As Sandy has noted below, out on the western edge of the Llano Estacado, once called the Great American Desert, surrounded by cactus and other vegetation of the arid southwest, is a scuba diving mecca ... the Blue Hole of Santa Rosa. It's not very big, but throngs of divers were assembled there on Sunday morning. Most were in cars with Colorado plates; I saw one van with a sign on the side that said it was from Colorado Springs.
On Sunday morning, I saw lots of people we had seen at the La Quinta Inn earlier that day and at the Santa Fe Grille the night before. My guess is that there were at least 50 people at the Blue Hole Sunday who had come to Santa Rosa for a weekend of diving. Doing the math, that's a lot of money spent in Santa Rosa that weekend! No wonder they're completing work on a $3 million convention and dive center next to the Blue Hole!
For an interesting review of the Blue Hole and Santa Rosa, NM, check out the 2004 story by Andrea Sachs in the Washington Post: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7793-2004Dec17.html I admit to being one of those who has, in the past, seen Santa Rosa as a place to gas up or get off I-40 in a snowstorm (which I've done several times). Now I know there's a whole lot of Santa Rosa that I've overlooked! tv
No comments:
Post a Comment