Made a quick round-trip to Albuquerque this weekend. Ended up stumbling into –er, more of around –the Balloon Fiesta on the trip back to Denver. Mostly US 285, a less circuitous (and more interesting route) than the interstate. ABQ, bypassing Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Ojo Caliente, Antonito, Monte Vista, Salida, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, reaching darkness around the Arkansas River. Everything south of the Arkansas and west of the 100th Meridian was ceded by Mexico to the United States by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, sprinkling a huge portion of southern Colorado and all of New Mexico with a bit of Mexico (the older).