#34 NEW MEXICO, a visit to Santa Fe

A note: On August 12 John & I flew into Denver, CO, making Colorado my 33rd state visited this year. Over the next few days we drove to Santa Fe, NM and looped back up to Denver. This #34 NM post is appearing before my #33 CO post - watch for CO soon.







In 1540, Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, became the first European to enter New Mexico. In 1598, the first Spanish settlement was established on the Rio Grande. Then, in 1610, Santa Fe was founded. The United States acquired most of NM as a result of the Mexican-American war. Sitting at 7,000 feet above sea level, Santa Fe is the nation’s highest capital city. Though New Mexico was made a state in 1912, the city of Santa Fe will be 400-years-old in less than two years and was previously a Pueblo village for centuries before Spanish rule. The Mission of San Miguel, built by the Tlaxcalan around 1610, is the oldest church in operation in the U.S. Directly across the street from the church is the oldest house in the U.S., built in 1646.

A flood of adventurers, entrepreneurs and neer-do-wells poured into the area when the Santa Fe trail opened in 1821. Spanish rule had collapsed but New Mexico was still a part of Mexico. The city was a rowdy place known for bars, brothels and easy fortunes. In 1846 the U.S. declared war on Mexico and claimed New Mexico. NM first became a territory and finally attained statehood, along with Arizona, in 1912. In the 1940’s the first atomic bomb was built in Los Alamos, and don’t forget about the UFO sightings known as the Roswell Incident. We followed the Santa Fe Trail along I 25 and flirted with Route 66 but saw no aliens.

Santa Fe’s Plaza, a square block bordered by Lincoln Avenue, E. Palace Avenue, San Francisco Street and the Santa Fe Trail is the nexus of town now and for centuries. Downtown Santa Fe is all adobe and tans and browns, its Spanish-Pueblo look is mandated in this historic city. It was confusing to get around sometimes because even the gas stations and fast food restaurants can look alike. We would like to have dined at Coyote Café but luckily for our bank account we had no reservation and were directed to the rooftop cantina. The food was terrific. We enjoyed BBQ duck quesadillas, “El Portal” tacos (pork) and ceviche washed down with margaritas and sangria. The joint was jumping. After dinner we strolled around the historic streets and listened to live music in the plaza (a nightly occurrence in the summer) and returned to our hotel exhausted. I suspect the altitude contributed but it was a full day none-the-less.

Santa Fe was selected as the first city in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Art is a tremendous part of life in the city. There are more than 250 galleries and museums. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum was small, crowded and worth a visit. I’m a huge fan of folk art and the Museum of International Folk Art on Museum Hill did not disappoint.




Driving in Santa Fe is not pleasurable. Traffic crawls along and there are few or no places to park in the downtown area. Our lunch destination in the Inn and Spa at Loretto thankfully offered valet parking. I highly recommend Luminaria. Our meal was delicious, subtly spiced, beautiful. To accompany our meal I ordered a bottle of Gruet Sparkling Wine. Gruet Winery is located just down the road in Albuquerque. I was first introduced to their sparkling wine in San Francisco and remember it more for the price point than the wine itself. That’s unfair because it’s quite good with the bonus of being very reasonably priced. When I looked them up on the web I discovered that price point is something they pride themselves on. I was unaware that they make a chardonnay, syrah, and pinot noir also. I’ll be looking for them!






We were seated outside in a lovely covered area backed up to a wall and were amused when the wind picked up and glasses started blowing over. Our table was more protected than the others and our fellow diners fled indoors table by table leaving us alone with the waitstaff who were busy taking down umbrellas and lanterns and doing their best to secure things. We rode out the williwaw finishing our wine and sharing a dessert. It was short lived and though we did see a downed tree it appears no serious damage occurred.

It has long been a desire to attend the Santa Fe Opera. That was fulfilled with a performance of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd. The Opera House was beautiful and the setting was spectacular. The opera company was first rate and I certainly enjoyed Teddy Tahu Rhodes interpretation of Billy (rumor has it, he takes off his shirt in all of his roles). This is the second time I’ve seen him, the first was at Sydney Opera production of Streetcar Named Desire in August 2007, where he was a threatening bare-chested Stanley.) I wasn’t enthusiastic about the Billy Budd libretto, it’s not a story I would choose to read and the bleak darkness of it all was less than inspiring. That being said – I had a great time and will hopefully return to see another opera. Site Santa Fe is showcasing art installations in various areas of the city. The parking lot of the Santa Fe Opera has dozens of Plastic Bottle Sculptures hanging from light posts. Interesting…. The true items of interest, in my opinion, are the pre-opera tailgate picnics. I’m in for that next time! As is the norm in the situation some go all out with candles and flowers and some don’t. As a visitor traveling sans crystal & china my table won’t be appropriately decked but I’m hopeful that a local restaurant’s carry-out will more than suffice.

A note about lodging (Hilton options): We stayed at the Hampton Inn on Cerrillos. It offered all that we were looking for but it was not convenient. Santa Fe is a sprawling city. Next time I would opt for a better location. The Hilton downtown is beautiful and is walking distance to the Plaza. The city offers a free shuttle bus to Museum Hill and other destinations so perhaps that’s the better choice. There is also a Hilton property north of town on the other side of the Opera House. Depending on my plans (ie Bandelier, Taos, Los Alamos…) I would seriously consider staying there even though it’s also a casino (yuck!).

Facts of interest:

• At a single point, New Mexico’s border meets Arizona, Colorado and Utah.
• The Anasazi, an ancient native people, lived in New Mexico for 1,300 years. More than 25,000 Anasazi sites have been found in the state.
• On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb ever to explode on Earth was set off in a test at a range near Alamogordo.
• Each year in October, the Whole Enchilada Fiesta is held in Las Cruces.
• From USA Today 8/14/08: Las Cruces: Fossilized imprints of a jellyfish-like creature were found by an amateur collector about 20 miles northwest of Las Cruces. Scientists estimate they are 290 million years old. Jerry MacDonald noticed the impressions of the soft-bodied chrondrophorine medusea on a mudstone slab. New Mexico Museum of Natural Science and History Interim director Spencer Lucas said it was a rare marine find.
• NM is known as the Land of Enchantment or the Colorful State
• Ristras, the colorful strings of dried chili peppers, are draped in entries and doorways. They’re supposed to ward off evil and welcome visitors.
• The Pueblo Zia is everywhere. It’s the radiant symbol visible on the quarter pictured above, license plates, the NM flag and the State Capitol building is built in its design.
• The huge Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is known worldwide, but several other balloon events are held in the state.

I struggled with my choice of song for the state. John lobbied for Marty Robbin’s El Paso based on the line “out to the bad lands of New Mexico… “. He sang it constantly and I know it will be the musical cue to a flashback of this trip but the song is called “El Paso” and the narrator does end up in Texas. I’ve selected Johnny Horton’s, Out in New Mexico as my OFFICIAL song for NM (click on the link for a video on YouTube that show a welcome to New Mexico sign that looks just like the one I have posted. Why do people shoot at signs?) Thanks to www.CowboyLyrics.com for leading me to Horton and giving me several runner up options.

I was floundering without guidance from my favorite book sources but managed to collect several suggestions for this state. Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop came up but I was resistant because I had just read My Antonia by Cather for Nebraska and wanted to go with a different author. By default & out of laziness I picked up Death… because I had it on my shelf. What a stroke of luck! It’s well written and engaging and elucidates on the history of the area and is set precisely where I traveled.

#28 NEBRASKA

The “Cornhusker’s State” quarter features an ox-drawn covered wagon carrying pioneers in the foreground and Chimney Rock, a natural wonder & National Historic Site that is near the North Platte River. Maybe some day I’ll see it in person – the quarter makes a pretty good argument for seeking it out. The sun is in full view behind the wagon; with little imagination you can feel the heat.

Practically anywhere travelers go in Nebraska they encounter reminders of America's westward expansion. The state is crisscrossed by the Oregon and Mormon Trails, the Pony Express, the Lewis and Clark Trail, the Texas-Ogallala Trail and the Sidney-Deadwood Trail. Even the signs for state highways contain a covered wagon outline.

This trip to Nebraska came about because Omaha was by far the most affordable airport to fly into for our anniversary trip to a lighthouse on Minnesota’s Lake Superior. Sure, Omaha is 550 miles away from our destination and yes, gasoline is $4 a gallon, but flying into OMA presented an opportunity to travel to 5 states! How could I pass it up?

I was immediately impressed by the airport. It appeared new and inviting. Our hotel, the Downtown Omaha Hampton Inn was equally sparkling. I spotted six Hilton properties downtown, definitely a good destination for Hilton junkies like me! The suite upgrade reinforced my sentiment.

The largest city in the state, Omaha is a prosperous city of 400,000; home to five Fortune 500 companies. It is birthplace to Gerald Ford, Warren Buffett and TV dinners. ConAgra’s world headquarters back up to the pastoral Heartland of America Park & Fountain where we enjoyed circling the lake despite uncomfortable temperatures. The city has many parks and public areas with art and would be a great place to walk if only it was 20 or 30 degrees cooler! Old Market, a former warehouse district which is now a cultural destination complete with several converted lofts (considering a 1,300 sq. ft. loft rents for $575 – I should live there too!), is right downtown. The collections at the art deco Joslyn Art Museum reputedly hold their own in the museum world, and the Durham Museum at the old Union Station is an affiliate of the Smithsonian. Filmmaker Alexander Payne is from Omaha and his movies “Citizen Ruth” 1996, “Election” (1999) and “About Schmidt” were filmed here. That’s a whole lot of artsy-ness!

French fur traders first visited Nebraska in the late 1600’s. After the US acquired the region as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Lewis and Clark explored the territory during their expedition from 1804-1806. The Lewis & Clark expedition seems to be an ongoing theme in my travels. It wasn’t by design but I was very interested to learn that the Lewis and Clark National Trail Historic Center was right next to Rick’s Café Boatyard where we had a comfortable lunch overlooking the Missouri River. The banks of the Missouri, the longest river in North America, comprise the state line between Nebraska and Iowa with one exception. Carter Lake is a small section of Iowa that falls between the Omaha Airport and the city of Omaha. Carter Lake was the original streambed of the Missouri River prior to a flood in 1877 which changed the course of the river. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the disputed land was in fact part of Iowa. In 1920 with no services from neighboring Council Bluffs, IA, Carter Lake voted to become an annex of Omaha, NE but that city didn’t want them, so Carter Lake incorporated as a city unto itself in 1930 and remains a thumbnail part of IA today.

The National Park Service Lewis & Clark site had an interesting display and presented a half hour documentary by Ken Burns that gave a comprehensive account of the expedition. It sure cleared up some confusion I had in Montana and will help me out as I continue in their footsteps up into the Dakotas.

Road Food recommended the Bohemian Café; an over-the-top kitschy Czech eatery. We opted for dinners of the recommended roast duck and sauerbraten. The paper placemats list the lyrics and sheet music for the house song…

Dumplings and kraut today

At Bohemian Café

Draft beer that’s sparkling, plenty of parking

See you at lunch, okay?


How could you go wrong? The rye bread and soups were truly great, the Pilsner Urquell (served in an enormous ceramic mug that our diminutive waitress had difficulty hefting to the table) was sparkling. Entrees were less than stellar with Czech dumplings on the side which would have been better put to use as doorstops, but I would go back in a heartbeat. The waitresses wore bright red dirndls and polka music wafted in the background and the décor was hideous. It made me smile so!


The next day our exodus from Omaha had to be on Highway 6 “Nebraska’s First Highway” The brochure assures us that it’s leisurely AND scenic with plenty to see and do. I can’t vouch for that because we were only able to travel 20 miles or so before we veered north but it felt good! The website sure does a good job convincing me I want to travel Route 6 all the way next time! Getting out of town we skirted the Gerald R. Ford Birthsite and Gardens and finally made it by Father Flanagan’s Boys Town Suddenly we were in rural Nebraska surrounded by corn: acres and acres of corn. We had opted for two-lane roads rather than the Interstate and were rewarded with postcard perfect farms and small towns. The town of Kearney, a bit east of our route sits precisely between Boston and San Francisco., you can’t get much more mid than that!


One of my favorite small burgs was Oakland, NE, a Swedish community that took their heritage to heart. A miniature stone house marks the site of the first Oakland settler’s 14’ by 24’ sod house built in 1875. (see picture above)

Our final Nebraska hurrah was lunch at the Crystal Café. The Crystal Café is essentially a gas station diner. There’s ample parking for trucks but referring to it as a truck stop seems too grandiose. It was listed in Road Food (I LOVE that book – Thank you again Lois!), and written up in Gourmet magazine. Someone in South Sioux City is adept at PR and I’m grateful. The place was packed with an assortment of truckers and families. We appeared to be the only tourist types. The food was good! Go there if you get the chance. Five inch deep pies looked to be incredible but we resisted. My favorite part of the meal was watching a table of four get up to leave. They were older; three women and one man. One of the women was dressed in black with a lace collar. By her dress, I believe that she was Mennonite but forgive me if I have that wrong. One woman and the man said goodbye and the other two old ladies crawled into a very small late model convertible, a Minnie Mouse car if I ever saw one! Watching those two staunchly Midwestern matrons tool off with the prim passenger clitching her hands to her grey braided bun and lace collar as they pulled onto the road was priceless!

Nebraska boasts some rather interesting facts:
· Arbor Day was created in 1872 in Nebraska by J. Sterling Morton.
· If you add up the total miles of all of Nebraska’s rivers, no state has more.
· The first time in U.S. history that two women faced off in a gubernatorial election was in Nebraska in 1986.
· On July 4, 1882, Buffalo Bill Cody ran his first rodeo, in North Platte.
· From the Aug. 1, 2008 USA Today: “How green is Nebraska going? Officials say the plants at Homestead National Monument near Beatrice are native to the state and require little water. At Scotts Bluff National Monument, foot and bike trails cut vehicle exhaust. At Omaha’s River City Roundup, the rodeo arena dirt will be recycled, and used cooking oil from Nebraska Sate Fair concessionaires will go toward biodiesel.”
· State motto: “Equality before the law” which sounds a little anti-establishment to me.
· And my favorite: A law in Blue Hill states that no woman wearing a “hat that would scare a timid person” is allowed to eat onions in public.

Bruce Springsteen’s unsettling song, Nebraska, relates the tale of the killing spree of Charles Starkweather, inspired by Terrence Malick's film Badlands:
"From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska, with a sawed-off .410 on my lap."
I’d like to do better with my choice of NE song but I couldn’t locate all of the lyrics to Stan Freburg’s “Whatta they have in Omaha”.

There is no better literary tribute to Nebraska than Willa Cather’s My Antonia. Last fall, when John was traveling to southern Nebraska to go deer hunting, his daughter presented him with a gift of this classic novel. He gratefully accepted and took it along. Unbeknownst to any of us (even him!), he was traveling to Red Cloud, home of Willa, the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial , and the Willa Cather Historical Society. Reading the book greatly enhanced his trip and when he returned I eagerly picked it up last December. (Thank you, Clare!) Now I find myself confronting Cather quotes everywhere and look forward to reading it again. Book Club Classics! chose My Antonia and quoted the following passages:

As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of wine-stains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running…Perhaps the glide of long railway travel was still with me, for more than anything else I felt motion in the landscape; in the fresh, easy-blowing morning wind, and in the earth itself, as if the shaggy grass were a sort of loose hide, and underneath it herds of wild buffalo were galloping, galloping…

I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.

All those fall afternoons were the same, but I never got used to them. As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were drenched in sunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any other time of the day. The blond cornfields were red-gold, the haystacks turned rosy and threw long shadows. The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed. That hour always had the exultation of victory, of triumphant ending, like a hero’s death — heroes who died young and gloriously. It was a sudden transfiguration, a lifting-up of day.

Definitely gives the reader a sense of place!