Gran Quivira

Brian and I spent Labor Day weekend traveling to New Mexico.  Leaving after work on Friday, we stopped in Amarillo overnight and continued on the next day to visit some of the Salinas Pueblo Missions near Mountainair, New Mexico, just south of Albuquerque.  There were three, the first one we visited is known today as Gran Quivira.  The ruins themselves date to the 17th century when the Spanish brought Catholicism to the Native Americans in the area.  Famine, attacks from outside tribes, and disease contributed to the desertion of these missions, but little details remain to fill in the complete history.