(CLICK ABOVE FOR ENLARGEMENT – – photo taken by yours truly from Rio Rancho)
The Sandia Mountains are a mountain range located in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties, immediately to the east of the city of Albuquerque in New Mexico in the southwestern United States. The mountains are just due south of the southern terminus of the Rocky Mountains, and are part of the Sandia–Manzano Mountains. This is largely within the Cibola National Forest and protected as the Sandia Mountain Wilderness. The highest point is Sandia Crest, 10,678 feet (3,255 m).
Sandía means watermelon in Spanish, and is popularly believed to be a reference to the reddish color of the mountains at sunset. Also, when viewed from the west, the profile of the mountains is a long ridge, with a thin zone of green conifers near the top, suggesting the “rind” of the watermelon. However, as Robert Julyan notes, “the most likely explanation is the one believed by the Sandia Indians: the Spaniards, when they encountered the Pueblo in 1540, called it Sandia, because they thought the squash gourds growing there were watermelons, and the name Sandia soon was transferred to the mountains east of the pueblo.
(CLICK ABOVE FOR ENLARGEMENT – – photo taken by yours truly by the Rio Grande near Alameda Blvd. in Albuquerque)
(CLICK ABOVE FOR ENLARGEMENT – – photo taken from Rio Rancho)
(CLICK ABOVE FOR ENLARGEMENT – – winter scenary, taken from Rio Rancho)
(CLICK ABOVE FOR ENLARGEMENT – – take from Rio Rancho)
(CLICK ABOVE FOR ENLARGEMENT – – taken by the Rio Grande in Albuquerque)
(CLICK ABOVE FOR ENLARGEMENT – – a serene afternoon view, taken by the Rio Grande in Albuquerque)
(CLICK ABOVE FOR ENLARGEMENT – – taken at the Sandia crest in late autumn)
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Norio Hayakawa’s CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE NEWS SERVICE
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