This is Volume 2 of Marc Valdez's memoir about growing up in New Mexico. Marc Valdez was born in Albuquerque in 1956 and is a 1974 graduate of West Mesa High School (go Mustangs ) Volume 1 is entitled "A New Mexico Childhood: The View from Albuquerque's Edge in the Sixties and Early Seventies," and covered my childhood and high school years (1956 - 1974) growing up in Corrales, NM, near Albuquerque. Volume 2 is entitled "Climbing the Razor's Edge into the Bright, Blue Dome of the Sky: A Trip through the Academic West of the Seventies and Eighties," and covers my college years, when the New Mexico boy reached maturity. Since I took my time deciding on a college major, getting a Ph.D., and had two postdoctoral positions, Part 2 covers a large swathe of time (1974 - 1990). The scope of the memoir treats Socorro and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and expands beyond New Mexico's boundaries to include Denver, Colorado; Tucson and Tempe, Arizona; and Salt Lake City, Utah.