23-25 August 2012
Southwestern Excursions
From an airplane, New Mexico looks like another planet. The brown and arid land is dotted with
occasional bushes and vegetation. The
expansive flat land is interrupted occasionally by mountain ridges as far as
the eye can see. Albuquerque is like an
oasis in the midst of it all.
In this sleepy little airport, it took me less than five
minutes to walk from my airplane to the front of the airport where I easily
found the shuttle to my rental car. The
middle-aged driver eagerly lifted my suitcase on the bus, said hi, and asked me
where I had gotten my interesting necklace from. Once we all boarded the shuttle bus, the
driver came over the loudspeaker and introduced himself as Bill. He informed us that the ride to the rental
car area would take about 3 minutes. He
went on to give us the statistics on Albuquerque including the weather
forecast, how many miles of visibility we had today, the exact time of
tonight’s sunset, and the population of the city. When he lifted my suitcase off of the bus
again, he said, “I really would have liked to talk to you more.” Normally A comment like that would have
seemed sleezy coming from a middle-aged married man, but he did it in such a
genuine way as if to say, “You just seemed like an interesting person with whom
I would like to have a conversation.” I
would come to find that this genuine and open sense of friendliness was common
in New Mexico.
After a long day of work and traveling, I was in need some
caffeine. Right across from the
University of New Mexico campus, I found a café called Satellite Coffee. The shop and its patio out front was full of students,
hipsters and aged-hippies; some were discussing their studies, others were
smoking marijuana. I asked an older
couple to watch my laptop while I went to the bathroom. The woman said that she would tackle anyone
who tried to steal my computer.
After completing a full day of interviews at the University
of New Mexico, I set out to explore Albuquerque some more; if there was a
possibility I might live here for 2 years, I’d better get a feel for it. I changed into my running clothes after the
interview was finished and set off to find a trail. I drove east out of Albuquerque and headed
towards the mountains; in about 20 minutes I arrived at the foothills. There were miles of paved running/biking
trails along the road. At that higher
elevation I could see the city below and dessert beyond. The sky was bright with the afternoon
sunlight and dotted with impressive clouds.
It took me about 30 minutes to drive about half of the perimeter of
Albuquerque. I finally parked my rental
car near a park that runs along the Rio Grande river where there were many more
miles of running and biking trails.
Being used to Houston humidity, it was wonderful to take a run in the
cooler and drier weather. My pace was
faster than it had been in the Texas heat, but I did feel a little short of
breath in the 5000 feet altitude of Albuquerque.
I had dinner plans with my friend, Nancy, that night. On the way back to the hotel to shower, I
took a quick drive through Old Town Albuquerque which is full with old adobe
buildings painted in rich browns and reds.
I met Nancy on Central Ave, which is also known as the old
Route 66. For miles, this road is full
of restaurants, shops, bars, and other industry. Most of the buildings have a retro or
southwestern design and funky neon lights that remind me a little of the older
part of Las Vegas. I drank an Albuquerque-brewed IPA at the bar in Nob Hill
where I met Nancy and her brother and sister-in-law. On the way to the gourmet taqueria where we
ate dinner, they all kept running into people they knew, old friends from
highschool and so on. Albuquerque may be
a city but it feels like a close community.
We ended our night at a club set inside one of the oldest
buildings in Albuquerque called Casa Ascensia.
It has been a long time since I have gone out “clubbing.” While I waited in the long line to get in,
wearing jeans and a shirt, I felt grossly overdressed. The barely-twenty-one year old club-goers
around me were quite scantily clad even from my liberal perspective. It seems that the new trend is spandex
micro-mini skirts or high-waisted 1980’s style short-shorts, even for the obese
girls. Trendy clubs with cover-charges
and dress-codes are not my scene, but I enjoyed catching up with Nancy, dancing
to some 1990s throwback music, and watching the drunk kids go by.
I considered catching up on sleep the next morning, but
decided life was too short to sleep in and got up early to drive to Santa
Fe. I had always heard Sante Fe was a
magical place and so I didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity to visit
it. Albuquerque was quiet and sleepy
when I hit the road around 7:30am. I
could see about half a dozen hot-air balloons floating through the sky over the
dessert. After grabbing a coffee Michael
Thomas Roaster, at a small café their roasts their own coffee beans, I jumped
on the highway.
Santa Fe is a quick drive from Albuquerque; with a speed
limit of 75 mph, one can arrive in Santa Fe in under one hour. There were some stunning desert vistas along
the way contrasted with bleak looking Native American reservation land. It had been quite a few years since I had
driven through the beautiful southwest.
Every time I do, I am taken by this feeling of openness, adventure and
possibility when I see the long straight road stretching for miles ahead and
surrounded by beautiful nature.
When I arrived in Santa Fe around 9am, the town was still
waking up. Before the hoards of Saturday
tourists arrived, I got to walk through the small but beautifully preserved
adobe city as the sun light up the warmly-colored earth-toned buildings. This year, Santa Fe is celebrating its 400 year
anniversary which is almost hard to believe considering how well-kept the
structures are.
I had brunch at a restaurant called Pasqual’s Café, that I
had read had one of the best New Mexican breakfasts in town. As a single diner, I had to wait about 15
minutes to get a seat which was at a large community table in the middle of the
small restaurant. The man seated to my
right was an older hippie, with his long white beard and red and green colored
Hawaiian shirt, he looked a little like a desert Santa Claus. The waiter approached him and said, “Hi
Jim! Are you going to have the usual?”
I turned to Jim and said, “So, I guess you’re a regular
here?” He told me that he has been
coming to this café for 23 years. I
decided that I should probably order whatever he was having to eat. It was called the Huevos Montelunos which had
tortillas, eggs over easy, beans, red and green chilli sauce, green peas, and sautéed
bananas. It was delicious!
My flight out of Albuquerque was at 3pm so I didn't have
much time left in Santa Fe. I spent the
last hour checking out a small artist fair and the jewelry and craft merchants
located in the central square. Most of
the vendors were Native Americans selling turquoise jewelry. I couldn’t help
but buy a variety of their wares. They
weren’t very open to my attempts to bargain a price, but I didn’t really care. I can feel good about financially supporting the Native American efforts. Before I knew it, the town clock struck 12 noon, signaling my departure back to Albuquerque. If I jumped right in the car, I would have just enough time to make my flight to Denver. If only I just had more time to explore....
