Southwestern Excursions

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!

The couple seated on my left were in town for their son’s wedding later that day in Los Alamos.  The couple was from Los Angeles but hoping to retire in western Montana soon.  The man told me he was getting in touch with his artist side, that he had just written and published a book.  Turns out, his father was a famous actor in the 1950s, a heart-throb named Glenn Ford and so he had just written his biography. 

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....