"Stu's New Mexican Fun Facts" (c) 2007

"Stu's New Mexican Fun Facts" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

[Images: "Doubting Thomas, St. Francis Cathedral, Santa Fe, New Mexico" & "Plastic Medicine Wheel, Carrizozo, New Mexico"]

1)        Went to Taos. Well, drove through Taos really. Stopped at The Pueblo briefly and paid money for admission and for each of my two cameras that I brought into the village. White people gawking at Red people. Was bizarre to say the least. Took a couple shots of the old graveyard and split. While driving out of Taos, I listened to National Public Radio. They were having their semi-annual fund-raising campaign. (Had actually been listening to the fund-raising on NPR for my whole trip, through Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, and Colorado. Wyoming had the best music. Montana had the most pleasant DJs. Nebraska had the kindest voices. Made sense.) I noticed something different, here in Taos, from the other stations I heard thus far. Lots of dead air. Then giggling afterwards. Then people talking and they didn’t make much sense. Hmmm. I think they need to put down the spleef in Taos, or monitor their medication a bit more closely.

2)        Had a plan to see the Sante Fe Plaza and visit St. Francis Cathedral again. It had been twenty years since I was last in Sante Fe. Back in the day, you could see the Cathedral from a distance and get your bearing quite easily. Not now. Luxury hotels, taller or as tall as the church, surrounded the Plaza. I had to actually ask someone where the Cathedral was. Had a delightful time inside of St. Francis, though. I prayed, I shot, I just look around, I prayed some more. Hadn’t changed much in twenty years and still felt like the sanctuary that it is. I thought of sticking around for dinner in Santa Fe but I didn’t. I wasn’t wearing the right clothes for a nice meal there, nor did I feel like I belonged. Saw a huge smiling bronze pig out front of a fancy gallery. Grinning, from jowl to jowl. The North Carolinian in me just sees that as a silly way to spend money.

3)        Went to a 12 Step meeting in a bad part of Albuquerque, just at sunset. Good people, bad neighborhood. Felt like I’d been to church twice that day.   

4)        Spent the night in an anonymous motel in Socorro. Had good coffee the next morning at a café just off the town square. Every town in America has a café now, that has good coffee, fresh baked goods and a friendly staff. And they ain't Starbucks. Gives me hope for America.

5)        Drove by the Trinity Atomic Bomb Site. Again, didn’t really drive by it for I quickly realized I wasn’t supposed to be on that government road and hastily turned around, but it was just over that hill. Just being close still gave me the willies. The world changed forever over there, on July 16th, 1945 at 5:29 in the morning.            

6)        Midmorning, I went hiking into the Valley of Fire, a place of recent lava flows, only 1000 years old or so. Didn’t hike far. Just a ways in, played the mandolin for a while and took in the sharp blackness that is the Malpais. The wind blew cool and the acoustics were flat in a pleasant way.

7)        Just south of Carrizozo, I saw some amazing clouds that looked like huge jellyfish flying in the sky. I took their picture but it didn’t translate at all. Sometimes you just have to be there. While walking along the road looking at those clouds, I found an old hubcap among the sage. The paint had peeled away from much of it, yet the cheap chrome still adhered to the center of the plastic wheel. I took a picture, then picked up the hubcap. I saw an object I could make with this wheel and with a few bits of colorful cloth. I dusted it off and took it back to the truck. (It now leans against a leg of my small dining room table. All cleaned up and waiting for the time I tie some cotton to it, but right now I just like looking at it on the floor as I leave my kitchen. Maybe after the New Year, I’ll fiddle with it.)