New Mexico, U.S.A. – Saturday, August 21st to Sunday, August 22nd
Finishing at Cliff’s Amusement Park a bit earlier than planned, we headed north to Santa Fe, New Mexico’s capital city and in fact the oldest capital city in the United States. While quite small compared to Albuquerque, Santa Fe nevertheless holds an outsized reputation as the place to visit while in New Mexico thanks to its scenic location, centuries of history, and art-driven culture that earned it the nickname “The City Different.” Indeed, the weekend we picked to visit turnout out to be supremely popular with out-of-staters due to the Native American Art Market being hosted that weekend. This resulted in a somewhat frustrating hotel booking process, where most of the places I’d hoped to stay were either sold out or priced more than double their usual rates for the few rooms remaining. The least bad option ended up at the Cottonwood Court, which, while lacking in comfort and amenities (e.g. the color cable television lauded in neon at the entrance didn’t work), it at least exuded the distinctly characteristic vibe of “roadside Santa Fe motel” to at least make it an experience for our two nights.
While there wasn’t time to spend a full day exploring the mountains of northern New Mexico, we decided to do a bit of driving north of Santa Fe to see a bit of the landscape outside of town first. Taking 84 North, we pulled over to marvel at the Camel Rock sandstone formation. Supposedly it looks like a camel, although a chunk fell off a few years ago which may have impacted the quality of its likeness.
Continuing further north, we drove through the Rio Grande Gorge for a bit until I realized I had gone to far and missed the point I intended to turn around.
Finally, we ended up in the small town of Chimayo, New Mexico, where according to my research the Rancho de Chimayo restaurant offered one of the best and most authentic New Mexican dining experiences in the region. Chimayo itself is known for a special breed of chile pepper that acquires a distinctive taste thanks to the unique soil in Chimayo. I inquired if there was any way to sample the chile, but was informed that it was a dying tradition, sustained by a few remaining older farmers and only occasionally sold at farmers markets as the more common Hatch chiles have become the dominant produce everyone grows in New Mexico.
Nevertheless, the meal was perfectly… good. Far from either haute cuisine nor a hidden traditional culinary gem, it was authentic in the sense that it served many of the New Mexican staples in a roadside format that has clearly sustained its popularity for many years with little competition. As the Michelin scale might put it, perhaps worth a detour but likely not worthy of a trip of its own.
The next morning, with the Art Market taking over much of the central plaza, parking proved to be a bit of a challenge. After circling for a while looking for a tantalizingly free and convienent street spot, I finally decided to buck up and pay $15 to park on an empty lot a couple of blocks away for most of the day. We also soon discovered our first choice for breakfast was closed for the week, leading to a bit of wandering to find a backup option. We ended up at a place called Cafe Pasqual’s, where my desire for a breakfast burrito served “Christmas style” (with both red and green chile) was fully realized.
The Native American Art Market had completely taken over the historic Santa Fe Plaza in front of the historic Palace of the Governors. There was supposed to be a ticketed admission (which required going far out of the way to a convention center to pay the couple of dollars in exchange for a ticket) or, as most people did, you could simply walk around the corner of the plaza where the tape barriers ran out and anyone could freely wander in from the public sidewalk. Representing Native American artists from all across the United States, there was a mix of traditional crafts, contemporary arts, and pop-art novelties all for sale. We enjoyed looking around for a little while before wanting to explore more of the city.
Adobe buildings with wooden verandas define the look of Santa Fe’s many museums and shops.
Santa Fe is known for its art, and no artist is more associated with Santa Fe than Georgia O’Keeffe, making a visit to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum a must-do. Despite the heavy tourism for the art market, the museum still had plenty of reservation slots available through its COVID capacity restrictions.
Like other artist-specific museums, this small museum is organized to take visitors through O’Keeffe’s biography and artistic evolution, beginning in New York before eventually moving to New Mexico.
One odd feature of the museum was that, despite the linear organization, we eventually got to a set of rooms that, after some searching, we determined had no exit. A museum facilitator confirmed that once we reached the end point, the only way out was to retrace our steps back to the entrance. An unusual layout to be sure, although as an inadvertent benefit we did discover one small gallery we evidently missed on our first pass. They’re currently in the process of moving to a larger location, which I’m sure a larger and improved floor plan is part of the rational for the move.
In addition to art, Santa Fe is also home to several historic religious buildings. The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi is the largest and most prominent, having opened in 1886.
Nearby, the slightly older Loretto Chapel is probably the most interesting to visit. For a small fee, you can go inside the chapel (the first Gothic building built west of the Mississippi River) to see its most noteworthy feature: the “miraculous stairway”.
The 20 foot tall spiral staircase was built under mysterious circumstances, apparently by a stranger who arrived after the nuns couldn’t find a builder who could connect the lower level to the choir loft within the limited space. The staircase was built with no central column and no handrails (although rails were added a few years later), which seemingly defied the rules of engineering. While self-supporting, the staircase is now off-limits to people apart from the first couple of steps for special occasions only. A looping audio track tells the story of the stairs when visitors take their photos or sit in the pews.
A block further along the Old Santa Fe Trail is a pair of even more historic buildings.
The San Miguel Chapel, built around 1610, lays claim to the oldest church in the U.S., although only a small part of the structure is original.
Directly across the street is the De Vargas Street House, often referred to as the “Oldest House” of either Santa Fe or possibly the United States. More legend than historical fact, the house is claimed to have a foundation that was in use by the native peoples of the region for some time before the Spanish colonists arrived. Inside is mostly a gift shop, with a small historical reconstruction on the section claimed to be the oldest part. I’m not certain exactly what I was expecting to feel inside, but the sense of historical depth was hardly overwhelming. Still, it’s free to visit which makes it a quick curiosity to visit while in Santa Fe.
From the Oldest House, it was only a short walk to the start of Canyon Road. This street is famed for hosting over a hundred art galleries, many with large-scale sculptures or attention-grabbing design to attract passersby on the competitive street. Whatever I expected from Canyon Road, it was certainly more.
We enjoyed exploring the different galleries, although to be honest I’m not entirely sure who Canyon Road is meant for. The flamboyance and sheer quantity of galleries seems more intended to dazzle tourists, but the size and price point of the majority of items for sale is definitely targeted more towards well-off local collectors. Perhaps Canyon Road mostly exists to admire itself, similar to how a particular neighborhood can collectively commit to elaborate holiday displays just for their own collective enjoyment of the show. I doubt the market for art in Santa Fe serves as its own self-sustaining economic engine, but rather it seems like the money comes from outside sources and states, which has arrived and retired here to enjoy the Southwestern-bohemian lifestyle. At least that was the vibe I got.
At a certain point the galleries become more spaced out and less eye-catching, which is the signal to wandering tourists that you’ve reached a good point to turn back. We returned to the car and drove up a nearby hill to see the Cross of the Martyrs, a simple steel cross perched on a scenic overlook of Santa Fe.
What is unique about Santa Fe is how little of it you can see from above: the city is very green, with mature trees growing everywhere. Still makes for a pretty vista, albeit one without any landmarks that stand out as especially impressive from above. I didn’t stay too long.
At 5:00pm, pretty much all of Santa Fe shuts down. No more museums, galleries, or other historical landmarks to see, meaning the city enters a brief suspended liminal period before coming back to life for the dinner hour. We went back to our hotel for a brief rest, but not before stopping to view the outdoor “Cognition Enhancer,” a sculpture of a chemical company’s proprietary yet never-used molecule, found courtesy of Atlas Obscura.
A couple hours later, dinner was at Paloma Restaurant & Bar, which several websites listed as one of the best Mexican restaurants in the city. The food was certainly very good, possibly the best we had of the trip, including a mescal sampler that had some real potency.
That said, apart from the impressive mescal collection, the menu is comparable to the elevated, chef-focused Mexican cuisine that can be found across many cities in America. Which is good, but the fact that there were so few highly-rated alternatives for anything approaching local cuisine didn’t speak too highly of the food scene in Santa Fe. There’s probably two or three days worth of genuinely good eats in Santa Fe (of which I would recommend Paloma among them if you don’t mind spending a bit of cash), but after that you run into either generic greasy diner food or generic European-inspired fine dining restaurants imitating what you could find in any major metro area, including the price tags.
To be honest, while I originally worried I hadn’t left ourselves enough time to fully enjoy Santa Fe, one day proved perfectly sufficient for our interests. The City Different probably was something quite special and different a generation ago (and much longer than that), but with so many other cities now fully embracing their unique identities over the past couple of decades, and with so many of the inhabitants and their wealth now originating from those extrinsic metropolises as well, Santa Fe now feels less like a real place and more like an impression of itself, created for the purpose of sustaining the idea of a place that those visiting or moving from afar will think of as Santa Fe.
Granted, there is one major exception that’s making a direct and explicit challenge to the status quo of Santa Fe’s conservative brand of cultural liberalism (while simultaneously becoming celebrated as one of the city’s most essential landmarks), but for that I would need to dedicate a separate day (and essay) to fully explore…
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