Sandia Mountains, Coronado State Park

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Sandia Mountains, Coronado State Park, New Mexico. ⇑

A gentle breeze brushes against rusted cottonwoods . . . It is indian summer on the Rio Grande. The perfect time for enjoying the quiet beauty of a Sandia Mountains landscape as seen from Coronado State Park. What pleasant memories this photo beckons! The Coronado State Park provides some of the most beautiful views of the Sandias in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area. The Rio Grande drifts by in the foreground on land that was once the home of the Pueblo of Kuaua. This pueblo (or village) was settled about 1300 CE and abandoned toward the end of the 1500s CE. Kuaua was one of several Tiwa-speaking pueblos in the area when the conquistador Vasquez de Coronado arrived, and the village was almost certainly abandoned due to the after effects of the Tiguex War (February 1541). The Kuaua people had remarkable agricultural skills and innovative ways of irrigating crops with scarce rainfall. This beautiful setting still speaks of the lives they lived.

The Coronado State Monument is a quiet park nestled in Bernalillo that provides tours of reconstructed Native American kivas and a musuem chronicling the history of this important historic culture. It is worth seeking out if you plan to visit either Santa Fe or Albuquerque, New Mexico.