Escapees July-August 2024

camping chair chat

Sante Fe, New Mexico Keeping Time at Bay

When other RVers ask my favorite state to visit, I often say New Mexico. That comment has gotten me some weird looks, especially if the askers have driven through on the interstate, stopping only at gas stations. I admit, the highways don’t show New Mexico’s best face. Drivers get views of cholla and creosote bush, fl at prairie and junked cars. But there’s so much more to New Mexico, and Santa Fe is one of its best parts. The fi rst time I went on a road trip to Santa Fe, I was 19. My friends and I left Utah on spring break, hoping for an exotic destination on small budgets. While other kids fl ew to beachside resort towns, we drove through miles of empty desert to see a place nobody in our families had really even heard of. Of course, this was before the Internet. We’d heard rumors of adobe buildings and quaint little roadside inns, of native artisans who still sold their wares at the Indian Market under the portico of the Palace of the Governors. We wanted to fi nd out if it was real. Expectations like this often lead to disappointment, but that trip to Santa Fe gave me exactly what I was looking for. We arrived past dark and walked into the

lobby of the King’s Rest Court, an authentic drive-in motel on Route 66. They gave us a room; the door was turquoise-colored to ward off evil spirits. I thought I would die of happiness. The next day, we went to the Plaza and absolutely gawked. All this time, I thought I’d have to go to Europe to see the old world, but here it was. The Plaza, made from traditional adobe, dates back to the 17th century Spanish conquistadors. Something beautiful was to be found around every turn. An air-headed romantic, I announced that Santa Fe was, as I’d read of Italy, in a state of elegant decay. The next time I went to Santa Fe, I was an adult with two children. By that time, we’d studied the Santa Fe Trail and the Camino Real, which had invited trade from Mexico City. The kids liked the Cathedral of St. Francis and the oft-patched Oldest House, an adobe on de Vargas Street which may have been built before the Spanish arrived. We went into the Fred Harvey hotel, now called La Fonda, with its hand carved beams, stained glass skylights and railroad history. We ate green chile burgers under the shadow of Blake’s long legs. Back at the RV, we sat under the awning and watched the sun set behind the Sangre de Cristo mountains. The trick in New Mexico is that you’ve got to get off the highway. Like the adobes, everything worth seeing is tucked away behind a burm or wall, slid back into a recess in the hills, to keep time at bay. As they say, it’s not really new and it’s not really Mexico, but it’s really great. Bianca Dumas #145498

18

ESCAPEES Magazine July/August 2024