ljplicease | Entries tagged with nm2016

Added some of the film photos I took in Albuquerque and Sata Fe to the digital ones that I already posted:

I think I am mostly all caught up! Oh except for Connecticut.

Once in Los Alamos we headed for North Mesa and the secluded spot on the side of the mesa where I proposed to Lena^[1], and is thus now a required stop when we go to NM. After enjoying the quiet solitude we headed for Rancho de Chimayó^[2]. The food there is much less fancy than Pasqual's, but honestly it is favorite.

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(day five) Apparently you can't just drive into Bandelier between 9am-3pm, so we got up super early and had brekky burritos at Chili Works^[3], and drove into Frijoles Canyon when it was nice and quiet. We saw the main ruin, and the ladders were popular with Lena. We walked out to “Alcove House”, which used to be referred to as “Ceremonial Cave”. The other naming change I noticed is that in the guide book^[4] used the phrase “ancestral pueblo people” instead of Anasazi, which is not politically correct, since it is a Navajo word meaning “ancient enemies”. Curiously I was aware it was a Navajo word, but not of the meaning. We had hiked the entire easy touristy trails in the park and were up for some more, so we continued up the canyon for a while. The trail is not kept as well and after a while we decided to head back to the picnic tables for a nice lunch than Lena had prepared.

After the park we wondered around town, and I pointed out all the stuff that had changed and all the stuff that was the same. I moved out of town in 2000 when I got a job at The Company. In fact the movers came to get my stuff on the day before the evacuated the town for the Cerro Grande Fire. So things that have happened since I moved include 9/11, two major fires that burned part of the town, and several scandals that cost several director's jobs. Lots of stuff has changed, but the town seems to be thriving.

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(day six) It was supposed to rain in the afternoon, so we took several short hikes, under the assumption that we'd have to find an indoor activity soon, but each time it was like “sky looks fine lets do another one”. So we did Tsankawi^[6] which has good ladders also. Then we did Tyuonyi^[7] Overlook. Still no rain? Okay we did Upper Frijoles Canyon Overlook. What was interesting was that each hike was higher and higher into the Jamez mountains, and so with each hike the vegetation changed.

Then we went to meet Becky and Perry at Rancho for dinner. They are old friends of mine from my high school days. I will likely write more on this later, but it was wonderful to see them both. We stayed quite late.

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(day seven) We met Becky and her three year old son Christopher for a short 2 mile hike in the meadows of the Jemez the next day. It was slow going, but entertaining. One minute he'd be like “I'm tired” and then Becky would say “Want to be a train?” and he'd be speeding past all of us at full speed.

Lena and I did a harder hike after that on our own. Cerro Grande Route was a long slog uphill, but the view was amazing.

We met Becky and Perry for dinner again, this time in town at the beer co-op. There had never been a beer co-op in town, indeed, until this place no decent bar at all. They didn't have food, but you can bring your own, so we ordered a green chili and mushroom pizza. It was highly delicious.

Christopher's baby sitter had her limits so we said goodnight to Becky and Perry again and went to see the amazing New Mexico night sky in a secluded spot on Pajarito mountain.

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(day eight) Today is just a travel day. We had a green chile cheeseburger at the 66 diner, and now I am waiting for the flight that will take us back to the land of the blue crab.

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Funny story. I am not really a “planner”, so two years ago I had the ring and a ticket to New Mexico for the long weekend of 4th of July. Then the heater whet kaput and the house became completely uninhabitable for about three weeks. The first week I was was in Orlando for the national Perl Nerds conference (whew), and the weekend after that we escaped to Ocean City to avoid the heat at home. On the Thursday before we were off to New Mexico, they crappy contractor who we had gotten to replace the heat pump finally got around to doing their thing. On the first day we were in New Mexico, we ate at Rancho de Chimayó. Lena had a vague suspicion about the reason for the trip, but I totally fooled her by not proposing that night. Actually it is totally not my style to do anything like that in such a public space, but that is another story. The next day we were hiking Tsankawi and Lena mentioned that her favorite place was that secluded spot out at the end of North Mesa, and me being the quick witted type or perhaps poor planner thought “THAT would be a good place”. The rest was history. For those of you who read the footnote first sorry, there are some spoilers because we tend to repeat activities...
Spoiler number one! Actually funny story number two. Originally we were going to Rancho for Chicken Noodle Day, but I preferred not having to drive for the day that we were in Santa Fe. Also Becky had suggested Rancho as a place to meet, and I was like sure! But I was too embarrassed to call them and make two reservations on one phone call. So my wife did this for me. Also they totally spelled my wife's last name, which is also my last name wrong. But I digress.
highly recommended if you are ever in Los Alamos at brekky time.
although most of the signage in the park had not been changed
08.17.2001 I Know What You Did This Summer, Act Three. You Can Have Your Cave And Eat It Too.
spoiler number two mentioned previously. These trips are all jumbled in my head with past and present when I try to write about them in a sequential manner.
This is the main ruin in Bandalier. The guide book says it is pronounced “que-OHN-yi”. Confusingly.

When we rolled into Santa Fe, I drove us over to the street where we Mum and I lived for a year. I could not identify our old house though, which was a little perplexing. The end of the street is a dead end, which I don't remember^[1], probably because in those days I could only walk anywhere I wanted to go. Beyond the dead end used to be a dusty nearly deserted freight rail yard. Now it is all built up and gentrified with trendy shops. There was also a couple of the new rail runner commuter trains parked in the yard.

Then we went to the hotel, which we were early for. Since we were early and our room wasn't ready yet, they gave us a free upgrade on the room. The room they gave us was palatial, and included a little private patio even. After resting up for a bit we had some complementary hotel guacamole and salsa and chips.

Then we took advantage of our hotel being walking distance from the Plaza and went exploring. The first shop we went into was a spice shop where they had red capped tasting bottles that you could sniff and taste. It was all rather fresh and delicious. I wish that we had a place like that where we live! We both suspected that they were new, because of the degree to which the owner was aggressively friendly. If our suspicious are true, I hope they survive!

Next we went into a dress shop. This continued with various different stores, until we got to the “Camera Shop”, which was not nearly as awesome as the shop in Stockholm. They did have a much smaller collection of collectable cameras and carried Ilford black and white film, and even some Impossible Project film^[2]. I realize that I'd really like to find an old Soviet camera either a Zenit (Зени́т) or Zorki (Зоркий) in good nick. eBay is of course full of them, but it is hard to trust that they are in very good condition, and camera stores here in the states have mostly American, Japanses and German cameras.

We went wondering for dinner next. We were going to walk to Lottaburger for a green chili cheeseburger, but Lena fortunately eyed Fire and Hops and a brilliant meal with small plates ensued. I really loved the pork tacos with just a taste of kimchi and radish (and cilantro). I really think it is hard to go wrong with cilantro. Lena loved the roasted veggies. For dessert we had home made chocolate red chili ice cream, a combination I never would have thought of.

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(day three) The twenty-ninth is Chicken Noodle Day, a holiday I invented in one of my weird phases where I had declared an independent republic and figured that I needed a few holidays^[3]. The excuse, as though we needed one, for going to New Mexico was to celebrate Noodles day. So Lena surprised me with a present when I woke up. Actually several. They came in envelopes with hints as to the content. I had to guess, which I am terrible at, and then she would give me hints and finally she would give it to me. So it is a lot like Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me if you have ever listened to that. Inside the envelopes were pictures of my gifts. I thought this was a great idea, because it saved us having to cart them all the way to New Mexico and back!

The hotel breakfast included a brekky burrito bar (!) which I thought was a wonderful idea, and great example of local flair. No green chile though.

I should say, for those who have never been to New Mexico, green chile is a very big deal in New Mexico. If it isn't the state fruit, it ought to be. Those who have lived in the state for any time^[4] develop a love for the spicy ingredient which New Mexicans prepare everything with. As I understand it, it is mildly addictive because of endorphins, but it isn't a bad thing at all to be addicted to!

After brekky we strolled over to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. O'Keeffe is my favorite painter. I came to love her in the third grade when I studied her in my art class. This is about the only positive thing that I can say for the third grade. I like to think it has something to do with us both being outsiders to New Mexico who came to call it home. Probably also because she is most famous for the paintings that she did in the Land of Enchantment.

Then it was about time for the galleries on Canyon Road to be opening so we strolled up that street to check out the works of art. The gallery owners are very friendly, and even though they must look at us and know that we cannot afford what they are selling, they will chat about this and that. The Ukrainian lady at the Russian gallery with her desk labeled "директор" was very friendly indeed. She showed us some old propaganda paintings from the soviet era which I thought were fantastic to see. I don't think there is a lot of money to be made of these paintings and she has been collecting them out of interest. She sold us a beautiful print at I am guessing pretty close to cost of this painting of a woman playing a violin which was also part of her hair.

After spending a long time in the Russian gallery, we went to Cafe Greco across the street. I had a delicious green chili chicken enchilada. We also had cherry pie for dessert. After a few more galleries we were galleried out and went back to the room to drop things off and relax a bit before dinner.

We strolled around the capital building, which is round and then walked back to the Plaza to do some people watching. We spied a good sitting spot and listened to a couple of musicians playing guitar and singing in the center. Just about every time we walked through the Plaza^[5] there was a different artist busking. Spice, variety, life, as it were.

It was finally time for our reservation at Pasqual's! This place is famous for their mole enchiladas. Which I sampled on the combo plate. Everything was very delicious. A good way to celebrate the end of Noodles Day.

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(day four) After brekky the next day, we had another nice stroll around the plaza. This time I took my long telephoto to take architectural detail of the faux adobe. Then it was off to see my mum's long time friend joycer. Originally we were planning on going directly up to Los Alamos for lunch, but joycer convinced us to have another nice lunch at Tecolote Cafe.

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Mum says it was always this way
replacement film for the old Polaroid cameras
April seventh is National Graham Gets To Be Anti-social Day (NGGTBASD) in case you are wondering... no I guess you weren't.
or spend extended amounts of time with someone who has, like Lena
which is frequent (!) as it is central
spoiler alert, I have never watched The Sopranos either...

(day one) Before Albuquerque was best known for being the place where that school teacher drug dealer dude was from^[1], it was known as that place where Bugs Bunny always made his wrong turn. For me growing up, Albuquerque was one of the only two reasonable sized cities within two hours.

We flew direct to Albuquerque. Southwest is convenient for us because they fly non-stop to just about everywhere they fly from Baltimore. We got in at about 3:30pm or so. The air was hot and dry. Totally different from the environment we had come from. Picked up the rental car and I immediately noticed two things.

I've developed this faux-OCD habit of touching the front handle before opening the back door. Because that is how you unlock my new car. I notice suddenly this is slightly odd when I have to use a car that doesn't have that feature.
People here do not drive like horrendous animals. They are terrible drivers in their own right, but it is more out of laziness and incompetence than out of malice.

Since we had a little bit of time before it got dark, we hightailed it to Sandia Peak Tramway. “Sandia” is watermelon in Spanish, apparently for the reddish color. I had always thought it was for the shape. At the top you get a great view of the valley. We walked down the path to the stone hut a ways and found a nice place for dinner. Lena had prepared a nice picnic dinner back in Maryland, so we were having ANZAC bikkies from the Australian/New Zealand couple who sell Australian meat pies at the one market, and the delicious heirloom tomatoes that we get at the other market. Also a cheese and pepperoni sandwich. No watermelon though! Only kidding. Delicious.

Actually it turns out there is a restaurant way at the top of the mountain there, which I had totally forgotten. So that would have been convenient. But it was better to have our own food and find a little place in the woods at the edge of the cliff with a wonderful view.

Also that restaurant is the top of the hill ski lodge in the winter so the food can't be that great anyway.

Oh I nearly forgot about the hotel. I had booked through one of those websites, and I asked Lena to call the hotel to let them know that we might be getting in late, only they had never heard of us! So I called up the website and I kept on being like “We made this reservation, but apparently nobody told the hotel” and they be like “So what is the problem again?” Actually that went on only a couple of times and we eventually got a new reservation and canceled the old one so as not to get double billed.

I think the most important thing is to fix things when they go wrong and that is what they did. Without pointing fingers.

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(day two) Thanks to Jetlag^[2], we were up early. After a nice brekky burrito^[3], we were off to Petroglyph National Monument. Thanks to the nice ranger at the visitor center, we went off to the walk with the most petroglyph instead of the walk with the most walking. And there were lots of petroglyphs. Our second stop was a set of volcanoes on the monuments western boundary. There are three extinct volcanic cones. It was about four miles to walk around all three.

It was then time for the 66 Diner. They have a ton of memorabilia, which is all the more remarkable because of the fire in which they lots a bunch of it. Route 66 doesn't exist in its contiguous form anymore, but there is a reverence for it for some reason. The 66 Diner has been a favorite of mine for many years due to the green chile cheeseburgers and the milkshake. We almost always make a stop.

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