I met Mary Anne at Resting Springs although she lives in San Diego, the southernmost part of California. She has been part of the Old Spanish Trail Association for the last three years and it has helped her to understand more about her family history and the use of this remarkable trail. Many of her Spanish ancestors were in New Mexico for centuries before one of them undertook the Old Spanish Trail to move his family to California.

Her great great-grandfather, Cayetano Hipólito de Jesús Espinosa, was a caravan trader and muleteer from Abiquiu. Hipólito, as he was commonly known, made around 10 round trips over the trail, bringing primarily woven goods to trade for the abundant horses and mules. By 1840, he had established his rancho called Politana in an area of Agua Mansa in California, today a ghost town but once the largest settlement between Santa Fe and Los Angeles.