Historic Markers and Back Roads in Land of Enchantment

I love driving the back roads of America and a good guidebook always makes the trip better when you get off the Interstate down a good blue highway in search of the past—and present. A new travel book that will soon be essential to any future trips to the 47th state is David Pike’s revised and expanded edition of Roadside New Mexico: A Guide to Historic Markers (University of New Mexico Press, $29.95). As a junkie for historical tidbits and photo opportunities when traveling, I know the next time I travel to New Mexico that I will have Pike’s guide to the state’s historic markers with me. Pike has organized the entries in the new edition alphabetically and added details on “Ghost Markers,” which may have been suggested, even written and appear in archival lists, but never erected alongside the highway. While not a “Ghost Marker,” one roadside memorial that might be haunted by the spirit of an unsolved murder is on U.S. Highway 70 just west of Organ, New Mexico:  the “Pat Garrett Murder Site” marker. I know I’ll be looking for him the next time I’m in the Land of Enchantment.