The next stop on my recent trip to the Southwest was Santa Fe, a rather long drive from Tulsa. At first, our goal was simply to get as far west of Tulsa as we could the night before to somewhat shorten the drive awaiting us the next day. We ended up staying in a fairly shabby motel in El Reno, New Mexico, after having rejected a room in an even shabbier motel where the night manager seemed incapable of programming a key to the right room or programming a key that worked once a suitable room was found. We looked at it, declined, and moved on to a nearby alternative. El Reno had the cheapest gasoline we encountered on the trip; we filled up at a Shell station at $2.05/gallon.
Dinner was in the only restaurant in the area that wasn’t fast food – a Mexican place where the food was decent and the was staff friendly but barely bi-lingual. While I’m bi-lingual, Japanese was of no use. A football game played on a big screen over the bar. Men sat at tables in baseball caps and cowboy hats drinking beer – a cowboy hat is a look that some people can actually pull off, but I think you have to be born to it.
We found a quirky hotel in Santa Fe, a place called Guadalupe Inn, which was close to Josef’s where we had an interesting bottle of wine (an Italian Ribolla Gialla) and a decent meal, but one that gave the impression the chef was trying too hard to impress with fancy presentation. After the nearly eight-hour drive that took us from El Reno to Santa Fe, I had a terrible headache that made it hard to enjoy the food, but the kale salad was excellent. Who knew kale could be so delicious? We were seated at the bar beside a voluble local man who said he eats at Josef’s once or twice a week. He was eager to talk with both us and the handsome young bartender who served as our waiter.
We stayed two nights in Santa Fe. The morning of our first day, we went straight to the Georgia O’Keefe Museum, which, I have to say, was a disappointment. The collection is not very large and I’ve seen a lot more of her work and better work by her at various museums around the world. About half the space was showing work unrelated to O’Keefe. Having said that there were a few gems. Also, I long ago read that a friend of O’Keefe’s showed some of her (O’keefe’s) early charcoal drawings to Alfred Stieglitz, which prompted him to show them at his Gallery 291 in New York (formally called the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, but known as “291” for its address at 291 Fifth Avenue) and that that was how O’Keefe and Stieglitz met. I’ve always been curious to see what these drawings looked like and the Museum has two or three of them on display. Apparently, the museum will soon move to a new, bigger location now under construction. It may be that not everything usually on display was there to see when we visited.
, looking at bookstores, other shops, and at galleries, but the galleries were showing mostly commercial art for the tourist trade, nothing much of interest. For some reason, Santa Fe has a lot of rug dealers. I like rugs but already have more than I need. We stopped in at Mission San Miguel Archangel, the “oldest church in the US” (built around 1610 and rebuilt about 100 years later) and saw “the oldest house in the US.” The church claim is credible. It's attractive and interesting for its altarpiece and for the adobe buttresses added to shore up the original adobe structure. The oldest house claim is disputed and the building was closed.
Dinner at Sazón, one of Santa Fe’s fanciest restaurants. My wife was acquainted with chef and owner Fernando Olea because he sometimes visited a girlfriend here in Santa Rosa and sometimes ate at the Chinese restaurant she (my wife) worked at. We were given the royal treatment. Two glasses of Champagne appeared. Chef Fernando came out to greet us. We were served appetizers we didn’t order. Dessert was on the house. Sazón prides itself on its selection of mole sauces. Five are presented at the start of every meal as a sort of pre-appetizer, which allows you to decide whether you want a dish prepared with mole (or not) and which mole you prefer. We had roast pork with two mole choices, one made with jalapeño peppers, one made with hotter red peppers and tomatoes that was spicy but flavorful. We also had roast duck with two other versions of mole. Overall, excellent, but too much food – as is so often the case at restaurants in the US. Along with the meal, we had a Mexican Tempranillo/Cabernet Sauvignon blend.
, a fellow collage artist and friend, formerly of Santa Rosa, who left for Santa Fe after losing her house in the 2017 Santa Rosa fires (and a beautiful house it was, with a very fine art collection). Her house in Santa Fe, too, is beautiful, situated north of the town with a breathtaking view. It was good to catch up, if even only briefly. Sherry told us why we missed seeing good art in Santa Fe. Apparently, the better galleries are in the railyard area near Site, which is a big, modern art complex. Next time we’ll know better.
The following day we went to Taos. I hadn’t realized that Taos was more than an hour north of Santa Fe. We took the scenic “High Road” (New Mexico Route 76) rather than the highway, stopping on the way at El Santuario de Chimayo, which put me in mind of Lourdes, in France, because of all the notes and tokens of thanks left around statues along the walkway up to the main church. El Santuario de Chimayo refers to the main church here but also to the whole surrounding pilgrimage complex. People who believe they’ve been healed leave tokens of thanks and prayers and many photographs.
One of the main draws is a little chapel with “holy dirt” that people scoop up and take with them for the healing powers it’s supposed to have. The dirt sits in a pile in a shallow hole in the ground (with scoops conveniently provided) at a spot where a cross is said to have once miraculously appeared. When I asked, the attendant in the gift shop and visitor center casually said “Oh yeah, people scoop up bags of that stuff and take it home with them.” Having seen the depression full of loose dirt, I suspect that once in a while someone dumps another bag of potting soil in there from Home Depot to sustain the demand.
Aside from the dirt, people come for mass held at the main Sanctuary de Chimayo, which has an attractive rustic altarpiece. There are various other small chapels and outdoor memorials and prayer areas set aside on the grounds aside from the above-mentioned gift shop and visitor center. The parking lot is very large. On pilgrimage days thousands gather here we were told, but, on a cold January morning, we were the only visitors.
Taos itself is a rather ordinary-looking small town that could have been any other city in the Southwest or the US. I had imagined something more quaint. The main attraction (for me) was the famous church there, the San Francisco de Asis Catholic Mission. I’ve always wanted to see for myself this church made so familiar by images by O’Keefe, Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, and others.
It’s easy to miss. We drove right by it and had to backtrack about ten minutes as it’s not really in Taos but in Ranchos de Taos, just outside of Taos proper. Its famous backside faces the road but the building is at the far end of a parking lot about 60 yards from the main road and facing the opposite direction.
It’s easy to see why the church has fascinated so many artists. Its back side is simple, elemental. It’s pure form. Although a row of boulders has been added around the perimeter (presumably to keep cars from ramming into the vulnerable adobe) and the view is somewhat marred by a gas meter, it looks much the way it looks in the famous Paul Strand photograph and other representations. Remnants of a recent snowfall adorned the soft adobe curves when we visited.
All these early adobe mission churches seem to follow the same plan. The front façade has one or two towers, usually with a bell or bells. The front door opens into a single open space with a timber ceiling and an alter at the far end. Sometimes there are side niches, but often there are none. Usually there is a loft directly above the front entrance, accessible by a single set of wooden stairs (or just a ladder) on one side of the main doorway.
Facing the parking lot of the church was a little gallery that looked like a tourist trap but I was curious. It turned out to have a museum-quality collection of native American basketry that was worth seeing. From there we headed west again, aiming to get as close as possible to our next stop, Monument Valley. We stayed at a very attractive hotel called Casa Blanca Inn & Suites tucked away a bit incongruously in a residential neighborhood of Farmington, New Mexico. We settled into our room after another longish drive (a little under four hours). The décor is a mishmash, with suggestions of both the Southwest and Morocco, but it somehow works. The bathroom was rather elaborately done in two shades of green tile. Dinner was microwaved leftovers from Sazón and leftover wine from Josef's. Farmington put us a manageable two and a half hours drive from the Monument Valley Tribal Visitors Center where we were booked for a sunset tour of the valley the following day.
Posts