| On the way home from Rockhound State Park we had planned on stopping at Fort Craig to obtain a photo for the contest. Located just off I-25 south of Socorro, it was right on our route. In fact we had attempted to go there on our return trip from the City of Rocks (which had nearly the exact route as the Rochound trip), but when we followed the signs we were routed onto a very narrow old highway with single lane wooden bridges. We were not comfortable as the turn off to Fort Craig was 11 miles, and we did not know how far these bridges would be present on this road. Plus we were backtracking 11 miles where there was a previous I-25 exit that would have been much closer to the Fort Craig road. We were right in taking the first exit as the old highway at this point was a much better (wider) road with none of the single lane wooden bridges. The volunteer at the visitor’s center realizing I was there to “Get The Picture”, provided us with a funny (and insightful) story. The BLM personnel which manage Fort Craig were not aware that they were one of the “Get The Picture” locations. It was not until a gentleman had come into the center showing the photo he had gotten that they became aware of the contest. The volunteer knew from the angle of the photo that he would have had to go off the trail in order to get it. Apparently they (BLM) were frantic about the prospect of all the people doing the same thing , so they made a little path with hand made signs to allow the visitor’ s to “Get The Picture” from the appropriate angle Sadly not much remains of Fort Craig, mostly just the stone walls shown in the photo. It is a place I have been before, and I did have a close angle to this photo, but I did not feel it was close enough to submit, plus it was fairly old (It was taken when we still used film). |
