Instead of doing a long trip way from the ranch this winter, as we have in years past, we’ve decided to make shorter forays. Our first journey has kept us surprisingly close to home, yet feeling we’re a true world away.
It’s been many years since I spent weeks getting to know my own country. So it’s with particular pleasure that I find myself in Santa Fe, New Mexico for a three week stay. I’ve been here several times before, but always for less than a handful of days. Those brief ventures were enough to get me excited about the place and to visit some of the outlying sights, but never to settle down.
Reporting now from Santa Fe itself, I have to say that it feels a bit strange to apply my travel skills to an American city, even one as foreign-feeling as Santa Fe. Even though I didn’t need a passport to get here (I did the drive from Walden in 8 hours, while Bernard flew in under 3) I still felt that same sense of disembodiment, along with the special mix of confused eagerness that accompanied my arrival in places like Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Ishkashim, Afghanistan or Kolkata, India just a few months back.
Santa Fe in the winter is nothing like in the summer. Streets are deserted, shops empty, restaurants happy to offer you a seat at any table you wish. The sky is an upside-down turquoise caldera scratched by naked bronze branches. By night, pinpoints of white lights strung around the Plaza wink at the full moon.
Bars and lounges, smelling of stale beer and last July’s cocktails, give haven to a handful of locals warming the bar stools, sipping a bottle of beer, or swirling a short red plastic straw in a highball glass of something fizzy. Even though attendance is slim, there’s still plenty of music happening. El Farol continues its Tuesday Blues Jams. There’s swing at Cowgirl BBQ and various Latin rhythms at El Meson. Vanessie’s has jazz and Tiny’s hosts R&B.
On Sunday afternoon, around 5pm, we sidled through the swinging door at Evangelo’s Bar, just off the Plaza, lured by a perfect rendition of Papa Was a Rolling Stone. We were rewarded by such soulful singing by Zenobia, with Soulman Sam sitting in, that I didn’t realize I’d finished my bourbon and gingerale till my next sip brought nothing but air into my mouth. 
Sitting on timeworn stools in front of the old bar, we were offered home made chocolate cake to celebrate an in-house birthday. The scratched wood bar is tended by Nick, son of Evangelo Klonis, a Greek who immigrated to the U.S. illegally in the 1930s and opened the lounge in 1969.
Yesterday we drove the interstate toward Albuquerque, hoping to see the wild horses that populate BLM land around the area of Bernalillo. For awhile, we shadowed the railway tracks on old Route 66, as it wended its way through scrub towns of tumbleweed clinging to chainlink fences and double-wide trailers wrapped in adobe skins. Feeling peckish around noon, we debated whether to eat at Bernalillo’s Range Diner, a Formica haven, or perhaps give a chance to Lupe’s Antojitos, a small place shoehorned into a small corner of the gas station across from the local antique rubbish store, with large handpainted signs screaming ‘TAMALES’ and ‘BARBACOA.’
Thank goodness we voted for Lupe’s. There followed a feast of tiny corn tortillas, heaped variously with marinated pork, beef cheek and tongue (pastor, cabeza and lengua), accompanied by a small plate happily dressed with tiny sliced limes, diced onion and chopped cilantro. A cold Mexican Coke (no high fructose corn syrup) and ordering in Spanish from a waitress with heavy, synthetic black lashes and a too-tight pink top, completed the sense of dislodgement that had me wondering whether I was still in the States.
Some of Lupe’s famous barbacoa (slow roasted lamb with an accompanying rich broth pebbled with white beans), plus a dozen of her pork tamales, accompanied us back to our Santa Fe casita.
It snowed lightly last night. Today we set out to inspect that particular beauty which is pale red sandstone lightly dust with sugary snow. With some trepidation we headed for the region’s most popular park: Bandelier National Monument. We laughed at our worries when we wound up having to share our two-hour ramble among the cliff dwellings and the rim trail with only three (that’s 3, as in tres) other hikers. That’s it. Just five of us in total walking on a footing of wet oak leaves, springy ponderosa needles and enough compacted snow to make for some slippery steps. 
Bandelier was closed all of last summer, first because of the frightening wildfire that devastated large swatches of the park and threatened Los Alamos, and then because of a flash flood that denuded the area on August 21. There are still sandbags and concrete barriers in place, the normal visitors center is closed and all the bridges have been washed out. To get to the farthest cliff dwelling, Alcove House, we shared the path with the main residents of the park, mule deer, who have the run of the place until the onslaught of tourists next summer. 
I’m sure more marvels will be unveiled in the days to come. I will keep you posted, and will also being sending a special dispatch to tell you about our next, very exciting, venture outside of the U.S., coming up toward the end of February.
