Santa Fe         ||                                       July 18-22, 1997
New Mexico      ||||                                            1176 miles
            ---      ---
          =====      =====
            ---      ---
                ||||
                 ||

Well, I've been everywhere in New Mexico's 121,666 square miles and seen all 1.6 million of their people. Really! The state is the nation's fifth largest and I've been there. Southeast: Fort Sumner, Clovis, Portales, Roswell, Ruidoso, Tatum, Hobbs, Artesia, Carlsbad, Alamogordo, White Sands. Southwest: Las Cruces. Central: Albuquerque. Northwest: Grants, Gallup. Parts of the Northeast: Vaughn, Santa Rosa, Tucumcari. And now Northeast: Cimarron, Springer, Las Vegas, Wagon Mound; Northcentral: Espanola, Taos, Los Alamos, and the capital - Santa Fe. Yeah, I've missed a nook or cranny, but you be the judge. Oh, the ASCII art upper left is the official emblem of New Mexico - a round kiva-like design which resembles the Zia sun symbol.

This trip was the "short" leg of a two week vacation. We were to drive up to Santa Fe for 4 days, home 2 days, then on to Austin, San Antonio and Houston. You'll hear about the second leg latter.

Saturday morning all five us started out. We dropped the dog at the kennel and the remaining four made it to Santa Fe in 5 hours thanks to 75 mph speed limits much of the way. Basically I took Hwy 84 from Lubbock to Clovis, NM. to Ft. Sumner. Connected to I-40 at Santa Rosa, and left the Interstate at Clines Corners to take Hwy 285 to Santa Fe.

When I asked Sandy if she had been this way before she said "I don't know, it all looks the same to me!" She can be real cute. Of course we all had traveled as far as Clines Corners on our way to Albuquerque and then the Grand Canyon. It is a sad commentary about life in Lubbock that we have to drive into New Mexico to hear NPR's Car Talk with Click and Clack. At least it started the trip off well. You can visit them at http://www.cartalk.com or I can email you a FAQ from their website (only if you request).

Northeast New Mexico is beautiful. Mountainous, cool, evening showers in the summer to keep the forests green, heavy snow in the winter to make the skiing white and powdery. Santa Fe is a city of 56,000 and hundreds of art galleries. At the heart of the city is the Plaza, a center of commerce for four centuries! The homes, including the $1 million ones out of town, are brown adobe with soft curves and no roofs. First class opera, dozens of museums, home to famous writers and artists, and the opening of the Georgia O' Keeffe Museum. The latter made getting a motel room difficult as the city was bustling for this historic event. We stayed at a DoubleTree on Cerrillos Drive. This highway is hotel row, and was constantly full of vehicular traffic day and night.

The next day we drove north to Bandelier National Monument in the Jemez Mountains. We side tracked through the town of White Rock, a beautiful community of 7,000 and home to the scientists and administrators who work in Los Alamos. At town's end is White Rock Overlook. A waterfall feeds a stream a thousand feet below which then empties into the Rio Grande. Your typical breathtaking vista.

Bandelier is a place where Indians lived for millennia. They built homes on the Frijoles Canyon floor, and talus houses into the sides of the cliffs. The trail winds through their pueblo and wooden ladders give visitors access to some of the dwellings. We saw a rock squirrel eating a bat, and a mule deer grazing leaves 20 feet from the trail. Surprisingly, my kids opted to take a rigorous side trail where they climbed a series of vertical ladders 140 feet up to a ceremonial cave. I stayed at the bottom to video tape.

Winding through the mountains, we entered the city that never was. When the U.S. decided in 1943 it needed to consolidate the atomic bomb effort, it purchased the Los Alamos Ranch School. Overnight it built a secret city to headquarter the Manhattan Project. The existence of Los Alamos only became know to the public in 1957. Presently the 18,000 inhabitants represent the government's focus on nuclear research and high speed computing. The average price for a new house is $200,000, the per capita income $30,000, unemployment 1.6% for a workforce where >50% have college degrees. http://www.lanl.gov/external

After a fine Chinese buffet lunch we went to the Bradbury Museum. No, not Ray Bradbury, Norris, one of the labs founders. Admission was free and cameras were welcome. A movie about this secret atomic city was fabulous and the exhibits first class. http://www.lanl.gov/external/museum The gift shop next door was real good too. Otowi Station Science Museum Shop http://www.otowi.com/

Monday was the day to drive to Taos. For half the distance we paralleled the Rio Grande River. This time Mexico wasn't on the other side. Scenery was as anticipated, and when we crested the mountains the view rivaled that of the Grand Canyon! Nestled against the mountain, Taos is a miniature Santa Fe with only 4,000 permanent citizens. We heard Ricardo Montalban narrate a nice piece on Taos via NM radio.

It didn't take us long to walk around town. Steven and I found an Old Prints and Map shop run by George Robinson on Bent Street (505)-758-2278. We were fascinated by the antique maps and drawings from the 16th-19th century. My sense of deja vu made me ask the proprietor who confirmed he had indeed been written up in Southwest Airlines magazine. It had been good for business. He is one of many one-of-a-kind merchants in Taos. As we walked to McDonald's for lunch, Steven checked out a $16K Delorean on a used car lot - a life long dream after watching the movie "Back to the Future".

Although Taos is the "Sole of the Southwest", it is also the gateway to great skiing and recreation. We first drove 10 miles northwest on Hwy 64 (gosh, we were almost in Colorado) to cross the second highest bridge in the U.S. highway system. The 1,280 foot span crosses the Rio Grande 650 feet below. The view, and the experience of walking across it, are well worth the trip. We then backtracked to Taos to head northeast on Hwy 64 to visit Angel Fire, one of many ski resorts in the area which are at elevations over 2 miles. This one has the further distinction of hosting a music camp with internationally recognized musicians.

Across the road, high on a hill, stands an imposing white V-shaped structure built by Dr. Victor Westphall in memory of his son who died in Vietnam. Although the museum was closed, the sanctuary was open and singularly unique. The D.A.V. had the place made a National Memorial.

We continued slowly along Hwy 64, though the mountains and around Eagle Nest Lake. It was raining, but cars and trucks were pulled off the road every quarter mile. Men in groups, and families where fishing for trout in the fast moving cold mountain stream which cut through the canyon. Stone walls hundreds of feet straight up framed folks in waders, caps and fishing gear. We crossed Philmont Ranch and turned south at Cimarron onto NM 21. Here we came to my boyhood dream when I was a scout (Star rank) in Baltimore 35 yrs ago. Philmont is the Boys Scouts of America's national camp. It is the world's largest camp, covering 137,000 acres of wilderness, with mountain peaks 12,441 feet high, ranges where 100 head of Philmont Buffalo roam, fishing along the Rayado and Aqua Fria rivers, and home to thousands of Scouts and Explorers from around the country and world.

Waite Phillips built the original building in 1927 as a summer home. In 1941 he donated the Ranch and Villa to BSA. I drove up to the main visitors center, and with my video camera and children in tow, marched the muddy trail to the Trading Post. We all bought gifts and souvenirs, and I reveled like a kid, mixing with the scouts and staff. We drove across the highway to the museum and library to soak up more history, and drove past the hundreds of tents where the scouts were camping.

NM 21 took us south, then east, through 100's of sq. miles of prime grazing land. Cattle ranches of major portions as far as you could see. We came to Springer, NM which apparently was closed on Monday. So despite our hunger (it was dinner time) we got on I-25 and I put the pedal to the metal. Wow, we got to Las Vegas (New Mexico not Nevada) which was another disappointment but eked out a dinner at the truck stop restaurant.

Our final day in Santa Fe saw us do a little touring before leaving. We had driven over to St. John's College two evenings before, and today we drove through the College of Santa Fe campus and stopped in their bookstore (does this mean I can tax deduct the trip as a college visit for Steven? Nah.) We visited the AAA office. Really. Lubbock has 4 times the population of Santa Fe but doesn't have a AAA office. We get stuff by mail from Dallas. Finally we visited Temple Beth Shalom which has Torahs which came by covered wagon and wonderful Judaica artwork. Unique in this part of the country is the recent discovery of Crypto-Jews. These are Spanish persons who are discovering their identity as coming from Jewish roots hundreds of years ago when the Inquisition drove them underground.