New Mexico

We just had three awesome days in northern New Mexico. We only visited two cities, but three days really wasn't enough.

Our first day was in Taos. Taos is a small town of less than 5,000 people but it's a popular skiing and shopping destination. Most of the buildings are adobe (or are made to look like adobe, in the case of McDonald's and other chains encroaching on the area.) Taos is also the location of the famous Taos Pueblo, pictured below. This is sort of a Native American condo complex and is believed to be between 1,000 and 1,500 years old. People still live here, making it the oldest continually inhabited structure at least in North America. About 150 people live in the structure, but there are many other detached adobe dwellings around it which are nearly as old and are also inhabited. Electricity and running water are forbidden, and the village's water supply comes from a creek than runs through it. The Tiwa Indians call this village home and it's the first Indian village I've ever been to.

You have to pay a fee to get in. You also have to pay a separate fee to get your camera in, and you can't take pictures of Indians unless you get their permission first. And probably you have to pay them to do it too. I didn't try. The Indians were actually pretty shy and secretive, though one little old raisin of an Indian woman shouted at me, "Are you a real cowboy!?" to which I replied, "Are you a real Indian!?" She laughed heartily and asked, "Can you ride?" "Of course," I said. She dismissively waved her hand and said, "You need to move here to Taos!" as she turned and walked away.

These people are really poor. Most of them have set up shop and sell little trinkets, and every shop sells the exact same stuff. It was such a strange experience. You get a definite impression that they resent us (Americans) for their current state, though you can't blame them. We destroyed their culture and now they're reduced to letting us pay to walk around peeking in their windows for amusement and selling us worthless trinkets. Imagine if we were conquered and ultimately confined to living our lives out of our suburban tract homes, and the only way to make a living was to allow our conquerors to pay us a few darseks to walk around our streets and lawns taking pictures and asking stupid questions about the tattered remains of our culture. I have a lot to say about this but there's still a lot of vacation to cover.

We also got a glimpse of what the Great Plains once looked like before the arrival of the white man: literally thousands of bison grazing on a ranch that was so big we couldn't see the borders.

Perhaps you've heard of Earthship? They build (or sell plans for) completely sustainable, off-the-grid homes. They're made of local materials (usually dirt and rocks right from the ground) as well as recycled materials (mostly old tires to build the wall structures). They generate their own power from solar and wind, harvest their own water, are passively heated and cooled, and even clean their own waste water. One of their communities is right outside of Taos. One of the homes is open for tours.

To get to the Earthship community, you have to cross the mighty Rio Grande, which isn't so mighty this far north as it's still pretty young. It has, however, carved a mighty gorge. The bridge that spans it is 650 feet above the river, making it the fifth highest in the US. There was no good vantage point from which to get a photo of the bridge and I was standing on it to get the picture below.
We encountered portions of the old Route 66 several times, which was just cool. I always pictured James Dean cruising with the top down across the gorgeous desert landscape right at sundown.

We normally camp when we take a road trip, but since our destinations weren't National Parks or other necessarily outdoorsy locales, we decided to stay at bed and breakfast inns. Those are always preferable to corporate chains. We stayed right downtown in both Taos and Santa Fe, so we were always walking distance from everything. In Taos, the first inn we went to was (as nearly all are) an adobe. This one was particularly interesting because it was originally a fort and was something like 400 years old. It had also been haunted, but the owner told us in all seriousness how they'd brought in a woman who sent the troublesome apparition packing. Unfortunately there was no room at the inn. Fortunately the one next door had a vacancy. I highly recommend that if you're ever in Taos, you stay at Casa Benavides. It's close to everything, it's beautiful, the rooms are huge, and we met some really fun people at the community breakfast. And the food was delicious. Oh, and right next door to The Casa is Kit Carson's house. Kit Carson, as you may recall from high school history, was the most famous mountain man of the old west. He played a tremendous role in "settling" the west (ie. bringing about the destruction of the culture he admired and who now sell trinkets to their conquerors.) He's buried right around the corner and nearly everything in town is named after him.

In Santa Fe we stayed at Pueblo Bonito, which I also recommend. The food wasn't anything special, but everything else about it was wonderful - especially the free margaritas. We checked in and the lady behind the desk said, "Are you a real cowboy?" I sighed and smiled but didn't say anything. I think she understood I was getting tired of that question. "Can you ride?" she asked, right on cue. "Of course," I said. She smiled and said, "Put on your hat." I put it on. She looked at me for a moment, mouth slightly agape, and said, much to my surprise, "Yum!" For a second there the way she was looking at me made me wonder if she was going to pounce from across the desk. Gerard stepped up and told her she needed to lay off the margaritas. Turned out she was a "real" cowgirl and lives in a 400 year old adobe on her New Mexico ranch. She was also a "bull whisperer." We learned this over margaritas with her and a really gorgeous couple from Denver who also happened to be staying there. You just don't get that kind of experience at a chain motel.

Aside from Pueblo Bonito's offerings, the food in New Mexico really was quite good. If you're ever in Santa Fe and you want some truly delicious, authentic Northern New Mexico cuisine, you need to try La Fonda. It's the second best Mexican/Southwestern food I've ever had, right after Fonda San Miguel in Austin.

Other Santa Fe notable attractions include the San Miguel Mission Church, which is said to be the oldest church in the United States and was built around 1600 out of, you guessed it, adobe. It's right next door to what is said to be the oldest house in the US, an 800 year old adobe which is not inhabited and is closed to the public. Another famous old church, The Loretto, is not made of adobe. It's a lot fancier, and it's now privately owned and isn't really a functioning church anymore. Instead it's a money maker for the owners who wasted no time in putting in a well-stocked gift shop. What's all the excitement about a church? It has a miraculous staircase. I don't know that I'd call it miraculous, but it is quite beautiful and certainly is a work of art. The story goes that the church was built but the designer "forgot" to design in a staircase to access the balcony. No one apparently noticed until after the church was finished. Then some guy shows up in the 1870's, builds this amazing spiral staircase with no nails, no glue, no pillars or columns, and disappears. The builder remains anonymous and the staircase truly was a work of art. Churchy people said it was a miracle from God and claim that even today engineers can't figure out how the staircase stands, but that of course is BS. The bishop, shortly after the staircase was built, decided it needed to have a banister so that was added after the fact. I guess he felt the miracle only extended far enough to keep the staircase standing, but not far enough to keep is geriatric butt from falling off. Geez, you'd think God would at least have had the foresight to know the old man needed a hand rail.

Anyway, we loved New Mexico. It's really beautiful, and I just love walking around all the adobes and the roasting foods, the bright red ristras which are abundant, to say the very least, and the intense presence of a hybrid Indian-Mexican culture. Gerard, having grown up on the border with Mexico, was like a kid running around as memories came flooding back. Agua fresca, roasting corn on the cob, the nostril burning aroma of roasting chiles, dark skinned people lining the sidewalks selling jewelry and trinkets - it all reminded him of his roots. He said the market area was a lot like Mexico, but without the trash and crime. I'd say that's a pretty fair observation.