RV Winter Rambling 2006-07

Dreams come true; Yes, they do; In Santa Fe….

Being Vancouverites, it’s not often that we find a place that we would live other than our own beautiful environs but we immediately fell in love with Santa Fe. I can easily envision living in the beautiful capital of New Mexico. Its population is small – only about 65,000 but it’s a sophisticated, educated and artistic community. It has more than three hundred days of sunshine a year and the temperature in summer rarely goes over 90 degrees F. After an overnight where the temperature dipped to freezing, we were delighted to be greeted by clear blue sky and a day that soared to 80 degrees F.


We needed to do that tedious task of laundry and I found mention of a geocache called the ‘Laundromat Cache’. How fortuitous! It turned out to be a neat and clean facility so we tossed in our dirty stuff and headed off on a search for the cache, a quarter mile away. We found it easily and were back to transfer the clothes to the dryer in plenty of time. This cache turned out to be a four-fold find. As we strolled back, we passed a pet food store that sold holistic food – just what we needed for Caesar with his allergy problems.


Now I normally avoid Laundromats as Fernie has elected to take on the laundry duty but this day I didn’t need to hunt for wifi so I went in to help. As I was heading into the Laundromat, a 40ish, tall, light-skinned black man was on his way out with two huge baskets of clean clothes. I held the door open for him – obviously to his surprise, as he thanked me profusely.
“Well, That’s the highlight of my day” he said.
“It can only get better then.” I retorted as the door closed behind him. After he deposited his laundry in the car, he came back in, gave me a squeeze and a leer (good gawd, I’m 64) and said something about ‘never forgetting me’. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to please another human being. But when I think of all the times that I’ve held doors for people who’ve barged through as if it’s their right-of-way with nary a smile or a thank you……………..


A very fat woman sat by the window with tree trunk like legs sprawled widely and a tiny infant spread across her voluminous bosom. She had short-cropped steel grey hair and sitting beside her was a young and pretty (maybe 16 or 17) though plump and headed towards her mother’s shape in future years, dark haired and dark skinned girl. They were Navajo, I found out.
“Now, that baby is not very old” I said, noting his tiny legs and feet sticking out below a thick blue blanket. The Grandma looked at me with hostility ???????? But her daughter beamed with pride “He’s three weeks old and he’s already smiling and he sleeps all night and ……….” She babbled on and on.
“His name is Aquii – it’s a Navajo name and it means ‘boy’ in English”.
Strange connotation, I thought but of course didn’t verbalize it. A young longish-haired, white man with an English accent interjected “Oh that’s a wonderful name” and proceeded to ask more questions about the baby as I slid away. Babies don’t hold my attention like animals do. Funny thing though, Grandma broke into smiles and chattered away to the young man. Go figure.


While Fernie watched the tumbling laundry, he got to know the young man – a disk jockey whose radio station had been sold to a big conglomerate and he was out of work and happily moving to Los Angeles in another week. His roots were Welsh though brought up in England. Aren’t Laundromats amazing places – I’ll have to start frequenting them more often just for the social interaction.

I took a stroll around the shopping centre and right next door to the Laundromat was a computer repair shop. Our laptop had been crashing constantly – more and more often, so I wandered in and asked if they serviced laptops and the answer was ‘Sure’. I explained the problem and said I didn’t think it was software related but probably from overheating. I expected a fan needed maintenance or replacement. He said laptops with heavy use tend to plug up with dirt and grime in the airways. Anywayz! I dropped it off to them the next morning and they said barring the unforeseen they’d have it done in 24 hours. Good service! A beautiful thick-coated dog laid across the doorway as I left and his owner, one of the resident geeks (a bearded clone of the first guy I talked to) got up to rouse him. The pooch was obviously getting on in years (turned out he was 12) but he was good-natured and licked my hand. He looked a bit like a chow but the face was too pointy. “What breed is he?” I asked.
“Chow mixed with keeshond – he’s better natured than a chow but still has the purple tongue” He was obviously proud of his pet. He went on to give us advice on a remedy for stiff joints when we told him our dog was a creaky old senior citizen too and told us where to buy it.

A new vegetarian restaurant had just opened a few doors away from the laundry – the Annapurna – seems most cities have an Annapurna. We had a superb lunch there before we headed downtown to traipse around doing the tourist thing.

Georgia O’Keefe, an artist whose work I’ve admired for many years, spent her later years in northern New Mexico on a ranch surrounded by the colourful mountains and mesas that she translated to canvas. She died here at 98 years old in 1986, painting almost to the very end. I would dearly love to emulate her in my old age but sadly I don’t have the artistic ability or innate talent. I don’t think I’ll let that stop me though – I’ll just try to develop my own style. There’s a superb museum / gallery of Georgia’s works in the old town of Santa Fe and it was scintillating to see her evolving works and learn more about her life. I would like to have known her.



Just outside the city is a small village, Tesuque where strangely the famous Santa Fe Opera House resides, high on a hill overlooking the wonders of nature. Aren’t they usually in the centre of town? The theatre is an open-air structure rather like a semi-covered stadium and the opera season runs from June to August – it must be beautiful up there in the hot summer evenings.


We chanced upon ‘Shidoni’ (a geocache destination), a gallery full of diverse and beautiful artworks with eight outdoor acres of bronze and steel statues and structures, scattered around. At the back of the property seeral artisans were at work on their bronzes and we engaged in conversation with one of the gallery art consultants, a charming, immaculately dressed, well-spoken, handsome, grey-haired Adonis (obviously gay). Sitting across from him on a finely crafted and designed one-of-a-kind mahogany dining chair was Nelson, a rotund tabby cat who purred like a well-tuned engine and rolled over legs in air, when I tickled his tummy.

Jorden had retired from the US government (obviously at a young age) in Washington, DC and moved to Santa Fe. He’d been studying and collecting art all his life and owns hundreds of pieces. He recommended a visit to Chimayo, an artistic village, not too far out of town and a restaurant there “Ranch Chimayo”.
“It’s such good local New Mexico cuisine and it’s ‘cheap’ - well, not cheap but you know….not expensive” We’ll definitely try it. He then regaled us with stories of film stars who’d visited the gallery.
“Just before Xmas, sitting right there in that chair – Nelson’s chair – was an unkempt and unshaven Russell Crowe. He had two tough-looking henchmen with him but he’s a family man now and he was buying miniatures, like these over there…… for his children for Xmas.” He was in town shooting a remake of “310 to Yuma” and rented a ranch for $12,000 a month.

Santa Fe is home to many aging film stars. Gene Hackman owns a ranch just out of town. Jane Fonda and Shirley MacLaine reside here too.
“Shirley routinely goes into my friend’s gallery in town and just talks and talks for hours” said Jorden. Val Kilmer doesn’t belong to the geriatric set but his home is also in Santa Fe.

Adjacent to Shidoni was the Tesuque Glassworks and we were so lucky that the glass blower was just beginning to create a colourful set of tumblers. It’s quite a craft – back and forth into the oven, between blowing and dipping and stretching.
“How long does it take to learn the craft?” I asked him.
“Well, I’ve been at it for 35 years and I’m still an apprentice” he said





We were dead tired after a day of schmoozing with artists and art consultants and traipsing around various galleries around town.

posted by O'Leary @ 9:41 PM