Do You Know the Way to Santa Fe?

Ah, Santa Fe, New Mexico!  A sunny, magical place with it’s own inimitable personality.  Our stay here began when we arrived at 9:00pm after an incredibly long drive.  We pulled into a restaurant we had scoped out ahead of time, Tortilla Flats, only to realize that they were just closing.  However, spotting us turning to leave, the manager, a sweet older lady, ushered us in, saying she welcomed us with open arms, and we’d receive hot food right away.

And did we ever!  Huge platters of enchiladas on blue corn tortillas, cheesy chile rellenos, tacos, and more.  Chile sauces are the thing in SFe, and dinner always comes with the question, “red or green?”  The best answer is “Christmas” – a bit of both.  The coup de grâce was sopapillas, puffy squares of fried bread drizzled with honey.  The waitress, taking pity on my poor deprived gringo children, brought us a complimentary extra platter of these, much to Brennan’s delight.  He devoured at least four!

Friday morning was all business.  The kids, bless their hearts, washed, dried, folded and packed seven loads of laundry, including all our very filthy Civil War clothes.  I went for a badly-needed run.  The day was absolutely gorgeous.

Following laundry, we ate yet another memorable New Mexican meal at a little burrito place, then toured the Georgia O’Keefe museum.  Georgia O'Keeffe (1887 – 1986) was an American artist who first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916. She made large-format paintings of enlarged blossoms, presenting them close up as if seen through a magnifying lens, and New York buildings, most of which date from the same decade. Beginning in 1929, when she began working part of the year in northern New Mexico—which she made her permanent home in 1949—O’Keeffe depicted subjects specific to that area. O'Keeffe has been recognized as the Mother of American Modernism.

I was hoping to take Claire for a quick peek at an interesting college in Santa Fe, St John’s.  Their flyer intrigued me.  It says, “The following teachers will return to St. John’s next year: Homer, Euclid, Chaucer, Einstein, Du Bois, Virgil, Augustine, Aristotle, Washington, Woolf, Plato, [etc.]”  They read and discuss great books.  In Santa Fe.  How cool is that?!  However, we were unable to find the campus and had to get on the road.

Leaving town, we spotted a sign saying that Las Vegas was only 60 miles away.  Really?!  Is my geography that far off?  No.  It turns out that there is a Las Vegas, New Mexico.  I wonder how many people have arrived there only to suffer confusion and disappointment.

  Smoke from a fire in the Sangre de Cristo mountains outside Santa Fe.

  New Mexico sunset.

As we were driving, we noticed little antelopes along the side of the road.

We’re reading aloud together Confederates in the Attic, by Tony Horwitz.  I came across a line that really spoke to me:  “Excuse the mess.  It’s always 1860-something in this house” (p. 314.) I want a sign saying that!

  Next stop: Roswell, New Mexico.

Roswell is most popularly known for having its name attached to what is now called the “1947 Roswell UFO incident,” the report of an object that crashed in the general vicinity in June or July 1947, allegedly an extraterrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of conspiracy theories as to the true nature of the object that crashed. The US Armed Forces maintain that what was recovered was debris from an experimental high-altitude helium weather and surveillance balloon, but they would say that, wouldn’t they?

(http://www.legendsofamerica.com/nm-roswellufo.html)

Santa Fe History

Santa Fe, the capital is situated at 7,000 feet above sea level, is the highest capital city in the U.S.  The city of Santa Fe was originally occupied by a number of Pueblo Indian villages with founding dates between 1050 to 1150. One of the earliest known settlements in what today is downtown Santa Fe came sometime after 900.  The Santa Fe River provided water to people living there.  Sadly, as of 2007, the river was recognized as the most endangered river in the United States.

European settlement in Santa Fe dates back even farther than the Pilgrims!  Don Juan de Oñate led the first effort to colonize the region in 1598, establishing Santa Fé de Nuevo México as a province of New Spain.  Early Santa Fe sounds like a pretty grim place:

“Santa Fe settlers are “churlish types” who are “accustomed to live apart from each other, as neither fathers nor sons associate with each other."

—Governor Fermín de Mendinueta, c. 1776.

"I can hardly imagine how Santa Fe is supported. The country around it is barren. At the North stands a snow-capped mountain while the valley in which the town is situated is drab and sandy. The streets are narrow... A Mexican will walk about town all day to sell a bundle of grass worth about a dime. They are the poorest looking people I ever saw. They subsist principally on mutton, onions and red pepper."

—letter from an American traveler, 1849

Santa Fe had the last laugh though, as it has now turned into a top-notch, fancy-pants tourist destination.  In 1912, when the town had only 5,000 people, the city's civic leaders designed and enacted a sophisticated city plan that incorporated elements of the City Beautiful movement, the city planning movement, and the German historic preservation movement. It anticipated limited future growth, considered the scarcity of water, and recognized the future prospects of suburban development on the outskirts. The planners foresaw conflicts between preservationists and scientific planners, and set forth the principle that historic streets and structures be preserved and that new development must be harmonious with the city's character.

The mainline of the railroad bypassed Santa Fe, and it lost population. However artists and writers, were attracted to the cultural richness of the area, the beauty of the landscapes and its dry climate. Local leaders began promoting the city as a tourist attraction. The city sponsored architectural restoration projects and erected new buildings according to traditional techniques and styles, thus creating the "Santa Fe style.

There is at least one sad note in Santa Fe history however.  During World War II Santa Fe was the location of a Japanese American internment camp, and in 1945 four internees were seriously injured when violence broke out between the internees and guards in an event known as the Santa Fe Riot.

According to dumblaws.com, the following are laws in New Mexico:

Nudity is allowed, provided that male genitals are covered.

Idiots may not vote.

State officials ordered 400 words of “sexually explicit material” to be cut from Romeo and Juliet.

You may not carry a lunchbox down Main Street in Las Cruces.