Yeso

by Richard Swim · Published 2008-09-10 · Updated 2021-01-27

September 9, 2008 – Yeso on the Way Home

We returned to Tecolote Café on Cerillos Road for the fist time in at least 10 years this morning. The café looks exactly as it did and the food is just as good. There is a skylight diffuser with flowers up above that is still sagging just a bit as it did years ago. Some things seem to never change.

Keith split off from us south of Lamy. He had a bit further to travel than us and I had mentioned stopping Yeso to shoot the ruins again. The clouds hung low this morning and mist was falling. The trip to Yeso was typically quite as traffic goes. The rolling hills and occasional hawk on a fence post was about all there was to see. But even this stark landscape has beauty and soothing powers.

Yeso was on the horizon, and I was anticipating what it would look like after so many years after I last photographed the ghost town with black-and-white infrared film. There is still a post office, and it looks like a couple of folks have moved into the town since we were last here. It was over twenty years ago when Deb and I were traveling east on Hwy 60 at a spirited pace and we came across this town. I blew all the way through, and then took a U-turn to go back and burn some film while Debbie waited patiently. Some good images turned out from that session, and walking around what was left of the community got my mind churning about what life was like in the days when farmers were trying to make something grow out here.

We headed east again to return home, and will be looking forward to the time we may return back to Northern New Mexico.