A Visit to Santa Fe (again) and Taos, New Mexico

[I've purposefully traveled a lot less this year to give my body a chance to heal and me a rest.  As readers of my blog know, I've been traveling all over the world since I was six.  The getting there of traveling used to be a lot of fun but more recently I've found traveling to be a chore so I am inclined to travel less often.

If all goes well with my energy level, I still hope to walk some of the Camino in Spain, go with Enrique to the city of Aviles, explore the northern coastline of Spain as well as make a return trip to Italy, next time to visit Cinque Terre and the surrounding area.  I'll be taking a course on Turkey this Fall and eventually would like to visit - so much wonderful history and beautiful art in Turkey as well as Iran (formerly known as Persia).  Having lived, attended school and traveled in India and studied its history when I was a young girl, I became acquainted with the stunning architecture and art of the Ottoman Empire and especially want to visit Istanbul to see the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque.

My husband, sister and I traveled on a personal mission to New York City and to Connecticut this past June to bury my mother's ashes at my family's gravesite.  My bag took a trip home from the airport in New York with someone else before being returned to me at the hotel the following day.  Fortunately I took the advice of several people and carried my mother's ashes and her separate urn with me.  Otherwise, our trip was uneventful, we visited with my son and his family, enjoyed a huge city barbecue on Madison Street, made a visit to the Museum of Mathematics (many of the interactive exhibits were beyond my understanding of what to do and I've suggested to my son that his skills may help the museum appeal more to non-mathematicians like myself) in the area and we accomplished what we set out to do.

This was my third and Enrique's second visit to Santa Fe.  What follows first is my account of previous trip(s) and then of our brief visit last week (August 2013).]

Prologue

Enrique and I traveled to Santa Fe in 2008 for our wedding anniversary and while there spent an evening at dinner with our friends Kathy and Bill. Kathy prepared us well for that trip, alerting us to a daily walking tour provided by a docent of the Palace of the Governors, which we used as a basis for return visits on foot, especially to the Loretto Chapel, (and the Miraculous Winding Staircase).

and the Cathedral

in order to view La Conquistatora, the icon of Santa Fe. 

While planning for this trip in 2008, and as a huge fan of Georgia O'Keefe, I also wanted to visit the Georgia O'Keefe Museum but was disappointed to learn that it was closed in preparation for a transition to a new exhibit.  

There is so much to see in Santa Fe and the brief long weekend we spent there was nowhere near enough time.  Kathy also took us on a hike on the Windsor Trail, starting out of the Santa Fe Ski Basin at 10,000 feet.   

For some background, I met Kathy thirty-one years ago when she and I were both running mountain trails in Tucson, at the Grand Canyon, outside of Flagstaff and in other places like the Sandias in New Mexico.  She and I occasionally found ourselves in the same van with several like-minded running buddies off to yet another adventure.  We've both slowed down some in the intervening years but we've still found time to hike into the Grand Canyon (in 2005 where we met up at Phantom Ranch with Enrique and Ron who were coming from the North Rim while we were doing a descent and ascent on the South Rim)

a few times and more recently have hiked the Bear Canyon loop in the Catalina Mountains here in Tucson.

The Return Visit

2011rolled around and I became determined to travel more and spend time with friends who live elsewhere so when Kathy -- again -- invited me to Santa Fe to stay with her and Bill at their historic casita,

this time in late September, I jumped at the opportunity and made arrangements to fly to Albuquerque and from there take the New Mexico Rail Runner up to Santa Fe for four days.

Such an easy way to go two years ago!  My flight left Tucson just before 7 a.m. and arrived an hour later in Albuquerque.  I walked out of the terminal, turned left, and walked down the sidewalk to the marked Rail Runner stop where at 9:10 a.m. I climbed aboard Bus 250, which is the express and free shuttle to the downtown ABQ Rail Runner station.

Several people were milling around the platform, many intending to visit Santa Fe for the day.

The fare was $7 one way and I received a senior discount so paid $3 - what a bargain! [The senior fare has since gone up to $4.]  The last train of the morning (the schedule has been reduced due to losses and state budget cuts) left shortly after 9:30 a.m. and we headed north past several pueblos with long stretches of views of the Sandias and other mountains.  Passengers were asked not to take photos to preserve the privacy of those living in the vicinity of the tracks; however, I did take a couple of photos to give one an idea of the inside of the train as well as the countryside.

One of the views from my side of the train was of the Sandia Mountains.  In 1980, Kathy and I had traveled together with a group of other folks to run a 28.5 mile race up, over, and down the other side to Placitas.  Dr. Otto Appenzeler of the University of New Mexico and himself a runner had organized the event, also billed as a medical study for which we gave blood and were subjected to a few other tests.  The day was glorious and the weather perfect.  Much to my surprise, I won the women's category outright for the event and was presented with a gold colored medal with an abstract of the Sandia Mountains engraved on it.  Following the race, we had our photo taken.  We all stayed the night before at the home of one of the runner's brother and his wife and spread our sleeping bags out on the floor of their living room.  Looking at the mountains as we traveled north, I could not help but recall this event and so many other memories of an important time in my life when I gained self-confidence and better health.

At 11:11 a.m. on the dot, the train pulled into the station where Kathy was waiting to whisk me back to her home for a quick change before proceeding to pick up her friend and colleague Caroline Kastner, the Associate Curator of the Georgia O'Keefe Museum, at her office in the Research Center

and on to lunch at La Casa Sena.

 After a delicious meal we walked over to the Museum.

Caroline provided us an expert tour that also included several paintings by Robert Henri, considered to be "one of the most influential American artists of the twentieth century" as well as the early work of Georgia O'Keefe including many paintings that clearly illustrated her early study of the abstract as well as of modernism. 

The Georgia O'Keefe museum and related buildings has expanded considerably since its opening in July 1997.  Once we completed the tour of the Museum, Caroline escorted us back to the Research Center and showed us not only her office but also some of the archives that included Ms. O'Keefe's clothing, sketches, brushes, art materials arranged fastidiously, and other pieces of her life.  Fascinating!  I came away dazed by what I had seen and so thankful to Kathy for arranging this visit.

The day wasn't over, however.  After a brief rest at her home, Kathy drove us to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture for a late afternoon program that included presentations by noted potters of the Santa Clara Pueblo, Jody Naranjo and her Mother, Dolly Naranjo Neikrug followed by questions from the audience.  Prior to the program, visitors were treated to wine and  hors d'oeuvre as well as a look at a wonderful bronze by Roxanne Swentzell, niece of Dolly Naranjo Neikrug, titled "Emergence."  Swentzell's bio offers so much!   I have not yet been able to locate a photo online of the piece and photos of it were not permitted.  Kathy and I did manage to capture the poem painted on the wall above the fascinating woman with oversized hands and feet, tipping a bowl meant to represent her womb and spilling out people into the world. 

Here is a piece of what was inscribed on the wall at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture,  Swentzell's writings are rich with meaning.

"IN THE BEGINNING, tucked in the dark womb of our mother

the urge struck us that we might venture out.  At this same moment our

Mother tilted her bowl of life and poured us forward into our lives..." 

Following this wonderful program, Kathy and I went on to dinner at Mucho Gusto where we both enjoyed the orange tequila shrimp entree.

Friday began with an hour and a half hike through Kathy's surrounding neighborhood (we started with a flat hike for me to become accustomed to the elevation), a brief lunch, and then a drive out to Abiquiu for a 2 p.m. tour of the Georgia O'Keefe Home and Studio.  We started at the Abiquiu Inn

which houses a gift shop and a restaurant, seemingly populated primarily by women!

 

In fact, of the 10 people on our tour, only two were men and our guide verified, in response to a question from one of the two men, that primarily women take the tour that includes a drive about a mile before one ascends to her home that looks out over the valley including towards "the white place" that she included in some of her work

We were not permitted to carry cameras with us but here is a link about the tour.  To be clear, I took this photo from the car following the tour.  We also passed a very old church

The drive back was uneventful and we arrived tired and hungry.  Kathy is an excellent cook - perhaps chef is a better word - so we enjoyed a dish the leftovers of which she had frozen after she recently - during the famous annual Indian Market - entertained seventeen people for dinner at their home on their portal.

Bill arrived later that evening and we talked about a number of things including geneaology that led to a question I had about a relative.  Being skilled at this kind of research, Bill spent time on Saturday while we were hiking, locating information I needed but had not yet found, in order for me to continue tracking some of my relatives.

After a delicious breakfast, again prepared by Kathy, we headed out towards Sun Mountain, one of the two "short" peaks (something like 780 feet of elevation gain) in Santa Fe (the other is Moon Mountain).  The hike is a precipitous series of short zig zag switchbacks and there were several times when I wondered what I was doing since I have a fear of descending that kind of trail.  And, of course, we did need to come back down.

On the way up, we encountered a cute little horned toad (can you spot him?)

and finally reached the top where we spent about an hour talking to other hikers who had made the climb that day.

From the top one can see Los Alamos, the Sandias, downtown Santa Fe including the sanitarium to which many people came to recover from tuberculosis, and the rest of Santa Fe  (population 75,000).  We caught a good look at the aspen leaves turning further up in the mountains and decided to hike the Aspen Vista Trail the next day:

Our hike down was as long as we had taken to get up there but neither of us took a tumble, a good thing!

Knowing that we were going to hike something the next day (we were on a roll, after all), we both enjoyed  lunch, a hot shower, and a nap.

I had been admiring one of Kathy's white cotton blouses, 

so she took me down to the Plaza

from which we walked towards the Haagen-Daz, knowing (thanks to a recent conversation with our Abiquiu guide) that the little clothing shop was close by and upstairs.  I've since learned that the Arizona Inn's gift shop here in Tucson carries these.  An acquaintance uses hers as a light jacket.

We located the shop  at 60 E. San Francisco Street and I found a similar white heavy cotton and well-sewn shirt but with three-quarter sleeves, my preference actually.  

Back out on the plaza, we were enticed by mariachi music and watched a procession of mariachi musicians followed by a just-married couple and their wedding party.  The entourage made two loops of the plaza, entertaining many on-lookers, before proceeding down a side street and presumably to a celebratory gathering:

Fairly tired by now, we returned to the house and to another delicious dinner prepared by Kathy using a recipe she found on the internet.  Bedtime came pretty quickly!

Sunday morning we rose early, feasted on mesquite flour waffles with strawberries on top, and then dressed for our drive up into the mountains to the Aspen Vista Trailhead.  The views of the leaves were phenomenal and I'll let the photos speak for themselves:

At this point, after an hour's gradual climb, we decided to turn around and head back.  To do so, we needed to drive further up the road for there were hundreds of cars parked along the road in each direction for what seemed forever.  On our journey up to a usable turnaround, we came round the bend and spotted this dazzling array of color

Hungry by now, we returned to Santa Fe and drove to the local, huge Whole Foods Market to get some lunch as well as select some prepared food for dinner that evening.  I was amazed at the selection of ready-made dishes

as well as the bakery section

I sure do wish we had something like this out near our home on the east side of town. 

We headed back home after this and another errand, showered, and took naps.  I was really tired!!

Kathy took me to the station to catch the first train that left shortly before 6 am and I arrived in downtown Albuquerque around 7:25.  We were a bit earlier than the schedule indicated so after a short wait, we pulled into the station, I disembarked, walked over to Bay E to catch the Route 250 bus back to the airport for a flight that left, on time, at 8:55 am and arrived in Tucson before 9 (early, again).


Fast forward to August 21, 2013

This month my husband had a business meeting in Albuquerque and invited me to come along so we could do some exploring of New Mexico for a couple of days afterwards.  As mentioned at the beginning of this entire entry, we spent our wedding anniversary in Santa Fe in 2008 so we knew we wanted to explore another part of the state.  We again flew Southwest Airlines which no longer has a direct flight to Albuquerque so going and coming we went via Las Vegas.  Looking out the window as we approached Las Vegas, we were confronted with the sobering visible fact that the level of the reservoirs that provide water to so many cities and towns was down 250 feet.  Several media including my church bulletin have announced (the following is from the bulletin of Corpus Christi):

"Environmental Corner - The Sacred Earth
Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was forced to announce the first official curtailment in flows out of Lake Powell on the Colorado River.  Due to extreme drought and climate change, the levels in Lakes Powell and Mead have been dropping for the last ten years.  This is an attempt to keep Lake Powell and the hydroelectric dam operations as river flows and lake levels continue to drop.  This historic action on the Colorado River signals that the extreme drought in the southwest U.S. is unrelenting and that cities and farms across the region need to begin aggressive water conservation measures in order to keep the river and the water supply alive for future generations (This announcement was covered in dozens of media outlets across the U.S. including the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Weather Channel.)"  [I wonder how many people will begin to conserve water in those areas where green grass is still de rigueur.]

However, the short hops actually made the trip bearable and our return, with only a layover rather than a plane change in Las Vegas, cut the trip to a bit more than 3 hours. 

On Thursday morning,  I boarded the New Mexico Rail Runner at a station convenient to the hotel (Rio Bravo stop with thanks to my husband for dropping me off) and enjoyed the scenery for the slightly under two hours it took to get to Santa Fe.  Kathy met me at the station and after chatting for awhile at her home we went for a hike and then to the Plaza and to Marcy Street for lunch at La Boca.

Afterwards we walked around the corner to visit the New Mexico History Museum and its wonderful exhibit, Cowboys Real and Imagined that'll be on display until March 16, 2014.  I provide a  quote from the publicity to give you a sense of what we saw and learned during the two hours or so that we spent slowly walking along:

When America needed hard workers, the cowboy was there. The job was dirty and difficult, low-paid and lowly regarded. But when an America torn by the Civil War needed a hero to unite its soul, the unassuming cowboy was an unlikely—and ultimately lasting—pick. Since riding out of Spanish horse culture, he’s been an itinerant hired hand, an outlaw, a movie star, a rodeo athlete, a radio yodeler, and a rhinestoned disco diva. He’s been Spanish, Mexican, African American, Anglo, male, female, straight, and gay. His image has been co-opted to sell trucks, beer, boots, beans, jeans, tires, cigarettes, leather couches, presidential candidates, and a lifestyle far beyond the means of real-life buckaroos. 

I mention this because one of the first exhibits emphasizes the role of the Spanish Conquistadors who brought their horses, their culture and their families to Mexico long before the Anglo ever set foot in this area.  If more people in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas knew their geographical area's history, perhaps there would be more support for those who came before.   But then far too few know the current ancestry theory, either, that we are all descended from about 10,000 black Africans.   By the way, there's a new comic appearing in the paper in New Mexico created by Ricardo Cate titled Without Reservations.

Enrique joined me Thursday evening at our hotel, Las Palomas, which is actually a cluster of several remodeled houses and many rooms (casitas) ranging from single rooms with bath to suites, etc.  We found our accommodations somewhat quaint but also very comfortable.  The highlight of our stay was a full hearty freshly made/baked/sliced breakfast each morning in their dining room including coffee made to order.  

While Enrique completed some work-related tasks Friday morning, I strolled along San Francisco Street towards the Plaza peering in shop windows until I arrived at the beautiful Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

The link above provides several photos as well as information and here are some of my own:

I walked to the sanctuary and to the left into the Chapel of La Conquistadora,  as well as lit a candle.  She is now known as Our Lady of Peace. 

 After I returned to our room and Enrique completed what he set out to do that morning, we got underway shortly after 11 am and drove the "low road" to Taos - Route 68, following the Rio Grande.

The scenery was quite beautiful and although the Rio Grande was running, we thought rafting in a few places must've been difficult because the water was low enough and rocky enough to impede progress.  Eventually the road opened onto an area that reminded us of the drive between Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon although in New Mexico there are mountains rather than The Canyon.

We lunched quickly in Taos and then walked along Bent Street towards and through the Plaza before returning to our car.

From there we drove about three or four miles north of town, turned left and after a bit arrived at the Millicent Rogers Museum.

where we spent about an hour walking through several rooms and viewing the collections of weaving, art, jewelry and sculpture.  I regret that I didn't take more notes to explain what you will be  looking at below but here are some of the beautiful things we saw.  Millicent Rogers also collected an incredible selection of personal turquoise jewelry that is part of the exhibit.

We knew that this drive would be our introduction to Taos because there is so much more to see, particularly if one drives what is known as the High Road to Taos (Route 76) that takes one through several pueblos including Chimayo.  Off in another direction, of course, is Georgia O'Keeffe's former residence in Abiquiu.

However, we had made arrangements to have dinner with Kathy and Bill at 5:30 pm (getting reservations in Santa Fe for dinner can be difficult, especially on a Friday night) so we limited our sightseeing this trip to what we could see while driving or while walking around Taos and of course at the Millicent Rogers Museum.

Following a delicious dinner of a variety of tapas and fine wine, the four of us strolled on over to the Plaza for a wonderful concert and an opportunity to dance.

We returned to our room and a good night's sleep.  We look forward to traveling to New Mexico again, soon.  I'd like to take a road trip, actually, that would include going north through Arizona before going on over to New Mexico.  Lots to see and sometimes so little time.