On August 7th I caught a morning flight on Southwest, OAK-ABQ direct, and
\nbegan one of the great adventures of the year. Shannon met me at the gate
\nand we went off searching for a convertible. Half an hour later after
\nconsiderable sweet talking and a little badge-flashing (“oh! You’re in the
\nService…”) we left Budget in a Mustang convertible. We had lunch in an
\nadobe barbeque resteraunt with no windows before before heading north into
\nthe desert with the top down and the sterio turned up just a little too
\nloud.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nFirst stop: Santa Fe<\/a>. Santa Fe is a \nThe next morning we checked out and headed west into the mountains towards \nI had a tremendous spiritual experience at this power spot when I was 17 \nAfter a day and a half of cruising the New Mexican mountains foot hills we \nThe following three days had more booze and less sleep than any other \nI’ve been gone for a week<\/p>\n I’ve been drunk since I left<\/p>\n these so called vacations<\/p>\n will soon be my death<\/p>\n I’m so sick from the drink<\/p>\n I need home for a rest<\/p>\n TAKE ME HOME!<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n “Home for a Rest”, On August 7th I caught a morning flight on Southwest, OAK-ABQ direct, and began one of the great adventures of the year. Shannon met me at the gate and we went off searching for a convertible. Half an hour later after considerable sweet talking and a little badge-flashing (“oh! You’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[37,27],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-long-wander","tag-mexico","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ncute little artist town-turned-tourist destination which, through an
\naccident of history, happens to be the state’s capital. The Marriot Hotel
\nis faux adobe and the Indians turn a brisk business selling several
\nhundred dollars of topaz and sterling jewlery from their blankets in The
\nPlaza. People come from around the world to buy jewlery and art in the
\nhome of Georgia O’Keef and D.H. Lawrence. Some of it’s nice, but I’m a
\npicky art buyer. We dined on Brazilian barbeque and stayed at some funky
\npink-cowboy roadside motel halfway out of town.<\/p>\n
\nBandalier. If, by some accident of fate, you find yourself in the area I
\nreally recommend Bandalier National
\nMonument<\/a> (
\nHREF=”http:\/\/www.danheller.com\/nm-bandalier.html”>pictures). Shannon
\nand I had both been before, so we skipped it for lesser names and the joy
\nof the drive. New Mexico has some of the most beautiful weather on the
\nplanet: the annual count of sunny days is somewhere north of 300.
\nSomewhere along the line we chased some kids into the mesas but lost their
\ntrail and turned back rather than navigate the Prickly Pear Cactus’. White
\nRock’s overlook of the Rio Grande… The Machine Gun Men (read: security
\nguys) at some turned us away when we tried to take a short cut through
\nsome Los Alamos tech lab<\/a>.
\n…a Los Alamos museum… A good part of the country is still involved in
\ntop secret Manhattan Project-like work, so much of the land is fenced in
\nwith Area 51-type warnings about felonies, land mines and summary
\nexecution of trespassers. I suspect some of the signs have been forged by
\nenvironmentalists…<\/p>\n
\nso when a choice had to be made from our photocopied map, we skipped Taos
\nand took the route less traveled.
\nHREF=”http:\/\/chimayo.org\/”>Chimayo is a little town built up around an
\nadobe church, which was built around a religious shine, which was built
\naround a puddle of water that saved some Spanish padre’s life when he was
\nwandering around delirious in the desert. It doesn’t take much to make a
\nmiracle in New Mexico, but they leave a mark. [
\nHREF=”http:\/\/www.transporter.com\/fatherpeffley\/files\/staircase.pdf”>The
\nMiracle Staircase of Santa Fe (PDF) at
\nHREF=”http:\/\/www.lorettochapel.com\/”>Lorretto Chapel] Chimayo blew my
\nmind once, and I was eager to give it another chance. We lunched on
\ntamales and headed east into the mountains.<\/p>\n
\nrolled down out of the Sangre de Cristo into
\nHREF=”http:\/\/www.lasvegasnewmexico.com\/Las.Vegas.New.Mexico\/”>Las
\nVegas and thru to Montezuma<\/a>. The
\nreason for being in New Mexico in the first place was a high school
\nreunion. The UWC is the kind of school which can’t be adequately explained
\nand the addiction to experience is never really kicked. People really want
\nto go to their five-year reunions. ‘nuff said.<\/p>\n
\nperiod of my life. To be in that little valley with those people was pure
\nmagic. Each day was glorious and each night was Graduation Night. Sunday
\nnight went so late there was no choice but to continue we left, at six.
\nWorn down and burned out, we spent the last hours in rocking chairs under
\na desert sky listening to Pink Floyd. Shannon and I packed up the Mustang
\nand rolled out of Montezuma before daybreak. We stopped at a gas station
\nin Las Vegas for a breakfast consisting of orange juice, chicken fingers
\nand coffee. Then, as light broke across the desert we hit the highway
\ngoing south by southwest, as if fleeing the dawn in a vain attempt to make
\nthe weekend last longer.<\/p>\n
\nHREF=”http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/tg\/detail\/-\/B00005NWID\/”>Spirit of
\nthe West<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"