What's in a Name? Hotel Owner Tells Staff to Ditch Their Names

This really frosted me. In multi-cultural Taos, New Mexico where people go to soak in the culture and beauty, a new hotel owner notified his Hispanic staff that they were to ditch their names and take on Anglo names. In the USA Today article, it describes a possibly ignorant approach by the hotel owner. Apparently once he "arrived at the Taos hotel, he banned hotel employees from speaking Spanish in his presence, directed some to Anglicize their names and fired several Hispanic employees."

Fortunately the community of Taos, who value their Native American and Hispanic roots, protested and the hotel-owner was soon "educated." The name of the hotel is The Whitten Inn, just in case you might be visiting Taos. The website is still under the former name... Paragon Inn.

Ken Burns National Parks Series as Seen on PBS

I have been thoroughly enjoying the National Parks series on PBS and found some good deals on the DVD set which I'm going to purchase. I am not one to buy movies but this is a great series that I want to enjoy over and over. Find the Best Prices on the Ken Burns National Parks Series DVDs

Travel Writer Unblocked

I enjoyed the tour of northern New Mexico's pottery makers so much, that was my inspiration for a series of articles on Southwest US Travel. I focused, for now, on two potters that I met on that trip. The first was Felipe Ortega and the second, Kevin and JoAnne De Keuster. They are all in rural New Mexico and driving to their studios is half the pleasure of the trip.

The second half is meeting and spending time with the potters. Felipe creates cooking pots from micaceous clay and is a fascinating person who speaks several languages, reads several more and is an Apache Medicine Man.

The DeKeusters have created a work/live retreat on a hillside overlooking rolling hills with evergreens. I was in awe of the beauty of northern New Mexico. My articles will lead you to some awesome potters with fascinating tales to tell.

Travel Writer's Block

I have a problem unique to travel writers, I believe. I have writer's block only in that I have so much wonderful stuff to write about, I can't start!

I want to go on and on about the wonderful Abiquiu Inn in northern New Mexico. I want to write about the potters I met there. I want to write about Nuclear tourism and feature Los Alamos. I want to write about the weirdly eclectic Monte Sagrado hotel in Taos. I want to update my Halloween material on About.com and the list goes on.

Anyone have a suggestion on where to start??