May 22, 2026
by David Ryan
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A Camino Walk Along the Voie de Tours in France

This year I had the good fortune to spend the month of April walking along the Camino de Santiago in both Spain and France. Since I’m an age (78) where things can go south very quickly, I wanted to do another Camino while I still can.

After playing around with several options, I decided to break my Camino into two parts. The first was to start in St. Jean Pied-de-Port in France and walk the Camino Frances (the traditional Camino route) for a few days to see if it had changed much since I did it eleven years ago (2015). The second part was to swing up to Tours in France and walk the Voie de Tours (The Way of Tours) until I ran out of time.

I spent seven days walking the Camino Frances in Spain and soon realized that I did not want to make comparisons and judgments on one of my most wonderful memories. I also didn’t want to be the jerk telling people what the Camino was like eleven years ago. Everyone should have the opportunity for their own wonderful adventure and memories.

So when I reached Logroño in Spain, I made the decision to head to France. I left the Albergue (Pilgrim Hostel) at 7:15 the next morning and walked to the bus station, without a clue as to when the next bus would be leaving or where it would go. When I reached the bus station there was a bus leaving for Pamplona in five minutes. When my bus made it to Pamplona, another bus from a different company was getting ready to leave for St. Jean Pied-de-Port in ten minutes. And when I reached St Jean, I walked to the train station to check on when the next train was leaving for Bayonne. When I reached the station, there was already a train getting ready to leave. So I hopped on that train, and then hopped on another train heading for Bordeaux just as I made it to Bayonne.

When I reached Bordeaux, I finally had time to go to the bathroom and to get something to eat. I spent the night in Bordeaux and caught a 6:57am train to Tours on the Loire River the next morning. The train pulled into Tours at 9:15, and I grabbed a cab to Tours’ enormous Cathedral Saint-Gatien to begin my Voie de Tours adventure.

Cathedral Saint-Gatien in Tours

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March 29, 2026
by David Ryan
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2026 Albuquerque – Jane’s Walk Coming Soon

The fifth year of in-person Albuquerque Jane’s Walks will be held on the weekend of May 2 and May 3. Registration for the walks begins on or around April 2. Walks tend to fill up fast so please register early. To check out walk details and to register just click on the following link: https://linktr.ee/walkalbuquerque

What started out as two separate walks in the Wells Park/Mountain Road neighborhood in 2022 has now expanded to nine different Albuquerque neighborhoods in 2026. They are:

Wells Park (northwest of Downtown)

Historic 4th Ward (west of Downtown)

Raynolds Addition (west of Downtown)

Barelas (south of Downtown) – NEW in 2026

Huning Highlands (east of Downtown)

Spruce Park (west of UNM) – NEW in 2026

Nob Hill (east of UNM)

Parkland Hills (south of Nob Hill)

Highland (east of Nob Hill)

Jane’s Walks are held in over 200 cities around the world to celebrate walkable urban neighborhoods. They are named after Jane Jacobs whose 1960s book – Death and Life of Great American Cities – is credited with starting the Urban Revival movement. They are also a fantastic way of exploring a neighborhood that you might not normally visit. You’ll find Albuquerque’s older and more walkable neighborhoods to have wonderful architecture, murals, and little personalization’s that let you discover something special with every turn you make.

If you can’t make on the weekend of May 2nd and 3rd, you can click on the Janes Walks tab at the top of this page for maps and walk descriptions from previous Albuquerque Jane’s Walks.

2023 Walk Scene – photo courtesy of Jeffry Hertz

January 12, 2026
by David Ryan
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Checking Out Meteor Craters and Other Unusual Holes in the Ground

Like millions of others, I have been wowed by Meteor Crater just off of Interstate-40 between Flagstaff and Winslow in northern Arizona! Because it’s only 50,000 years old, it is still very much intact.

Google Earth image of Meteor Crater in Arizona. As you can see it’s huge!

And by accident, several decades ago, I stumbled upon another meteor impact crater in Odessa, Texas while on my way back from a camping trip at Big Bend National Park. Several years later I revisited that same crater with my dog Petey and featured it in this BLOG POST.

As you can see from this ground level view the Odessa Crater has been severely eroded and is surrounded by oil wells.

Even though the Odessa crater is not much older than the Arizona crater, it is heavily eroded and difficult to discern. In fact, since most known impact craters occurred millions of years ago, many of them have completely eroded away with the only remaining evidence being shatter patterns in the rock.

As one who likes to seek out anomalies, especially unusual holes in the ground, I spotted some unusual depressions several years ago on a topo map of southern New Mexico that I thought could be impact craters. But when I read The Mountains of New Mexico by Robert Julyan, I learned that those depressions were actually Maar volcanoes.

A Maar, in short, is a volcanic burp. They happen when rising magma encounters a water table to create enough super-heated steam to blast away everything above it. A great example of a Maar is the Kilbourne Hole in southern New Mexico. The Kilbourne Hole is featured in this BLOG POST and is also one of the Gold Star locations in Wandering in the Clear Light of New Mexico.

Google Earth view of the Kilbourne Hole.

The Kilbourne Hole from the ground. It’s more than a mile to the other side.

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