Santa Fe: Enchanting Indeed
While the realization that we were departing the last National Park of the trip was a sad one, it was offset a fair bit by our enthusiasm for our next destination: Santa Fe, New Mexico (“The Land of Enchantment”). Zeynep and I came here earlier this year for the wedding of good friends, I stayed for a week after to train for a climb, and we walked away from those experiences very fond of this slightly odd city in the high desert.
One of the must-dos in Santa Fe is an experimental art-installation-thing called Meow Wolf (or, “The House of Eternal Return”). A collaboration between a local artists’ collective and George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones-fame, it’s… man, I don’t even know where to start in description. It’s an old bowling alley that’s been converted into an immersive, bizarre, fun, over-stimulating experience. As Zeynep demonstrates below, it’s also very hands-on-friendly.
While I wasn’t able to take pictures, we also visited Ten Thousand Waves, which is a Japanese spa / restaurant on the outskirts of town. I have no idea why it’s there, but it is and if you’re ever in Santa Fe you have to check out the private outdoor pools and the shiatsu massages, both of which were very enchanting.
Another strong lure of Santa Fe is the food, which is described as New Mexican, as opposed to Mexican or Tex-Mex. The picture below doesn’t begin to do justice to it, but it’s important that you understand that lots of dishes are available as green, red, or “Christmas,” depending on what chiles you want slathered on your food. It’s one of those things that once you’re asked by a server, you begin to wonder why every dish you’ve ever had didn’t come with those options.
As many of you will know, one of the imbalances in our relationship has to do with art museums, namely Zeynep’s unbridled enthusiasm for and Corey’s deeply felt desire to do something, anything but go to them. The notable exception thus far is the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, which we both found super well-executed and full of beautiful things. While she’s mostly known for her paintings of flowers (which the men around her assumed were intended to represent the female anatomy, despite her repeated assurances that while that might be with they saw, she just saw flowers), I’m particularly fond of her New Mexico period which involved lots of bones because, as she put it, there’s a lot of them in the desert and not so many flowers.
We had planned to go on a hike while in Santa Fe, taking advantage of the mess of trailheads found within the city limits, but we arrived at the tail end of a cold snap that sent temperatures down to 22 F / -5.5 C, so we erred on the side of warm and hit the local climbing gym instead. Zeynep crushed several boulder problems and completed two 5.6 pitches, which is amazing given she started doing this just a few weeks ago.
Our time in Santa Fe sadly needed to come to an end so we could tackle the beast that is driving across Texas. Tonight we’re in Lubbock, Texas, which apparently is home to the largest contiguous cotton growing region in the world. Not much to note beyond that. Cotton and very straight, flat, boring highways. But well worth it to have spent a good chunk of time in Santa Fe, which is in close competition with Bend for favorite charming mountain town.
