Thanks - I knew it was something like that.

It's somewhat tied to whomever is making contact, mapping the area, etc. Sometimes they makes stuff up or just name it after the city (probably asked "what do you call this place?"

Germany comes from a town in Deutschland.

Taiwan was called Formosa until quite recently, named ilha Formosa (beautiful island) by Portugese explorers.

Japan calls itself Nippon or Nihon, but the Portugese learned of Japan from the Chinese who would pronounce the same written characters "cipangu" or the Malay who would say, "Japang".

In China, the US is called Mei Guo or "beautiful country".

England in Ying Guo, which sounds pretty close.

San Francisco is Jiu Jin Shan or "old gold mountain"

No, not really. NM is generally cooler than CA, AZ, and TX. The summer because it is at a much higher elevation. In Santa Fe, it seldom gets above 90 degrees F in the summer and it's a dry heat so your body cools itself well as long as you have plenty of water.

When gas was cheap and we didn't have maps on our phones yet, exploring back-roads was pretty exciting. Glad you made it out safely.

I grew up exploring side-roads all over New Mexico. Much better idea in summer.