Once a year my family loads the Conestoga wagon pop-up travel trailer and makes a pilgrimage to the Pecos River near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Along the Llano Estacado, we check for beacons. Cotton is taller in Texas. A tumble weed is wider in New Mexico. A smelly feed lot evokes, “That’s a lot of hamburgers.” Finally, the mesas appear, golden sentries guarding treasure. A few miles later, we spy a silhouette, the purple majesty of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. With gradual ascension, we shed our cares.