A simple grand-opening flyer led me to Big G, a father’s loss and an RV park in Guadalupita built for much more than camping.
By Roger M. Rael
The Raton Range
As a reporter, everybody has something to tell you.
What you should investigate. What you shouldn’t have written. What you missed. What you said wrong. Who you should call next. Everybody is a critic, and after a while you learn to just go with it.
But the work can wear on you.
When you’re writing three or four stories a day, digging through records, calling sources, and sometimes trying to put 1,200 words together on something you barely understood when you started, it gets tiring. Some stories take hours. Some take days. Some follow you home.
And after a while you get tired of the same stuff.
The same government official who doesn’t want to answer a question. The same fight over transparency. The same wreck because somebody was going too fast. The same argument over information that should have been public in the first place.
I was tired.
So I started scrolling through social media.
That’s when I came across a simple flyer for the Sept. 19 grand opening of Big G RV Park in Guadalupita.
My friend Daniel made damn sure Sangre Joven’s name was on that flyer. I expected nothing less. God, I love those guys.
I figured this would be an easy story.
New RV park. Cabins. Barbecue. Music. Maybe a guy telling me about hookups, picnic tables, and everything he had built.
Then I saw the name.
Big G.
I knew that name.
Back in the day, 97.3 KISS FM in Albuquerque had a DJ people knew as Big G. In the music scene, you get to come across real, genuine people. I remembered him as a heck of a nice guy, but what stood out most was seeing him as a father with his little girl, who seemed to be with him everywhere.
You’d see Big G at a car show or some event with music blasting, people everywhere, and there she was with her dad.
His daughter.
Pigtails and all.
She looked perfectly comfortable right there beside him, and everybody else knew how to act because Dad was standing right there.
I hadn’t thought about Big G in years. Now that I do, I remember him as being a genuine, humble man.
I also didn’t know he had passed away.
Then I called Mike Griego about an RV park story, and halfway through I realized I was talking to Big G’s father.
That changed the whole interview.
Mike told me his son was Michael Griego, known on the radio as Big G. Michael worked in radio and also worked for Delta Air Lines. He DJ’d weddings, graduations, and other events, and because of his airline work, he traveled whenever he could.
And he took his daughter with him.
Japan. Rome. New York.
Michael was a single father, and his daughter was part of his world.
Then, around New Year’s 2014, something went wrong.
Michael had traveled to Phoenix and was supposed to attend a Chicago Bears game. Mike said his son started getting confused and complaining about a headache that would not go away.
He eventually made it back to New Mexico.
His family knew something wasn’t right.
Mike finally convinced him to go to the hospital in Las Vegas. Doctors found something on his brain they didn’t like, and Michael was taken by ambulance to Albuquerque.
After surgery, the family got the news nobody wants.
Mike said doctors found a tumor about the size of a lemon, and cancer spread deep into Michael’s brain.
The family was told he might have about three months.
He lived about six.
They looked for answers. They even traveled to Duke University in North Carolina, hoping there might be another option.
There wasn’t.
Mike said Michael passed away on July 14, 2014.
That’s where Big G RV Park really begins.
Not with a business plan.
Not with tourism numbers.
Not with somebody deciding there was money to be made renting RV spaces.
It began with a father who wanted to build something for his son.
Mike had a piece of land near Guadalupita, and in 2021 he decided he was going to do something with it.
“I’m going to build something to remember him,” he told me.
And he was going to call it Big G.
The project started small.
Then Mike kept building.
He added a small bar. Inside, almost everything points back to Michael. His son was a Chicago Bears fan, so Bears memorabilia fills the place. A large portrait of Michael sits prominently inside.
Mike did much of the woodwork himself.
The bar. The shelves. The tables. The stools.
He told me he doesn’t use some fancy computer program to design all this stuff.
He sees it in his head.
Then he builds it.
That pretty much describes the whole place.
There are RV spaces and cabins, but there’s also an outdoor kitchen, a playground, a wooden train Mike built for kids, and monkey bars he made himself.
There are larger cabins with bedrooms, kitchens, showers, televisions, washers,s and dryers. There are smaller places for somebody who just needs a bed for the night.
A lot of it is handmade.
Then you have the animals.
Big metal animals.
Bears. Elk. Donkeys.
Mike told me he has spent close to $20,000 on those metal sculptures alone, and he’s still adding things.
His wife apparently reached the point where she doesn’t even bother asking what he’s doing next.
She knows Mike already has it pictured in his head.
I asked him how much he had invested.
That answer hit differently.
Mike said he poured his retirement into the place.
He had retirement from school work and construction, and he said he put basically all of it into Big G RV Park.
Then he told me something his son believed.
“Money’s not everything.”
Michael loved to travel. He wanted to experience things.
Eventually his father started looking at life the same way.
And this isn’t only about Michael.
Mike was born and raised in Guadalupita. He moved to Las Vegas in 1983, around the time Michael was born, but Guadalupita remained home.
He watched the little community change.
Older residents died. Fewer people were around.
Mike said he wanted to bring some life back.
“I made that place for the community,” he told me.
Even before Big G RV Park officially opened, people would see Mike’s truck at the property and start showing up.
Sometimes they just wanted to visit.
Sometimes they wanted a drink.
Sometimes they just wanted to see what he had built since the last time they were there.
And Mike kept building.
“I did it with heart,” he said.
That might be the simplest way to describe the whole place.
The grand opening is scheduled for Sept. 19.
There will be barbecue, kids’ activities, and live music, including Sangre Joven.
But Mike admitted something to me.
He almost canceled the whole thing.
He got overwhelmed.
Nervous.
There was too much going on, and he started thinking maybe he shouldn’t do it.
Then Daniel went to see the place.
Mike said Daniel looked around and basically told him: No.
You’re not canceling this.
“This place is too nice for your son,” Mike remembered him saying. “We have to do this for your son.”
Mike changed his mind.
The grand opening was back on.
Michael’s daughter is expected to be there too.
That little girl I remembered standing next to Big G isn’t little anymore.
Mike said she graduated high school, is attending college in Las Cruces, and is already talking about going overseas to study in South Korea.
Her grandfather laughed when he told me.
She’s like her dad.
Not afraid to travel.
Not afraid to go see something beyond home.
Near the end of the interview, I asked Mike one question I ask a lot of people when I’m trying to figure out what a story is really about.
When everybody leaves the grand opening that night, what do you hope they understand?
He didn’t give me some business slogan.
He said he wanted people to feel comfortable.
He wanted people from Guadalupita and Mora County to have a place where they could gather and have a good time.
And he wanted them to know about Michael.
“I did that for my son,” he said.
That was it.
That was the story I wasn’t looking for.
I called expecting to talk about an RV park.
Instead, I ended up remembering Big G, hearing about a little girl who grew up, and listening to a father explain why he spent years of his retirement building something in the mountains.
Sometimes that happens when you take a chance and call somebody.
You don’t go into it judging them.
You don’t decide what the story is before they open their mouth.
You just listen.
I’m glad I made this call.
I’m glad I remembered Big G.
And I’m glad his father told me why that name is still sitting out there in Guadalupita.
Big G RV Park will hold its grand opening Sept. 19 in Guadalupita, New Mexico. The event is free and open to all ages, with barbecue, children’s activities, and live music planned. For additional information, contact Mike Griego at 505-718-9489.
Big G RV Park is now open for business and taking reservations. Built with heart, family, and a whole lot of hard work, it’s more than a place to park an RV or spend the night. It’s a place made to bring people together and keep Big G’s memory alive. To reserve a space or learn more, contact Mike Griego at 505-718-9489. Come see what five years of love and determination can build in Guadalupita.
