RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of New Mexico >> Rio Arriba County >> El Rito >> Tidbits & TriviaIndex...

Outdoor Activities ...

As we travel, we like to pursue some of our interests (such as astronomy and bird watching).

When in El Rito, we use the following websites to find information relevant to El Rito and the surrounding area.

  • Astronomy & Satellites ...
    • Whether using binoculars, a small telescope or the naked-eye, the Heavens-Above website can help you to find your way around the night-time sky. In addition to detailed sky charts, their website will help you find planets, asteriods, comets, satellites and their tracks across the sky.
    • To give accurate results, Heavens-Above requires the latitude and longitude of your location. As a starting point, when we link to Heavens-Above, we pass this GPS location for El Rito:
    • 36.343571, -106.189032
    • Once you're on the Heavens-Above website, you can improve its accuracy by giving a more precise longitude and latitude as your actual position.
    • Open the Heavens-Above website centered on El Rito
  • Bird Watching ...
    • We enjoy finding new spots for bird watching and we use the eBird website for local sighting reports and to help identify hotspots.
    • The eBird website is organized on a county-by-county basis. We have selected Rio Arriba County as the starting point when you click on the link below:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Rio Arriba County
    • Since El Rito is near Taos County and also Santa Fe County, we have provided a link to their eBird sighting reports:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Taos County
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Santa Fe County
  • Waymarking ...
    • Looking for somewhere out of the ordinary? Find a unique place and want to share it with others? Then it's time to visit Waymarking.com:
    • Open the Waymark.com report for El Rito

Communities Also Named El Rito ...

We found three communities that are also named El Rito.

There are three communities within New Mexico that are also named El Rito.

Beyond New Mexico.

  • Communities Located In New Mexico ...
    • Cibola County
      • This El Rito is located in Cibola County and lies 111 miles [178.6 km]<1> to the southwest of the El Rito that is located in Rio Arriba County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Cibola County community of El Rito.
    • Taos County
      • This El Rito is located in Taos County and lies 46 miles [74 km]<1> to the northeast of the El Rito that is located in Rio Arriba County.
      • For more information, please visit our profile page for the Taos County community of El Rito.
    • Valencia County
      • We found mention of this community, but have little information.<2> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the New Mexico community of El Rito [Valencia County].

Curious and Interesting Names Near El Rito ...

As we travel, we always see a community with a name that gives pause. While there are names which are interesting or familiar, some catch our attention or strike our fancy. We always wonder about such a name. If time permits and the community is not too far, we'll usually try to make a side-trip.

How Far From El Rito to ...

We spend a lot of time looking through Gazetteers that were published in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of the Gazetteers include the distance from a community such as El Rito to various places of note, such as the White House.

With a nod to our favorite Gazetteers, the straight-line distance beginning in El Rito and extending to:

  • Tierra Amarilla, which is the Seat of Rio Arriba County, lies 31 miles [49.9 km]<1> to the northwest. If you could walk a straight line from El Rito to Tierra Amarilla, with an average speed<4> of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour, it would take most of two days to make the trip. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take just over a day.
  • Santa Fe, which is the State Capital of New Mexico, lies 47 miles [75.6 km] to the south southeast (SSE). Driving, with an average speed of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, would take less than an hour, a buggy would take most of two days and walking would take about three full days.
  • The White House (Washington, DC) is 1,597 miles [2,570.1 km] to the east northeast (ENE). Driving would take most of three days, a buggy would take 63 days and walking would take 91 days.
  • The shortest distance<5> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 7,105 miles [11,434.4 km] and it lies to the north northeast (NNE).<6>
  • The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 7,865 miles [12,657.5 km] and it lies to the north northeast (NNE).<7>
  • The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 5,784 miles [9,308.4 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<8>'

Footnotes ...

<1>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- El Rito) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<2>If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer as a placeholder. As we find more information about that community, it will be added to our Gazetteer.

Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Mile's to see Pete ... Mile's is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.

Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.

Also keep in mind that El Rito could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.
<3>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<4>While we have tried to pick reasonable speeds, the rate of travel is very theoretical - obstacles like fences, hills, lakes, river crossings and rest stops have been ignored. When we say 'Days' of travel, we're assuming 8 hours of travel per day.
<5>The shortest line can be visualized by stretching a string on a Globe from Point A to Point B - this is known as a Great Circle Route. Where you might expect the shortest route from El Rito to the Middle East to be East and South, the Great Circle Route actually lies to the North and East.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in El Rito. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 36.3436, Longitude: -106.1890    
<6>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 327.058 degrees.
<7>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 325.306 degrees.
<8>The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 318.923 degrees.