Fe river near the intersection of what is now Guadalupe St. and the Alameda.
.....Cabbies delivered their 'johns' to the ladies' cribs, directly under the shadow of the Santuario de Guadalupe, along Agua Fria and Alto Streets, south of the tracks. The 'girls' would tip the drivers for delivering their "johns" to the door, but not directly. Drivers wore numbered buttons on their caps which identified them. The "girls" would send tips to the dispatcher (at La Fonda garage), who would distribute them (after taking a cut) according to the drivers' button number.
.....If there were a red-light district in Santa, when I was hackin', in the early 70s,  I didn't know--and nobody ever asked me--where it was. Pop never said whether any of them tipped "in kind."

* Corrected, thanks to Milton Coombs.
** Corrected, thanks to George Pomonis.

Kentucky Jack: My sole and only screen-credited role

Pirates of The White Sand from Philip L. Seeger on Vimeo.

I don't own the rights to this video.