Where God Really Is

Even though I left New Mexico and returned to Pacific Grove, the experience there has continued to bubble up in my thinking as I go about my business here.  Most of all, I am acutely aware of the exquisite beauty and special qualities of nature in both places.  Of course, every place on earth originally was pristine and special in its own way.

In my mind's eye, I'm comparing what I saw there with what I see here, the similarities, the differences.  The Spanish missionaries made their presence known in both areas.  The Carmel Mission is just as old here as the old churches and sanctuaries are there for the most part.  People feel especially aware of nature in both places, as opposed to a place like San Jose or Phoenix where much of the area is cemented and shudders with the roar of air and automobile traffic 24/7.  The awareness of natural beauty and its pervasive influence on how we relate to it cannot be denied in either Santa Fe or Monterey.  Some people swear there are unseen forces at work that cause us to remember one place more vividly as compared to another.  I can't say they're wrong; that would be incredibly arrogant.

I can't really articulate the attraction to a place like Santa Fe and the region around it, but I know I am attracted.  It has had an intriguing allure for people for all of human history.  Some lucky accident of altitude, light and temperature creates a surrounding that is exceptionally interesting and pleasing.  It's no different than here.  The arresting sight of the big blue Pacific ocean frothing and splashing at the feet of 2,000 ft mountainous cliffs and undulating green slopes left nearly untouched for hundreds of miles are sights that impress people for their whole lives.

The best aspect of the central California coast and of New Mexico's high desert is that people have taken care to preserve what they have.  The Big Sur Land Trust and groups like The National Audubon Society, The Sierra Club, The US Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy have been alert for years to possibilities of preserving open space and understanding the nature of nature here.  I am hopeful that the people of Santa Fe and Taos as well as other cities and towns in New Mexico take care to safeguard the beautifully unique treasure they call home.

I have been reading with sickened dismay about the hell set loose in the Gulf of Mexico when the oil rig exploded there.  The implications for widespread disaster are certain, and I am a very optimistic person in general.  Why anyone thought drilling for oil was ever anything but a train wreck waiting to happen, I'll never know.  To stop and point fingers and politicize this situation is so petty and stupid, I cannot even say.  It has to sink in that oil and its products are toxic, that the region of the gulf pumps its waters on the gulf stream literally around the globe, that the food web in the ocean as it is lost will affect the Americas profoundly and travel to the shores of Europe and Africa and to the poles.

Economics is the least of our worries in this situation.  We need the planet - it is the air we breathe, the food we eat, the bed we sleep in.  Our children's children and their children will not know natural beauty and respite in nature unless we care for what we have.  We humans and our co-planet-passengers the animals and birds and fish need air and food, wether we then eat them or not.  This is what "dominion over" means:  Responsibility to safeguard and care for, with foresight and wisdom, our only home.  

Taos Teaches Us About Time

4/28/10 Taos, NM

This is midweek, a Wednesday; Taos awaits.  Off we go to find a good cup of coffee.  About a block north of our hotel is World Cup Cafe, a tiny place with excellent expresso and mochas.  Perfect to get our booties up the road further.  I think I am still full of elk burger from Doc's last night. No complaints though.  It's trying to be sunny, but soft cumulus clouds are tumbling high overhead but are no threat.

Again, I remind myself to watch the uneven pavement, to stop if I need to look around.  It's pretty tricky footing, and I don't know the town well enough for my feet to just know the way.

Up ahead and on the right is The Fechin House, home of the Taos Art Museum, so we go in and are wowed by a masterfully designed and constructed adobe home built in about 1930.  Nicolai Fechin arrived in Taos and set to work creating a one-of-a-kind home from the ground up.  He had learned woodcarving and drafting skills in his native Russia and then trained a few key workers in Taos to help him carve wood and plaster the walls.  The house is full of hand-carved lintels, cabinets, furniture, bannisters, railings, doors and window frames, varnished to a glossy shine.  The light quality in the house, to say nothing of the soothing atmosphere of its interior, is superb.  Fechin's art pieces, also terrific, are displayed on the walls as are other Taos artists' work.  He was a productive master craftsman and artist who made amazing use of his time.  From the amount of carved trim inside the house, he must have been constantly carving and cutting wood.  Nonstop.

We wander over to Ledoux Street and find the artistic heart of Taos. There are mocha-mud colored adobes with aqua, turquoise and royal blue trim shaded by tall green-bud trees.  We tour the Blumenschein Museum that's housed in a rambling low adobe.  Blumenschein was a contemporary of Mr. Fechin, both members of the Taos Society of Artists back in the 1920s.  This museum is both a display of the family's home as well as an historic collection of their art work.

The La Fonda Hotel, which anchors the Taos Plaza, is nearby, so we sit there and watch people for a little while and sip some cool water.  It's still sunny out, but a little breeze is kicking up and we decide to get back to our motel for a rest break.

There's not much in life a little slack time won't cure, I thought, although the irony of that thought was obvious after having visited the two museums filled with the work of some very prolific artists.  Hmmm.

Refreshed, we set out to find the Dragonfly Cafe, which we heard is consistently voted most wonderful of all cafes, and there are quite a few, I must say. You'd have to be pretty picky to go hungry in Taos.  My selection is buffalo burger this time, which has an herbed bun baked that morning and tender greens on the side.  Oh my, was it tasty.  The cafe is busy and bright with conversation, lively colors and art.

It's 2 PM and we're going to the UNESCO World Heritage Site north of town.  The Taos Pueblo is just around a few bends in the road, maybe two miles away.  But, the adobes are as old as the hills themselves and look like river mud rose up slowly but surely to make itself into adobe buildings, just as if the earth had given birth to them.  They appear ineffably organic, solid, rooted to the ground.  Indeed they are of the ground entirely and would eventually melt back to the earth if not attended to by the generations of people who have occupied the various homes within them for time out of mind.

A rushing stream flows downhill between the two main adobe structures.  The residents, whose forefathers have always lived there, never displaced as so many other native people were, strictly control access to the pueblo and limit photography and sightseeing to the large central dirt plaza and a few side alleys.

Many native artisans living in the pueblo open small shops during visiting hours and sell their goods.  So, by going indoors and shopping, interior spaces are able to be seen.  I want to inspect it carefully and examine every angle and view, but I feel intensely aware of the need for the folks living within to remain private and unmolested by intruders.

There's really nothing else like this place in this country.  We walk slowly around taking a few pictures, trying to imagine living there.  The folks we speak with in the shops are gentle, warm and polite.  I like them very much.  Their heritage is grand and timeless and makes me feel like a drifting tumbleweed in comparison.  I'm grateful to have been able to visit for an hour.

We shuffle off to our parked car and drive quietly away to the west.  I feel like my perspective of time has been wrenched and clocks are ticking differently now.  But, no, my watch still moves one second at a time.  I settle down and look down the road to what's ahead.  Another museum to visit, more to learn.

The Millicent Rogers Museum is an excellent collection of thousands of fine Hopi, Navajo, Zuni and other Native American crafts.  Ms Rogers was the daughter of a wealthy oilman.  She had deep pockets and, after coming to the southwest and falling in love with the region, began to collect pottery, silver and turquoise pieces feverishly.  Lucky for us, her own work as well as her collection are on display.  We browse the various rooms and galleries until we can browse no more; we are on overload.

Up past our eyeballs with Native American things and history, it's time to stare into space, so off we drive to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge a few miles away, for a look at the muddy river and the distant mountain peaks. The wind is gusting pretty good now, so after parking our car we walk cautiously to the middle of the 510-foot-wide span and get a little case of vertigo and a big case of awe.  We toss a small-sized rock out to see where it might land and  are unable to follow it all the way down to the river 650 feet below.

The Rio Grande is a big river way, way down in a big ditch and we feel like puny ants up there on the bridge.  Little tumbleweed ants in a big old world that has been carrying on its business for an unfathomable long time.

It's twilight now, and we are indeed quite tiny, insignificant and bewildered creatures.

Back in Taos, we feel the call of a very special place and heed it.  The Mabel Dodge Luhan House is tucked away on a quiet and lovely hill.  It's a salve to our tired minds, a sanctuary of sorts, a balm.  Ms Luhan was a socialite who brought a few artistic geniuses to the area in her day and built her own home in the adobe pueblo style.  It's very quiet, still, and peaceful.  Just being there for a short while for a look around begins to rejuvenate us.


It's dinnertime.  We decide on Orlando's New Mexico Cafe just north of town and just love it.  Roasted onion enchiladas in blue corn tortillas and green chile sauce, with posole and pinto beans on the side.  It hasn't taken long for us to become chile addicts, so we savor the classic New Mexico green sauce with gusto.  Orlando's has also been topping the Best of Taos list for years, and we agree.  Good eats, for sure.

Taos began to work its spell on us the night before as the moon rose, and now with the moon again rising over the ancient mountains and age-old pueblo, we have a better sense of how we take up some space and spend our own time.  That's the best thing that travel teaches me, time and again.

The Road to Taos

April 27, Eagar to Taos.

We drove nearly due north and then angled northeast, back into New Mexico.  The drive took us through arid and "empty" high desert with the intention of taking a look at Zuni Pueblo whose small town is also called Zuni.  This is a medium-sized collection of brown-mud pueblo-style buildings.  A few door and window frames were painted the wonderful turquoise blue popular in this area, but mostly everything was the same mocha brown as the very dirt itself.

This pueblo boasts one of the very oldest churches built by the earliest Spanish explorers.  If we wanted to take the requisite tour, we'd have to wait two hours until 1 PM.  Instead, we browsed the museum and art exhibit there, which is small but well done, bought a small seed bowl and then left.  The people were hospitable and warm, which left a very good feeling with me.  I would have liked to have stayed and visited more local shops in order to learn about the local artisans there, but we had miles to put under our tires.

Curious about a geologic feature we'd heard about, we drove further northeast across undulating land.  Buttes and mesas stood out in sharp relief the further north we went, and one in particular was of special interest:  El Morro National Monument.  Dating back to a few centuries before Christ, the top of El Morro was inhabited by ancestors of the pueblo natives who live throughout the region now.  It has a small water reservoir on top, 200 feet above the plains below, and afforded the people a safe haven and easily defensible home.  At the foot of the sheer cliffs is a large pool of fresh water that collects runoff from the rock above.  It's been an oasis dating to prehistoric times including Spanish conquerors, armies, explorers, expeditions and homesteaders.

People found respite from the arid world around them and inscribed names and dates in the soft sandstone face of the rock.  It amounted to thousands of bits of graffiti or, more accurately, a guest book of travelers.  The National Park Service has built a very informative and pleasant visitor center nearby.  For a stunning $6 you can listen to a 15-minute video describing the inscriptions and history and then explore the whole park at your leisure.

Some of the signatures rival John Hancock's and date back to 1530.  Of course, ancient petroglyphs outdo that date by a few millenia probably, and they are easily visible along the gentle walkway.

Leaving El Morro, we felt subdued but very impressed by the amount of human history the area was witness to.  We drove in relative silence and let it all sink in.

Ahead loomed the huge and busy city of Albuquerque, bright in the midday haze and glare.  It was time for a break and some lunch.  A landmark eatery awaited us:  Mary's and Tito's Cafe.  With help from our iPhone GPS, we drove right to the place, a very modest and just-folks cafe in a dusty and well-worn part of Albuquerque.  It's a long story as to how we'd known about it, but there we were and happy to be sampling what is considered some killer red chile, New Mexico style.  Delicious flavor, heavy on the red chile (must have used a whole entire tin full of it!); keep the tortillas and iced water coming.

With steam coming out of our ears and bellies full, we were now headed full-bore for Taos, legendary and fabled home to many fine artists and a World Heritage Site, the Taos Pueblo.  It was about 6 PM.  For now, we needed to rest, refresh and get our bearings.  We'd reserved a utilitarian hotel room at the Indian Hills Inn, which was more than fine for us at about half the price of most other hotels in town.  It's only two easy blocks south of the heart of old Taos, right on Hwy 68, the Paseo del Pueblo as it's called.

Believe it or not, we decided to eat again.  Mostly, we wanted to walk and move around, so we took off on foot for the plaza.  The altitude of about 7,000 got us huffing and puffing, and the uneven pavement along our route totally eliminated sight-seeing while walking.  You either look or you walk.  I was fine, but I had a few ungraceful strides here and there.  Yikes!

Doc Martin's at the Taos Inn beckoned to us with live music that echoed up and down the Paseo.  We were seated in a very warm, comfortable room with wooden beams, thick adobe walls and glowing orange candles in hammered tin dishes.  I had an elk burger with sweet potato fries - just delicious.  Full to my eyeballs, it was time to walk our weary selves back to the motel, which felt very good to do at the end of a long but interesting day of travel.

A ghostly full moon veiled in cirrus was lifting over the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the distance; it set off with the soft glow of lanterns and small pinpoints of lights in trees and shrubs along our way.  Taos seemed homemade and unpretentious, in the darkening night and promised us some good fun ahead.  But first, some sleep at the inn.

From the Road to Taos

Back in the clutches of virtual reality (wifi), I'll begin posting again regularly from our various hotels as we get to them on this vacation.  I'm in Taos now and have been traveling around the eastern area of Arizona and now into the New Mexico area including Zuni, Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos.

Being a shorehugger from the Groove (specifically), my lips are dry and cracked from the dry air.  The land is anything but lonesome, but certainly the elevation is high, mostly above 4,000 ft.  I'm thinking about Edward Abbey, Ansel Adams, conquistadores, native people, coyotes, lava, volcanos, continental shelf uplifts and all the forces of nature and god that are so evident in every direction.  History goes much deeper here, with conflict, boom and bust literally written in stone at times.

It is wild and unruly country that grabs you by the throat and grips your heart.  Even so, the folks currently living and abiding here are friendly and warm, each and every one so far.

So, beginning tomorrow, I'm back in the writing groove again.  Much to tell, and much more to see.  Loving it all so far.