Four days in Santa Fe…

Atop the Atalaya Trail at 9,100 feet above Santa Fe. An elevation gain of nearly 2,000 feet. We slogged up snow the last 1,500. We learned the utility value of 'Yaks' too late in our trek to be of any help.

Reid is in India this week and next, traipsing in and around Bangalore.  Why he picked that spot is beyond me but that’s where he is for the duration of his odyssey.   If a kid is going to pull up stakes and travel, why not now when he has no life commitments beyond his job and rent and has a little change jingling in his pockets?  Everybody has a little bit of wanderlust and adventure in them.  He may have exceeded his supply.  By my count, he’s been to Mexico, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, and maybe other nations I don’t know about.   Norway?

By comparison his old man had to settle for four days in Santa Fe.  But it was far from a booby prize.  As a getaway locale its pretty darn good if you like the Southwestern motif of food, culture, pervasive adobe structures and high-country desert.  I’ve been there more than several times and wonder if I blunt my own sense of wanderlust by not expanding my travel horizons with return trips to Bend, OR or Boise, ID or San Diego or sunnier, warmer spots.  I’m kind of Santa Fe’d-out for maybe the next half-decade or so.  You could do worse, however.

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Here’s what the kids received last week:

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February 13, 2012

Ellen/Reid: Reid, I hope this gets to you before you journey East (or do you go West to get to India?) and it has to be an enormous relief to have your visa in hand.  What a deal that would’ve been to go all that way only to be turned down at the customs office.  I cannot wait to hear about things and hope that you can get online as often as possible to send us your photos and your impression of things.  It is just wild that you are headed over there.  There was a book some time ago titled The Ugly American and it was about how in our arrogance we bullied some Southeast Asian banana republics into our way of thinking or some such thing.  You will be anything but.  What an experience.  Sure you don’t want to lug your old man along with you?

In lieu of your once-in-a-lifetime trek to India, Santa Fe had to do for us.  We had a great time.  The streets and byways come back to you after a little while, and we just had a low-key but fun four days.  Among the many places we dined and imbibed was Cowgirls (which if memory serves me, which it may not, was where we had BBQ there with you a few years ago), incredible wine at the 4 star Inn of the Anisasi, a couple of good visits to the La Fonda, Casa-something-or-other which was just a riot with a live flamenco dancer accompanied by an operatic singer.  It was really fun and the food was good, too.  I couldn’t tell you what we ate at El Farol but it was a wonderful meal.  That was the place a little bit south of the house you guys rented when you were there.   We stayed at a funky little B&B called the Inn on the Paseo.  Homey yet with good access to the Plaza.  We moseyed around the perimeter of the town square looking at Indian jewelry and the like and had a glass of wine now and again.  It’s a big art town and the cultural angle is kind of lost on me so 50% of the stores went unvisited.  It hadn’t changed a whole lot since the last couple of times I’d been there.

I suppose the other highlight besides gorging ourselves was a hike up the mountains to the east of Santa Fe.  Felicia found the alleged day hike online, and we literally went straight up nearly 1,800 feet on the Atalaya Trail.  The tourist info called it a ‘difficult’ climb but some other stuff I came across just this morning termed it strenuous.  It was accurate to say the least.  Whenever a trail sign offers two options, one being ‘Steepest’ and the other being ‘Easiest’, take the latter.  We opted for steepest, and while it was a challenge, we were in fine shape.  It wasn’t so much hiking as climbing.  We just weren’t mentally prepped for it.  Plus, we were on snow the entire last half and that made the going treacherous, but we did prevail and persevere, and after a few hours we made it to the top.    That’s where the cell phone photo came from.  It was unbelievable.  The few folks we did see sported a strap-on traction deal on their boots called ‘Yaks’ which were a poor man’s crampon.  Thus, we half-slid our way back down the mountain.  It was exhausting but well worth the ordeal.

We took the Turquoise Trail to Albuquerque and that was kind of a bust.  Of note was the town of Madrid, where the climatic street scenes from “Wild Hogs” were filmed.  So that was sort of fun.  We skirted Albuquerque in hopes of finding the desert but the shrubs and few cacti weren’t much different than what we saw around Santa Fe.  It ended up a waste of gasoline and precious time.

Ellen, let me know if you have questions about the bath thing.  Sounds arduous.  Tim’s demolition is really a huge part of it.  The other stuff should come together.  Just make sure you have your materials list in hand and the specific locations of where the shower, sinks, etc., are going to be.  Make sure the contractor gives you a daily report and a to-do list for the next day’s work.

Okay, guys, over and out.  Reid, do what you can to keep us filled in.  Can’t wait to hear all about it.

Far removed from travel…

Henry gets an early morning hug and goodbye from Ellen before she heads to her teaching job. Ellen and Tim are in the midst of a bathroom addition before the arrival of their little one.

We have returned from Santa Fe no worse for the wear.  Ellen and Reid will read all about it in the next couple of days as it is a substantial part of the letter to them to be mailed later today.  Here’s hoping the note arrives at Reid’s place before he hops a jet to India for a couple of weeks of international adventure.

I’m no travel writer by any stretch, but Santa Fe is a worthwhile place for a long weekend if you like turquoise and mountains, good food and good drink (all of which we consumed in quantity).  Felicia and I did the touristy things that out-of-staters are expected to do but we managed to push the envelope in a couple of other interesting ways related to the outdoor life.

Last week’s letter to Ellen and Reid, however, is far removed from travel.  It touched a lot of different bases closer to home.

Here is that letter.

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February 6, 2012

Ellen/Reid: By this time next week we’ll have been to Santa Fe and back.  Looking forward to it.  Why someone would opt to go to a winter destination in the winter is a failing on my part.  If we were skiers it would be one thing but we’re not.  It’ll be okay I guess.  There’s something to getting on the plane and into your seat and simply getting out of town that is good.  My camera is on the fritz so don’t expect too many photos.  Maybe a cell phone pic now and then.  Reid, we still need your itinerary.

You can’t believe all the GOP vitriol that is going on down here.  Honestly, and it can’t be stated any other way, they have become the party of hatred and intolerance.  I’m fine with job growth and green business and the like and might even be tempted to vote for a Republican now and again who even half way engaged in civil discourse, but holy smokes if you could read the paper down here (as for watching Fox Faux News, no) you’d see the tonal quality of the right wing is darn near nuclear.  I’m half intent on writing something to the Observer to the effect that 1) bin Laden is dead, 2) unemployment has fallen to 8+%, 3) we’re out of Iraq (a tragically goofy war to start with), 4) 64% of manufacturers report adding workers, 5) housing is beginning tepid upward movement and 6) foreign oil imports are down.  I just don’t get this utter hatred on the part of zealots.  How the Republicans have members among anyone in the middle class is just beyond me.  Maybe Newt is onto something with his idea of colonizing the moon and usurping it as the 51^st state.  The problem is it won’t start soon enough.  If we could speed that up, we could ship those folks up there.  But that would be akin to that old joke about attorneys: what do you call 5,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea?  A good start.

Felicia spotted a coyote behind the house yesterday while I was on my way to Caldwell.  I wish I could’ve seen it.  Maybe it dined on one of the several feral cats that prey on the birds that a bunch of the neighbors and I are trying to feed.  People are upset down here that coyotes are poaching their cats and little dogs.  Solution: keep your *&%(# cats and what passes for mini-dogs inside the house.  Coyotes eat what is available.  The blue birds are out back this morning scoping out the nesting box, and the chickadees are in an uproar about it.  My money is on the chickadees muscling the bigger blue birds out of the way (just like they did last year).

Number 62 occurs on Wednesday.  Just another day on the calendar, in my view.  Age is nothing more than an arbitrary number and will be so again this year.  Sure, the return image is skewed a little bit when I look in the mirror, but I will still flaunt it by golfing and riding the Harley and taking walks and fly fishing and just doing things.  Your uncle doesn’t seem overly upset about it although we have been prone to talking about when to take Social Security, etc.  There are a couple of bones I’ll toss toward age.  A little memory juice wouldn’t be such a bad thing.  The other thing I have to owe up to is getting a pair, or two, of full time glasses.  My vision is going to hell.  I just can’t seem to distinguish things as well as even a year or two ago.  Maybe that’s what stops me from seeing the handwriting on the wall.  That’s a joke, too.

I went to a book writer’s seminar last week and found it enlightening.  Enlightening as in I have no clue how to get started let alone finding a publisher or marketing the thing.  I have yet to come across a writer who doesn’t think their topic isn’t the best thing since sliced bread or bottled water.  One of the two speakers encouraged us to take a hard, dispassionate look at the market for our manuscripts.  If we can’t forthrightly admit that the potential pool of buyers isn’t oceanic (my term), then perhaps we should just self-publish a few copies for family and friends.  There’s something to that.  If you have thoughts on that, I’m all ears.