The trip to New Mexico was great -- very relaxing, while filled with activities, talking, good food, a little family, lots of beautiful driving, art, shopping, and some public gatherings.
The scenery is so different from that at home and it varies quite a bit. We drove across mesa past many mountains. The sky was a deep blue almost consistently with an occasional set of high puffy clouds. Occasionally, we'd see black clouds off in the distance, some of which reached to the ground, which meant that in very isolated areas, it was raining. The earth and rock varied from light tan to dark brown to deep red, sometimes even presenting itself in stripes. On top of that, we'd often see little dark green bushes (called trees, believe it or not) interspersed with light green sage brush. In some areas, there were tall pines and aspens (like our birches), many of which had turned yellow for the fall holiday. The aspens quake -- their leaves shimmer in the wind. And wildflowers -- lots of light purple asters and bushes with brushy yellow flowers called chamisa. The air smells fresh and vaguely like herbs.
Food is incredible, especially if you stick to "New Mexican" cuisine (not Mexican). They grow and then roast a variety of chiles. When eating New Mexican, they ask whether you want green chile sauce, red chile sauce, or "Christmas" -- both. Driving down the street, you often see people standing over a big roaster, kind of like a lottery drum, cranking out fresh-roasted chiles. You can even go to the grocery store and buy chile powder to take home, which we did.
For the long stretches, we stayed in two B&Bs, one in Santa Fe and one in Taos. In Santa Fe, our B&B consisted of 24 tiny casitas in an old neighborhood. These were tiny apartments or large rooms that had fireplaces, seating areas, microwaves, fridges, and local furniture and art work. In the morning, we'd walk a short distance to the larger house and have breakfast, eating with some fairly interesting people. Our morning cook was from Puerto Rico (she was not a Newyorqueno) and the B&B manager had recently worked at a Trader Joe's near our house.
While in Santa Fe, we walked for miles. We went to art galleries. We found a woman from whom I'd bought a neclace five years ago and bought another one. (She sets up her table outdoors in a particular spot, so we just went back to that spot). We went to the Georgia O'Keefe museum on the very first day of a new exhibit. It's a very neat museum because they often pair paintings with photographs either showing the original scene or the inspiration for the scene or the painting itself. We also went to the International Folk Art museum.
We went to the Farmer's Market, which has just gotten its own plaza and building. There were all sorts of vendors and colors, flowers, vegetables, crafts. Many people hang ristras -- strings of chiles -- from their front door as a sign of good luck. So ristras were everywhere. We bought a worldwide vegetarian cookbook from a friend of the B&B's cook.
Also in Santa Fe, we visited Robert's 100-year old grandfather, Grandmarvin. We met his girlfriend, a mere 92-year old named Dixie. Marvin introduced us all to as many people as he could. And when his son Terry announced he was taking us out for dinner, Marvin told everyone we were going out. He was quite happy for the visit.
Our last day in Santa Fe, Terry and his partner, Claire, drove us up the high road to Taos. This is the old, more interesting route through forests and small charming towns. We stopped at Chimayo, which we affectionately call "the church of the holy dirt." It's a healing place with many crutches and other signs of recovery. There's a small hole in the floor out of which you're supposed to scoop up dirt. Terry rubbed some on his leg which had undergone surgery. I hope it helps. After a few more quick stops, we ate a late lunch in Taos, then returned on the low road.
The following day, we headed up to Taos again, this time on the low road so that we could get to town relatively early. The Taos Pueblo, which has been continuously occupied for 1000 years, was having a festival. There were no cameras allowed, but visitors were welcome. There were vendors from many surrounding pueblos, and of course, I bought more jewelry.
The ceremony was amazing and quite an honor to attend. Men wore black and white striped makeup on their entire body topped with a small loin cloth and went "looting and pillaging" across the pueblo. They "kidnapped" children and "baptized" them. They danced. There was a harvest element with blessed aspen branches. And then they climbed a pole -- the guy who succeeded in making it to the top got to keep the booty at the very top. These were the physical aspects of the ceremony, but it was actually alternately funny and moving and holy.
We stayed in a B&B that had been owned by Mabel Dodge Luhan, who was a real mover and shaker in the artistic and intellectual community in Taos. She had befriended Willa Cather, Georgia O'Keefe, DH Lawrence, Karl Jung (and before I knew this, I kept thinking about Trickster at the Taos Pueblo), Ansel Adams, and on and on. The B&B was quirky and filled with interesting and lovely guests and staff members. We stayed in the part that had been built about 200 years ago, long before MDL even arrived.
We went to some small museums and to a wool festival (complete with examples of many of the animals that provided wool, minus yaks and bison), to the local historic cemetery, and to the Kit Carson house.
We drove up into Colorado one day to have dinner in La Veta with Robert's 'rents, who drove down from Denver. Another day, we drove to Abiquiu, where Georgia O'Keefe painted some of her work, and we visited Ghost Ranch, which is now a Presbyterian retreat center. We might go back and stay there on our next visit. The scenery was gorgeous and it was really fun to go back and look at some of her paintings of the area after seeing the landscape with our own eyes.
Another day, we drove the "Enchanted Circle" and visited DH Lawrence's old property (given to him by Mabel Dodge Luhan) way up a country road and visited his shrine/chapel. That day, we also ended up visiting a furniture place and talking to the furniture maker and an arts cooperative and talking to the proprietor. We went up into ski country, though I more appreciated the scenery between towns than what we saw in the towns.
Then, on our way out of Taos, we took the high road back and stopped in a little town called Las Truchas, which basically has one shortish road which ends in farm land several miles away. We walked the length of the town part and visited galleries, admiring the mountain scenery around us. It had snowed up high the night before and the clouds were swirling around the peaks, occaisionally revealing some of the white stuff.
Back in Albuquerque, we had dinner with an old college friend (the wife of whom was in town this past weekend, so we had dinner with her again on Saturday). On our last day, we thought we'd go to the Old Town, but instead, we spent the entire day at the "BioPark" -- a large garden -- the aquarium, and the zoo, which is pretty good.
Then up early the following morning and onto a plane. It was a good trip. Lots of great input for all the senses, a good break from our routine, and a much needed relaxing time together with very few thoughts of work. We'll go back.
