I traveled extensively through the four states retracing the expedition's route and documenting the location of their campgrounds, of their encounters with natives, and other important events included in their testimony.

My original field of specialization is contemporary travel narratives. I have published on different contemporary Spanish travel writers such as Manu Leguineche, Julio Camba, Emilia Pardo Bazán, and others.

Working on the journal of an 18^th-century Spanish expedition and reconstructing the historical context has been a way for me to expand my field of specialization while at the same time blending together many of my academic and personal interests: travel narratives, the outdoors, the geography of the Southwest, the forging of Native and Hispanic discourses of identity in the American Southwest.

During the last two years I worked on the project of publishing an annotated edition of the original journal in Spanish with the appropriate critical apparatus. I gained access to the original journal, which is housed in the Newberry Library in Chicago.