Tuesday continued
I will start by mentioning that I had reserved an intermediate car as our rental car, but what we got was a Cadillac SUV - with Texas plates, no less. Sadly, it wasn't a big Coupe de Ville with longhorns on the front hood - I would have liked that. In reality it was just the unremarkable (felt like any other entry-level luxury SUV) XT4. But still, I felt weird driving a Caddy, like my vehicle was particularly ostentatious.
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| Unfortunately, not our rental car |
This was our one long travel day. The drive from Denver to Taos takes about five hours, and it was neat to see the terrain get more dry and desert-like as we made our way south. By the time we reached Taos it looked like we in a roadrunner cartoon.
Our lodging in Taos was Casa Gallina, a lovely AirBnB. The owner, a former New Yorker and graduate of Cornell Hospitality School, has a number of "casitas" (little houses) on a large property. Our casita had a living room, a full kitchen and upstairs, a bedroom, bath, and covered porch. The place was beautifully decorated in Southwest style. I think Valerie was nonplussed by the lack of air conditioning, but the nights in Taos are cool and so if you open your windows at night the casitas stay pretty cool all day.
Casa Gallina's owner keeps chickens, and he provides you with fresh eggs (or rather, "the girls" provide the eggs) every day. Plus, he's got a large herb/vegetable garden that guests are welcome to pick from. On the rpoperty there are also apple trees from which we were welcome to pick apples. The variety of apple was "manzana de Agosto", which means August Apples, and so we were there at just the right time for fruit.
Being tired from our drive, rather than go out in search of dinner at a restaurant we made omelets using the eggs and the available veggies and herbs, which we ate with the little nibbles and wine the host had left for us. PErfect.
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Living room of our "casita"
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| This porch was almost worth the whole trip on its own - beautiful! |
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Our kitchen
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| Snacks upon our arrival |
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| The grounds at Casa Gallina |
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| Some of "the girls", as the owner calls them |
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| Cooking omelets from fresh ingredients |
Wednesday
As enjoyable as it had been to spend time with old friends, it was nice to once again be on our own and in control of our schedule. I started my morning with a cup of decaf Via Brew (Starbucks instant coffee) and some fry bread which had been part of our welcome nibbles. Being antsy from too many days of sitting around, I tried going out for a morning walk, but the narrow, twisty road that Casa Gallina is on is surprisingly busy, and has no shoulder. For safety's sake I quickly gave up.
Once Valerie woke up we went into central Taos, where we browsed the shops and galleries at the historic plaza. Valerie bought a nice pair of silver earrings, soap, and dish towels. Then we took a break at a coffee bar our host had recommended, where I ordered an "Aztec Coffee". In the past I had encountered this beverage at the improbably named Starnut Coffee in McLean, VA (how do they not get sued?), where it's made with coffee, hot cocoa, and cinnamon as the "hot" spice. Since being introduced to the idea at Starnut I've occasionally made this drink myself, adding actual hot pepper to make the recipe a little more Aztec-y than the bland McLean version. I'm happy to report that the Taos version included actual New Mexico hot chiles in addition to coffee and cocoa. Maybe such a drink is not your thing - but I found it delicious!
Once the heat got to be too much for us (summertime in the high desert!) we headed back to our casita, where we picked and ate some manzana de Agosto apples and then rested. I napped in the porch hammock, which was very, very nice. We had intended to make it back out and go to a museum, but we got lazy and were enjoying the slower pace. We didn't make it out again until dinner, which offered us our first taste of authentic Southwestern food at a restaurant called Orlando's. To my admittedly half-dead sense of taste, the food was like a good quality Tex-Mex restaurant you'd find back home, differentiated primarily by the really good chili sauces available - every place offers red and green, or you can get your food with "Christmas", which is both red and green sauces together. After dinner we stopped into a supermarket then headed back to our hotel.
Thursday
We ate breakfast at home. I had bought coffee at the supermarket and it was sooo good to have a decent, normal cup of coffee. Not Gary's weak hazelnut brew, not Via Brew instant, not the surprisingly weak (maybe it was the lower boiling point at altitude?) Starbucks Americano at Copper Mountain, but normal coffee (decaf, of course) brewed to my liking (strong) in our casita's coffee pot.
Unfortunately, we had planned just a short amount of time in Taos, and one place we really wanted to go, the Taos Pueblo, was closed. The pueblo was open every day in August except, of course, for the three days we were in town. "We" once again decided to blow off the museum, but we did find the motivation to visit the Thunder Lizard bead shop (great name!) and the Rio Grande Gorge bridge, where you stand over the impressive chasm created over the millennia by the Rio Grande river. Cool.
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| Wildflowers near the Rio Grande Gorge |
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| Bighorn sheep hanging out by the bridge. Not a zoo - these are wild animals |
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| Sadly, there appears to be a problem with jumpers - there were a number of these call boxes along the bridge |
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| The Rio Grande gorge |
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| Us at the gorge |
When we left the gorge we headed for Santa Fe, about 90 minutes away. Now I swear, the road between Taos and Santa Fe is not a scary one. Really, it's no worse than the GW Parkway in Virginia. While smaller than an Interstate, it's not a twisty mountain road, and there are no precipitous drop-offs alongside it; however, along the way Valerie, who I think was worn out from the heat along with all the moving around nd constant change of travel, had something of a panic attack and was freaked out by the drive all the way to Santa Fe. Fortunately, once we got there she was able to take comfort in the generically familiar setting and powerful air conditioning of the Hampton Inn. While Valerie rested and recovered from the drive, I went on the treadmill at the hotel gym (exercise at last!). Not feeling like going out for a big meal, we picked up dinner from the nearby Sprouts organic market, some pre-fab dishes we heated up in the microwave in our room, which was plenty fine for us. We passed a relaxing evening just reading and chilling out.
Friday
Here's where the big mix-up of our trip occurred. We started our day with a visit to Meow Wolf, a rather hard to describe large-scale interactive, immersive art installation. Built in a former bowling alley, it's a 20,000-square-foot space that progresses from almost normal (you start out in what seems to be a suburban house where something not quite specified has gone wrong) and takes you into ever more weird immersive art spaces based on the house's residents having "broken time." It's very cool and a whole lot of fun. We went there stone cold sober at 10 AM - a good time of day to go because it's not crowded; however later in the day and a little tipsy would make for a different, perhaps even more enjoyable experience. Or, if it's how you roll, get a little tipsy at breakfast and go at 10 AM. Speaking of getting tipsy, cannabis is legal in New Mexico and there are dispensaries EVERYWHERE. Anyway, some pictures below give something of a feel for the place.
Here's the crazy thing: very uncharacteristically for us, we had shown up on the wrong day. We had tickets for Saturday, but showed up Friday. Fortunately for us, they had no problem with this kind of mix-up, and let us in with our wrong day tickets; however, the ramifications of our mistake cascaded into the next day.
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| Meow Wolf photos |
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| One portal from the house to the weird world beyond is to climb through the washing machine. You can walk through the fridges, too. |
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| Costumed character in Meow Wolf |
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| Video in one of the rooms |
After a few hours of exploring Meow Wolf, including my being extremely impressed with Valerie's ability to create a mental map of the place and navigate within it (I couldn't do any better than just wander aimlessly), we rushed over to the Santa Fe plaza to catch a trolley tour of the city (offered at only two times per day). Along the way we stopped for a very hurried lunch at an Indian restaurant. I think they thought we were crazy - instead of ordering the buffet, which would have been quick but probably too spicy for Valerie, we ordered off the menu but told them to rush, rush, rush our food. Once our food arrived we gobbled it down (by the way, it was exceptionally good!), settled our bill, then dashed over to meet the trolley tour. The tour was fun and gave us a good bit of city information, local architecture and history, along with some questionable lore about local ghosts and the reason the Hebrew name of god is
inscribed above the entrance at a local cathedral.
Southwest cooking is a distinctive style, with variants ranging from the burritos and enchiladas we back east think of as general Tex-Mex, to sophisticated and creative takes on Southwest flavors cooked with fresh, local ingredients. Well, we weren't having any of that crap. After dinner at Orlando's Valerie declared she had eaten her one and only Southwest meal. With basically 99% of the local restaurants thereby taken out of consideration, we once again got takeout from Sprouts supermarket and ate in the room. After dinner we danced the night away at Santa Fe's hottest club -- just kidding! Other than buying dinner at the supermarket, we didn't leave our hotel.
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| Santa Fe supermarket product |
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| Big Sky country, as seen from the Hampton Inn parking lot |
Saturday
Saturday we were pretty excited to attend the St. Dominic Feast Day at Santo Domingo Pueblo, their biggest festival day and corn dance of the year. However, here's where of Friday/Saturday mix-up really bit us. While looking for directions to the pueblo we realized that the feast day had been on Friday and that we had reversed Friday and Saturday in our minds. We went to Meow Wolf on Friday when we should have been at the pueblo, and we almost went to the pueblo on Saturday when we should have been at Meow Wolf. So, we missed the festival and along with our bad timing for the Taos Pueblo wound up totally striking out with experiencing native culture. I guess it wasn't all bad, as it was another hot sunny day and in all likelihood we wouldn't have lasted long out in the heat at the pueblo.
I once again started my day with a treadmill workout, then we headed for our Saturday morning farmers' market "date" as we do every week, except this time in Santa Fe rather than Falls Church! The Santa Fe market, held in the revitalized Railyard District, is large and bustling, with things we don't see in Falls Church - bundles of dried sage, chili peppers, native foods like corn posole, as well as a whole section of crafts. I bought some New Mexico ground hot peppers, and some funky socks, and we also bought an inexpensive art print. While I was browsing the chili pepper booth Valerie got to talking with a woman, who like us, was a tourist - visiting from California. When Valerie mentioned that we live in Arlington the woman said, "Oh! my sister lives in Arlington," and her sister turned out to be someone we've known for a long time (Teddy was in Boy Scouts with her son) and who lives just a few blocks from us. Weird coincidence!
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| Santa Fe farmers' market |
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| Hot chilis for sale! |
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| Bathroom at the farmers' market. Honestly, in New Mexico, how many people even get the "Flushing" joke? |
After the farmers' market we visited a bead store. In reading this write-up have you lost track of the number of bead stores we visited on this trip? Me too. I guess Valerie got overwhelmed by the excitement of shopping for beads, since her stomach started bothering her. I dropped her off at the hotel and went out for lunch on my own, a chance to sneak in another Southwestern meal. At hole-in-the-wall El Comal restaurant I was one of the few Anglo patrons (always a good sign). I had an excellent vegetarian burrito, served with a sopapilla. I also got to listen to the buzz of patrons' conversations, a mix of English, Spanish, and English with that hard to describe flat, yet sing-song Native American accent some call the
Reservation or "Rez" Accent.
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| Bangin' veggie burrito at El Comal |
The friend we had visited in Denver texted us to say that she had come down with Covid right after our visit, which made us worry not only for our own health but also for 80 year-old cousins Paul and Marcia whom we were due to visit in Albuquerque Sunday evening. In consultation with cousin Paul (who is an MD) we decided we'd still plan on visiting, but would test first. So, after my lunch at El Comal I went out looking for Covid tests, which it turns out have become hard to find. Walmart's pharmacy was closed for lunch, and Walgreens didn't have any in stock (we later returned to Walmart, which did have a few in stock).
In keeping with Valerie's "no Southwestern food while visiting the Southwest" rule, we went to a ramen shop for dinner (another good meal - we lucked out with our New Mexico restaurant choices) and then I dragged Valerie to a local outdoor concert. The venue was a stage at the local community recycling facility / demonstration garden, and the band was an Americana group from California called
Rose's Pawn Shop. Good music, unique setting, and a lovely sunset while watching live music.
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| Flowers |
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| Watching live music at dusk, Santa Fe |
Sunday
Sunday we returned to the Railyard District, this time to go to the weekly craft market. And again, we had a weird coincidence. We stopped to buy a magnet as a souvenir for my brother (dog-themed, of course), and when we told the artist that we were from Arlington she said, "oh, do you know 'Lost Dog Café?' They sell my work there." Well, Lost Dog Café is walking distance from our house and we've been going there for years. Again, small world.
After packing up we headed out to our final destination, Albuquerque. We had some time to kill before we were due to meet cousins Paul and Marcia, so we went to the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. It's not surprising that this museum is situated in Albuquerque, the nearest city to Los Alamos. The museum is quite well done, and when Valerie and I saw the Oppenheimer movie a few days later we got to poke each other and say, "Hey! we just saw that thing at the museum!"
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| Museum entrance |
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| Recreation of one of the Manhattan Project labs |
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| Kid's toy from the atomic age |
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| Replica of the trinity device (the first nuclear bomb) - we spotted this gadget in the Oppenheimer movie a few days later |
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| I worked on GPS in the 1980's! |
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| Valerie and I met working on the Trident II (D-5) upgrade - a "meet cute" involving nuclear missiles! |
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| Historic airplanes outside the museum |
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| I hope they check the nuclear codes more carefully than their text. Can you spot the typo in this display? |
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| It was very hot in Albuquerque. Very hot. |
Finally, we made our way to Paul and Marcia's, detouring only a tiny bit to pass by two Breaking Bad exterior locations (Walter White's house and the car wash) along the way. We spent a pleasant afternoon and dinner with the two of them. It's hard to believe that they're eighty, as they're both very youthful and active. I kept thinking that if octogenarians can be this young, maybe it's not so bad having one as president. For dinner we had take-out pizza, which was every bit as good as you'd expect New Mexico pizza to be.
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| With Paul and Marcia at their house |
Then, after a night at a pleasant but sort of bare bones hotel, we headed home. DC was being lashed by a serious of serious thunderstorms - my phone kept buzzing with warnings - but somehow we had smooth flights and made it in only 30 minutes later than scheduled.
Y'know, in talking with people in New Mexico again and again people told us that they visited the area, immediately fell in love with the place, and had to find a way to move there. It bills itself as the "land of enchantment", and true, we had some peculiar coincidental connections there. I'm pretty sure, though, Valerie did not fall in love with the place one bit given the hot temperatures, spicy food, and arid terrain. For me, Taos was a little small, but I felt Santa Fe had its charms. I wouldn't mind going back to explore more, but next time maybe not at the peak of summertime heat.
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