Travelogue: Santa Fe, a Good Example of Urban Planning

The Railyard

Recently, I visited Santa Fe only to discover that this city has remained true to its character and history as it has adapted to new and ever-changing times.  More importantly, it is a city that has spirit.  And no wonder, the Spanish name of the city means “Holy faith.” 

The Farmers Market is but one of the many tenants located in the historic Railyard, a new and exciting 50-acre complex.  It is also a good example of how progressive citizens work together with local government to benefit the whole community.  Only 25 years ago this area was declared a blighted area.

Santa Fe has had a history as a trade and commerce center since the Pueblo people lived here almost a thousand years ago.  The Spanish conquistadors continued that tradition as did the Americans when they built the Santa Fe Trail.  The city became a center of rail commerce in 1880 when the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company (AT &SF) opened for business.  The railroad also ended the era of travel by horses, covered wagons and stagecoaches on the old Santa Fe Trail and allowed Eastern tourists to see the West in relative comfort and style through its dining and sleeping cars as well as its chain of Harvey House accommodations.

Harvey Girls served the railroad eating houses

  Native American and Mexican artisans found a new market for their pottery, textiles, jewelry and baskets.  New building materials, such as galvanized tin, metal roofs and Victorian bricks were added to the city's adobe style of architecture.  New neighborhoods developed around the train station and the depot became a center of activity where people met and politicians and celebrities held public forums.  During the 1930s Depression, the station was a distribution center where people could get free meat from warehouses.  

Part of what defeated the railroads, however, was the growth of air and auto travel after World War II.  As a result, the station fell into disuse and disrepair.  In 1987, hundreds of citizens and city officials began the process of creating the Railyard Master Plan.  In February 2002, a hundred years since the formation of AT&SF, the plan was approved.  Rebuilding began in 2006.

The essence of the plan was to make the Railyard the hub of city life it once was, to preserve its historic buildings and to emphasize the Railyard's importance as a center of transportation, economics, and culture.  In carrying that out, a vibrant mix of tenants was recruited to serve the diverse needs and interests of the community as a whole as well as to enhance the integrity of the adjacent neighborhoods.  

Besides the Farmers Market are a bevy of restaurants, specialty shops, biking and walking trails, artist studios, space for warehouses and light industrial firms, furniture showrooms, offices, and other locally-owned businesses.  People also have a variety of entertainment venues from which to choose including live performances, exhibitions, films, music, community dances, walkathons and flower shows.

New Mexico Railrunner

Santa Fe Southern

Officials also wanted to feature the city’s railway past so they secured an engine and a few passenger cars from the old Santa Fe Southern to offer excursions to Lamy, NM, an old railroad spur 30 miles away.  Recently, the city added the New Mexico Railrunner Express that provides commuter service between Santa Fe, Albuquerque (including a stop at the airport) and Belen.  And, it has been a hit with area residents.

It is obvious that leaders here have put a lot of thought into making the city the great place to live and conduct business over the past century since New Mexico became a state.  For example, in 1912 civic leaders adopted elements of the City Beautiful movement (popularized at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair), which sought to inspire moral and civic virtue in its inhabitants, awaken a sense of pride and community with fellow urban dwellers and entice the suburban rich to conduct their business and seek entertainment there. 

In 1957 city officials created a building code that required all new buildings to be adobe, a code that is still in effect today.  They developed the “Santa Fe Style” with its thick adobe walls, flat roofs and beams that stick out called vigas.  (Adobe was perfected by the Moors in Spain and the Spanish brought it to the New World.)  In foreseeing conflicts between preservationists and scientific planners, officials set forth the principle that historic streets and structures be preserved and that new development be in harmony with the city's character.  According to Harry Moul, and Linda Tigges (New Mexico Historical Review, Spring 1996), planners also anticipated limited future growth, considered the scarcity of water, and recognized the future prospects of suburban development on the outskirts. 

This focus on community was also considered when it came to decisions about building the Interstate highway system in this area.  While most other American cities thought nothing of putting the new highways through their cities, even sacrificing their vibrant neighborhoods, Santa Fe had the Interstate go around its city’s limits.  The international airport is in Albuquerque 60 miles away.  These are very strange arrangements for a capital city, but apparently it worked for Santa Fe.  The result is that the original city remains in tact and attractive.  Not a bad trade for a little inconvenience!

On the other hand, Santa Fe mirrors the free-spirited sentiments of the West that encourages people to live the way they want and to do whatever they want with their land.  Consequently, there are very few zoning laws here.  My in-laws, for example, live in the outskirts of the city.  They have goats, chickens and a dog that runs without a leash unconfined in a fenced yard.  The houses in this area are not sited in any particular way or according to a development plan, unlike most cities whose houses are neatly lined up and rules are strictly enforced by codes and peer pressure.  

People here seem uncharacteristically polite.  I attribute this quality to the outdoor culture of the place and the abundance of public space where people interact with each other frequently.  Public space warrants a different kind of behavior than private space; it requires that people know how to share and be respectful of each other and at the very least, their presence.  I first noticed this during the crowded Saturday farmers market where parking was at a premium.  People weren’t rushing to capture a space, and if they noticed you eyeing a spot, they yielded and moved on.  

The Plaza is the central park of the downtown area where people congregate almost all the time.  We were there on a Saturday when a disc jockey played music on the stage and anyone who wanted to dance or lip sync was invited to have at it.  The event was an information day for mental health organizations, but I was told that there is always something going on in the Plaza.  Apparently, people want to be there so it serves as a gathering place right in the center of the city.  There's something to seeing other people whether you know them or not.  Then again, it's a wonderful thing to see people you know out in public spaces.

Another reason for this politeness, I think, is the city's multicultural past where different cultures (Native American, Spanish/Mexican and Anglo) have been living together for centuries.  You can see it everywhere:  in the people's faces, the architecture, the food, the art, the music.  I think this quality encourages a respect for differences rather than conflict, although there have been many conflicts in Santa Fe's history.  After spending time in Santa Fe it occurred to me how confused some of our politicians are about multiculturalism.  They think it tears down the community and dilutes what it means to be American.  I think it contributes to a vibrancy in the people and the spirit of the place. It's what makes this city great--and more American than most.

As one of America’s oldest cities Santa Fe has also had a lot of practice in learning how to create a quality of life for its people.  It felt good to be here even though the city sits at 7,000 feet where the atmosphere loses about one-fourth of its density.  This crystal clear air often described as transparent “makes distant objects seem closer and more sharply outlined creating a sense of space and openness rarely experienced elsewhere,” says travel writer Robert L. Casey.  The 300 days of sunshine and extraordinary blue sky have been a special attraction for artists.  The wide-open spaces and long horizon give a different breadth of view.  The mountains surrounding this desert environment are fairly green with clumps of fragrant pinion pine, cottonwood, juniper and sagebrush covering it.  No wonder Georgia O’Keeffe was so taken by it. 

The altitude can play tricks on you, however.  I got a headache on my second day, however, a couple aspirins, rest and a lot of water got me up and going in half a day.  It gets very hot in the summer but by mid-September, it is cool in the morning and evening, enough for a sweater.  Then there were those dreamy nights where I’d look out the window and see stars—including the Milky Way!

On the last morning before I returned home, I quietly sat on my host’s patio and reflected on my stay in Santa Fe.  Two sets of chimes intoned the wind, one of them a constantly tinkling mezzosoprano and the other an occasional tenor.  The bright sun was warm without making me sweat and a fountain gently spilled into a man-made pond providing just enough background sound.  The big Monk-with-Lantern puppet overlooked the patio with his eternal smile and I could smile, too.  This had been a good trip, a worthwhile trip and I was satisfied.  I plan to return soon.

Travelogue: Santa Fe, an Historical and Cultural Wonder

The Old Santa Fe Trail

This article appeared in the Huffington Post on Thursday, December 5, 2012

As the second oldest city in the United States, Santa Fe celebrates its past through art, music and numerous museums.  Georgia O’Keeffe stands out as this region’s most prominent landscape painter and an art museum dedicated to her work is located a couple blocks from the Plaza.  Unfortunately, I was there between shows and the museum was closed.  I did find the New Mexico Art Museum right off the northwestern side of the Plaza and found it to be quite engaging and informative. 

The featured exhibit, “How the West Is Won,” showed the contribution early twentieth century artists made to depict and preserve the Indian culture and way of life that was fast being destroyed as the white Anglo culture of the late 1800s and early twentieth century was moving in.  Other paintings included four or five by Georgia O'Keeffe including “Red Rocks” and window of her house, the latter which didn't move me as much as it did her.  Nevertheless, it was very exciting to see these paintings.

New Mexico Museum of Art

The photography exhibit was more compelling.  It showcased Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter’s works that portrayed the natural beauty of the West.  So popular were their portraits of the region that they inadvertently enticed the rest of America to see it for themselves.  This all led to the tourism industry, which accommodated travelers and their need for food, lodging, transportation and cameras.  Unfortunately, it helped to change the wild landscape into a more commercial, tourist-oriented one. 

Still, the photographs inspired a deeper awareness about land preservation and kick-started the conservation movement and the U.S. national parks system, as filmmaker Ken Burns illustrated in his documentary, “The National Parks:  America’s Best Idea.”  Subsequent photographers then used the landscape to make political statements.  For example, they’d show a trash heap in the foreground and the contrasting beautiful mountains in the background.  Or they highlighted the “mushroom cloud” of Los Alamos, where the atom bomb was tested during World War II.  Apparently the cloud could be seen from many, many miles away. 

Any city sees itself change with the times and in the 1980s Santa Fe began to attract the super-rich who settled on the eastern side of town in full view of the Sierra Gordo (fat hill in Spanish) where goats used to graze.  This area is the southernmost end of the Rocky Mountains and the houses and condominiums built by these people are second and third homes that caretakers watch over full time. 

Santa Fe is also home to 4,000 artisans and 250 art galleries.  A good deal of the galleries are located on Canyon Road, an old Indian trail that connected the Rio Grande to the Pecos River, 15 miles east of Santa Fe.  The trail provided a transportation system for agriculture and trade and later was the site of an art colony.  Today, it is home to the second largest art market in the United States next to New York City and it specializes in contemporary, traditional and Native American fine art.  The shops, boutiques and galleries offer paintings, indoor and outdoor sculptures, glass, jewelry, clothing, accessories, home furnishing, gifts, antiques, rugs, folk art and crafts. 

I stopped at Matteucci's Gallery just off Canyon Road to look around and saw an O'Keeffe painting on sale for $600,000.  In fact, the lowest priced piece I found was a small desk object for $200.  This was not exactly my world.  Nevertheless, the themes of the paintings and sculptures were exquisite.  They centered around Native Americans, the Old West and individual figures of people and animals in action.  An outdoor garden featured bronze sculptures around a pond with several fountains and lent to a peaceful and beautiful setting.

San Miguel Mission

On the eastern side of the city on the Old Santa Fe Trail is the San Miguel Mission.  It was built in 1610 with a blend of Native American and Spanish Colonial architecture styles and is considered the oldest church in the USA along with several other sun-baked adobe buildings in the area. 

The nave is small and narrow with creaky wooden pews on a creaky wooden floor.  It includes wooden sculptures and crosses, engraved tin lamps and old photos of the church before it was restored.  The wooden reredos (altar screen) dates from 1798 and features paintings of Christ in the center flanked by St. Francis of Assisi (patron saint of Santa Fe) and other important saints.  There is also a 1709 carved and gilded wooden statue of St. Michael the Archangel celebrating his victory over Satan.  The San Jose Bell is on display at the entrance of the church with an inscription of 1356, although that date is in doubt.  It was brought by the Ortiz family from Mexico in 1712 and once hung in the mission’s bell tower. 

St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral

Mass is still celebrated weekly.  I was there about 4:30 when two old padres came out to pray before the 5 p.m. Mass.  One of them occasionally stopped and asked visitors where they were from. 

I did go to Sunday Mass at St. Francis Cathedral to celebrate the Eucharist but also to gain further insight into Santa Fe culture.  Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy built the church between 1869 and 1886 on the site of an older adobe church, La Parroquia (built 1714-1717).  An even earlier church was built in 1626 on the same site but was destroyed during the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. The new cathedral incorporated a small chapel of La Parroquia, which is all that remains of the old church.  The two towers in the front are stunted because funds ran short.

Petra, guitarist

On my way to Mass I passed through the Plaza where many people were just milling about casually.  Sidewalk vendors were seated under the shady portico of the Palace of the Governors selling their wares.  It was a sunny, cool and very mellow morning made only more perfect by the music of a wonderful classical guitarist named Petra Babankova.   She is among the 147 professional Santa Fe area guitarists.

The priest was very personable and obviously well-liked by parishioners.  The deacon gave an emotional homily about what identifies a Catholic, which he used to lead up to his new program to get people back into the Church through the marriage sacrament.  Apparently, a lot of people here live together without being married. 

The music was fantastic as about 20 young people played guitars, drums and led the congregation in song with their beautiful and energetic voices.  During Eucharistic prayers they sang the acclamations in Spanish.  As I looked out at the congregation, most of the people were brown-skinned, well-dressed and very beautiful.  I wondered what it would be like growing up in a place like Santa Fe where the predominant culture was Spanish, Mexican and Native American?  This was so decidedly different from the white America I come from! 

It also occurred to me how confused some of our politicians are about multiculturalism.  They think it tears down the community and dilutes what it means to be American.  I think it contributes to a vibrancy and necessary acceptance of differences, especially when all groups are acknowledged and invited to participate in running the city.  This is the spirit of Santa Fe, which has known and dealt with multiculturalism for centuries. 

I also found that the city has a lot of strong, independent women, feminists who are respected and not vilified.  This also applies to gays and lesbians as well.  (This year The Advocate, a national gay and lesbian magazine, named Santa Fe the second “gayest” city in America behind Minneapolis and ahead of San Francisco, which ranked eleventh.) 

Monument honoring the fallen

A monument in the middle of the Plaza illustrates this spirit of respect, too.  It was originally constructed in 1868 to honor those who had fallen in “battles with the Indians in the New Mexico Territory.”  Because these tributes are etched in stone, another plaque has been added to note that the tributes were made in different times, “near the close of a period of intense strife which pitted northerner against southerner, Indian against white, Indian against Indian….Attitudes change and hopefully dissolve.”  While some people would call these sentiments soft, liberal and pandering, I think they reflect the a city trying to come to grips with our times where we have a variety of people from different cultures.  A global economy has brought all these people together and we can no longer run away from the fact or try to segregate ourselves from each other.  Santa Fe seems to be doing that.

Santa Fe has another cultural feature:  the pace here is a lot slower.  Perhaps it is the winding roads, some of which are old Indian and/or buffalo trails.  Perhaps it is the Mexican/Spanish influence of manana or poco tiempo where people don’t worry about keeping to a schedule.  I found it refreshing, however.  What do we really gain by rushing and clock-watching? 

History

The Santa Fe area was occupied 10,000 years ago by nomadic people who grew corn, squash, melons and beans.  Their mud houses lacked doors or windows so they entered them with ladders that opened on the roof.  This design would endure and later be developed into the Spanish pueblo style with its square or rectangular shape and more durable brown-earth adobe mud (a trick the Spanish learned from the Moors who occupied their lands for nearly 800 years).  Some of these structures still stand today after 400 years, like the Palace of the Governors (located on the north side of the Plaza), the oldest public building in the USA.  More buildings would have lasted had they not been destroyed by the enslaved Pueblo people who rose up against the Spanish in 1680.

Don Pedro de Peralta

One of the earliest known settlements here was a Native American group who built a cluster of homes that centered around the site of today’s Plaza around 900 C.E.  The Pueblo People, who originated from the Four Corners area, founded Santa Fe as a trade and commerce center somewhere around between 1050 to 1150.  When the Spanish conquered this territory in 1598, they established Santa Fé de Nuevo México as a province of New Spain and developed trails, royal roads (El Camino Royale).  The area's third Spanish governor, Don Pedro de Peralta (there’s a downtown mainstreet named after him), founded the present site of the city in 1608, which he called La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís, the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi.  In 1610, he made it the capital of the province.  Thus, Santa Fe is the oldest capital city in the United States and the third oldest American city founded by European colonialists behind the oldest, St. Augustine, Florida (1565). 

In 1810 Mexico declared independence from Spain and in 1824 the city became the capital of the Mexican territory of Santa Fé de Nuevo México as formalized in the 1824 Constitution.  Then, in 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico and added New Mexico through the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  This opened the way for thousands of American pioneers whose covered wagons followed the southern route West on the Santa Fe Trail.  (The Oregon trail went north.)  The railroad came through in the 1880s and made the old trail irrelevant, although remnants of it are still visible on the plains east of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.  An auto tour (http://www.santafetrailscenicandhistoricbyway.org/autotour.html) circles the area on the Cimarron shortcut to Santa Fe where you can see wagon swales and ruts, buildings, historic sites and natural landmarks. 

The difficult terrain in Santa Fe made extending the train tracks into the city nearly impossible so the railroad bypassed the city and almost killed it economically.  In 1907, the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett founded the School of American Research together with Vera von Blumenthal and Rose Dugan.  They also helped develop the Pueblo Indian pottery industry as an art form.  Hewett also started the Santa Fe Fiesta in 1919 and the Southwest Indian Fair in 1922 (now known as the Indian Market).

Commerce has been a consistent influence on Santa Fe, however, it has not made this city into a Mall of the Americas kind of place.  Instead, it has retained its historical and small town character to offer fine arts and crafts instead of the artificial tourism that so many cities create.  There is little neon in the downtown area as shopkeepers prefer to post the name of their stores on wooden signs.  Even so, Santa Fe has a healthy tourist population of 1.5 million per year and it’s easy to see why.

The Pink on the Old Santa Fe Trail

Recycling and restoring old buildings also seems to be an art form, too.  A 75-minute tour on the Loretto Line, an open-air trolley tram, takes you around the city as the guide tells you that this store used to be a gas station or the galleries on Canyon Road were once homes.  The Shop, which specializes in handcrafted Christmas ornaments, nativities and Santas by New Mexico artists, used to be a funeral parlor.  The Pink Adobe Restaurant (a.k.a. The Pink) was an eighteenth century school run by the Christian Brothers.  The Museum of Contemporary Native Arts was once a post office. Nevertheless, many of the Spanish-built houses and buildings were lost during 1693-96 when the Pueblo people rebelled against their Spanish conquerors and burned down most of the town. 

New Mexico became the 47^th state in 1912 and it is already preparing for its centennial celebrations.  Today, many other people have been attracted to the “Land of Enchantment” including yuppies, yoga gurus, holistic and natural healers, New Agers, and people pursuing alternative lifestyles.  There seems to be room for everyone in Santa Fe.

Travelogue: Santa Fe and Its Respect for Food and Sustainability

I was visiting Santa Fe in mid-September just in time for the annual roasting of the chile peppers.  

I never thought about chile peppers, nor did I ever buy them because of their picante kick.  So it was puzzling to see people go crazy over them to the point of stringing them up and displaying them in their houses or patios!  After tasting these amazing Capsicum, however, I understood both their appeal and the unsatiated desire to get more of them. 

The Saturday farmers market provided the best venue for obtaining the peppers and learning how they are roasted.  The chef puts them in a round, wire basket that he cranks over gas-powered flames in order to mix them.  Shoppers have a choice between the spicy hot ones chile peppers and the sweet ones.  I tried both where various market vendors provided plenty of samples.  

The Santa Fe Farmers Market, considered one of the country’s most distinguished and successful markets, began in the late 1960's with only a few farmers selling off the backs of their trucks. Today, over 170 vendors participate to meet the city's demand for fresh, local produce.  The market moved from various locations until it came to the Railyard area in 1986 and to its present location in the renovated and restored Railyard in 1999.  In 2002 it began operating year-round as farmers learned and used extended-season growing techniques.

Festive white tents shade the outdoor vendors who have just about everything imaginable to sell.  The range of what grows in this desert climate is truly remarkable—and the market requires that it’s all locally grown.  Farmers produce many fruit and vegetable crops like beautiful purple Vidalia onions, tomatoes, greens, beans, eggplants, peppers, potatoes, sunflowers and apples and a lot of it is organic.  Also on sale were a variety of ornamental flowers, chile pepper bouquets, herbs and herb products and a bread stand offered delicious combinations of foccacio such as olive, rhubarb-apple, chocolate nut, apricot peach.  Wonderful!  There was even a vendor who sold composting worms. 

The market also has a good-sized pavilion that features a deli counter that had a variety of baked goods (including gluten free), omelets, burritos and sandwiches.  A bean vendor offered a mix of peas, mung beans, lentils and garbanzo beans, which I found to make delicious salad.  Then there was the pasta lady who makes her own whole-grain pasta and tops it off with a homemade curry.  Certified organic meat (lamb, beef and yak) was available as well as churro yarn and homemade soaps.  

People here are very health conscious and the area specializes in alternative medicine.  Consequently, farmers produce a lot of organic food.

As I wandered around the market pavilion I noticed there were six different publications on the subjects of healthy food and sustainable living available for distribution.  The Santa Fe Permaculture Institute, founded in 1996 as the sister organization to the Permaculture Institute of Australia, promotes sustainable living skills through education, networking and demonstration projects in New Mexico/Southwestern region.  This is a city that is serious about preparing for the future!

Poster in the Farmer's Market pavilion

Santa Fe prides itself on its food and for good reason.  Quite simply, it’s good to eat.  And, if you tire of the region's specialty, Mexican food, there are a variety of other venues like French, Italian, Spanish, Mediterranean, European, Latin, Salvadoran, Indian, African, Caribbean, Asian, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, New Mexican, American (Joe’s Dinner is owned and operated by a German) and other things they call eclectic, contemporary, continental, seafood, steakhouse.  Health-conscious patrons also have easy access to restaurants that are specifically vegetarian and serve organic foods.  Of course, there are the requisite number of cafés and ice cream shops of any city.

One of my most memorable restaurant meals occurred during our first full day in the city when my companions and I thought it appropriate to go to a Mexican restaurant for lunch.  We went to Maria’s.  Maria Lopez began her restaurant as a take-out business in 1950 and located it on an 1880s building whose space has since been expanded.

New Mexico Combination Plate

I chose the New Mexico combination plate, which was very different in taste from other Mexican restaurants I've visited.  For example, the taco was served with guacamole and I didn’t have the heart to add salsa.  The chili relienos (roasted and peeled green chili peppers stuffed with cheeses and coated in a special batter and deep fried and then covered with green chili) was an outstanding new taste treat.  Tamales and refried beans just don’t make it for me so I skipped them and saved myself from eating too much anyway.

I loved the sopapillas (fried puffy dough that goes well with honey), which was a first time for me.  Although not much of a drinker, I couldn't resist trying one of the restaurant's 180 margaritas—the basic, simple blend—but felt no compulsion to order any of the 125 tequilas.  Maybe some other time.  Of course, the homemade tortilla chips and salsa (on the spicy hot side) were served immediately. 

While we waited for our lunch, our waiter invited to watch Anna make tortillas.  She worked in an enclosed booth surrounded by windows.  I tried to communicate with her in my terrible, broken, unpracticed Spanish, and she good-heartedly laughed.  I think she understood me when I said that my camera would make her famous.  All in all, eating at Maria’s was a very pleasant experience and I highly recommend it!

For incredible food experiences in all its forms, Santa Fe beats them all!

Travelogue: Jemez Springs

This article appeared on the Huffington Post on November 22, 2011

The train trip on Amtrak's Southwest Chief had been a pleasant but long ride of 24 hours from Chicago to Santa Fe will tire anyone.  On our first full day I thought it a smart idea to have a relaxing massage at one of Santa Fe's many spas and then discovered the Jemez Springs Bath House in the Jemez Mountains.  This 100-minute drive west of the city would not only provided a stunning view of the mountains, but it was near Bandelier Monument, a site that hosted the cliff dwelling Native peoples centuries before. I wanted to see that.

After breakfast and a bit of TV news, my two sister-in-laws, Karen and Tracy, and I excitedly headed out for Jemez Springs.  To be efficient in our driving, we took the southerly route toward ABQ (Albuquerque) on I-25 before we headed northwest on US 550.

Colorado Plateau

It didn't take long before we saw amazing vistas where land and sky meet at a faraway horizon and mountains come in green, pink, blue or beige depending on their geologic time of formation.  In this southern end of the 130,000-square mile Colorado Plateau, sometimes the rocks were dark indicating exposure of the Chinle Shale of the Triassic age layed down in lakes, streams and floodplains 250 million years ago.  The striking red rocks came from windblown Entrada Sandstone of the Jurassic age 160 million years ago.  We were in a setting of obvious eternity!

Everywhere we looked, the rock formations captured both the beauty and majesty of the land.  I couldn't help but get excited that these landscapes were the very same ones the early Native Americans, Spanish explorers and American pioneers saw, and now I was here.  The landscape had tied us together and given a new dimension to the meaning of “sense of place.” 

As a Midwesterner used to flat land and “limited horizons,” these vistas also left me a bit apprehensive when it came to driving through them.  Sometimes we climbed or descended a mountain on its winding switchbacks where a couple feet more would fling us over the edge on a sharp, long way down.  Sometimes we drove through roads carved out of the rock. What impressed me most were the mountains' massiveness and their tendency to envelop us as if to invite us to become one with it.  Other times, as we reached the apex of a peak, we were treated to an incredible view of the many mountains that lay ahead. How inspiring for the Native peoples who saw the land as their Mother, yet how discouraging for the pioneers who had just struggled to climb a mountain.

Karen and I pose with Terry (center)

We arrived at Jemez Springs about 9:30 with half an hour to spare before our appointment.  I needed a little refreshment and suggested we find a coffee shop.  The Jemez Stage Stop was a short walk away.  I ordered a cinnamon bun while Karen ordered a piece of pie called Fruit of the Forest (rhubarb, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, and apple).  Terry, our waitress, was the only one there to take care of customers—and the 16 tables in the dining area.  Fortunately, we were the only ones during this early morning.  The Stop serves things like gluten free cookies and gluten free blue corn pancakes, one more indicator that we are in a very health-conscious area.

At 10 o'clock sharp we were back at the Bath House.  Frances greeted us and quickly led us to our tubs.  There were only four tubs so I was glad I had made reservations weeks before for the $105 package deal of bath, wrap and massage.  (This was $10 shy of the new September rate hike.  Sometimes it pays to plan ahead!)

Each three-foot deep tub was made of concrete in a private stall separated by wooden walls and a curtain.  Inside each stall was a chair, some hooks for hanging clothes and towels and a plastic box to carry our things with us.  We immediately stripped down to nothing and ran some cold water to mix in with the six inches of steaming hot mineral water (154 to 170 degrees) that the Frances had already drawn.  This hot water came from the outdoor hot springs.  I ran the water a couple times to keep it hot but was very careful not to burn myself.  The Bathhouse also provides a quart-size bottle of water, which came in handy to replenish ourselves from time to time from the extreme heat.

Our bath lasted 30 minutes and Frances led us to the tables where she prepared our wrap.  A rubber mat filled with hot water lay in the center of the table.  This was where we were to place our backs.  Then she wrapped us in hot towels with the choice of arms in or arms out.  Tracy and I had our arms out and Karen had her arms in.  Frances then put a cold towel on the back of our necks and one on our foreheads and around our heads leaving space for our noses and mouths.  I joked that I felt like a nun.

At first I was afraid I'd feel confined in the wrap but I was so relaxed and concentrating on the healing properties of this whole experience, that I was fine.  Frances came in after 15 or 20 minutes to see if we needed any adjustments.  Suddenly, I felt transported to another plane.  Maybe it was an out of body experience but I definitely felt differently. 

I don't know if bodywork does anything but I love it.  When Tracy and I were in Thailand, we had wonderful foot and whole body massages.  All that oil, heat and rubbing makes you feel good so she and I were continuing that tradition here at Jemez.  If nothing else, we are always game to pamper ourselves and thought Karen would appreciate it, too.  This was our gift to her for hosting us for the coming eight days of our stay with her and her husband, Dan (Tracy's brother).  She had not been to Jemez Springs before but promised them she'd be back and to bring Dan.  Actually, there are a lot of hot springs and massage places in Santa Fe—even a mud bath, which I'd really like to try someday.  They are much more expensive than Jemez Springs and Karen found the intimacy of Jemez Springs more appealing.  The skill, friendliness and service-orientation of the staff made for an enjoyable two-hour morning.

After our half-hour wrap, it was time for the massage.  We donned the provided bathrobes and Frances escorted us to our individual rooms to meet our masseuse.  Shelley was mine.  She immediately asked me my name first and said she liked it and fit my face.  Maybe I have finally grown into that name.

Shelley has been doing massage for 22 years.  She is a tapestry artist whose subjects are landscapes, trees and some portraits.  She is a petite woman with strong hands, one of the first things she told me—and warned me should I not want a deep massage, which I didn't.  Before she began the work, she asked if I wanted to concentrate on any particular part of my body and I instantly pointed to my knees.  For all the work we do on our feet, she claims our knees have not adequately evolved.  She asked me if I had arthritis and I said I didn't call it that.  “Good for you,” she said.  “Don't give it any power.”  Shelley turned out to be the first of many strong, independent women I would meet on this trip to Santa Fe.

Most masseuses let the client do the talking but Shelley did most of it with me.  It might have been annoying had I not been more interested in hearing about local people and their lives.  She told me she helped start the library on the Jemez Springs Plaza with her librarian husband.  After he left her and her four-year-old daughter, the library employed her.  She took classes in massage and asked the Jemez Springs Bathhouse for a job.  They said they didn't have any jobs for her at the time.  Then she prayed to God to find her work.  Soon afterward she received a phone call from the Bathhouse and has worked there for the past 25 years. 

Shelley is a Sufi and told me about the Sufi dancing fest that will be held in Santa Fe that Sunday at 6:30 p.m. at the Friends House on Canyon Road.  The $10 donation helps pay for people like her to go to conferences to learn new things about Sufi ways so that they can teach others.  This sounded like a great opportunity but it didn't work out.  Maybe next time.

Shelley asked me my astrological sign, as if she were diagnosing me like a doctor. 

“Sagittarius,” I said.

“You need to eat meat, fruits and vegetables and avoid grains unless they are whole grains,” she said.  “The carbs produce sugar and that's not good for your body.” 

This would be the first wellness prescription I would get on this trip.  My acupuncturist brother-in-law would tell me more.  At this stage in my life, especially when I am paying for an expensive individual health care plan, I am suddenly more receptive to such advice.  Nevertheless, healthy living and eating is a big part of the Santa Fe experience and it is available in many forms to suit any and all tastes.

Shelley also told me that she is a “mountain woman.”  I puzzled over what this meant.  To explain it, she told me about a conflict she was having with a neighbor who insisted on trespassing her two-acre property.  She threatened to use her gun on him if he didn't cut it out.

“You have a gun?” I asked suddenly taken aback.

“I have a shotgun and two other guns,” Shelley replied nonchalantly. 

I sure knew I was out West.

Shelley grew up in Denver, Colorado, and later moved with her family to southern California.  At age 17 she ran away from home because she longed for the mountains.  Eventually, she got herself to New Mexico and here in Jemez Springs, which she claims is the “heart of the area.”  To prove it, she said the area's red rock and hot springs have attracted various religions groups (Buddhist, Catholic monastery of Precious Blood, Sufi, etc.) here over the years.  Shelley firmly believes that her heart is here and that's why she has made it her home for over 20 years.

Tracy and Karen at the Laughing Lizard

It seems that Jemez Springs is an off-beat, out of the way place and not something you'd easily run into unless you weren't headed for it.  However, the variety of things to do here make it a destination town and apparently it receives a lot of visitors.  The main drag (towns are built where water is accessible and along highways) has several restaurants.  Shelley recommended the Laughing Lizard Cafe because it features healthy food.  Since Tracy had already suggested it (I think she liked the name), we went there.

The building is 100 years old adobe and stone structure with three-foot thick walls, tin ceiling, and hardwood floors.  It started out as a mercantile for this area and has had other incarnations as a cafe and bar and community center.  It also has an inn to accommodate travelers who come to the area to hike the Jemez Mountains Trail, a scenic byway that passes geologic rock formations, ancient Indian ruins, a pueblo and abandoned mining, logging and logging operations. 

There was only one man there to wait tables, clean up and cashier but it all worked out well since a group of three men were finishing up when we arrived and a four-person group sat down by the time we left.

Tracy had a spinach burrito and Karen had a grilled chicken sandwich.  Because it had been a few days since I'd had any vegetables, I ordered a Greek salad with raspberry dressing.  It was not exactly Greek but I liked the dressing.  Delicious!

We left the Lizard after an hour or so and Karen took the northerly route back to Santa Fe through canyons, mesas, tent rocks, hot springs and Bandelier Monument.  Unfortunately, last summer's drought and the Las Conchas Fire had affected over 20,000 acres of Bandelier’s 33,000 acres.  Some areas were scorched to mineral soil and other areas lightly burned, according to Theresa, a park ranger there on her blog.  The area also suffered flash floods.  Many parts of the park had also been closed to visitors.

The skeletal trees and dark, scorched ground were very sad to see.  Many people think that the drought was caused by climate change and I couldn't help but think that even in this beautiful land we were encountering one of its consequences.  That makes the debates over whether it is man-made or natural silly because climate change is something we will have to deal with probably for the rest of our lives as the earth changes. 

Even if the park were open, however, I found myself too tired to go there.  I nodded off to sleep for half of the ride and could kick myself because I wanted to see this area.  Maybe the massage and the winding roads had made me too relaxed and drowsy.  Maybe this mystical land had put me into a trance.  Whatever it was, thank God I wasn't driving!

Overhead view of the caldera

One particularly beautiful but eerie place I did see was the Jemez Caldera, which encompasses the 89,000-acre historic Baca Ranch.  Now called the Valle Caldera National Preserve, the U.S. government purchased the ranch in 2000 to conduct a unique experiment in public land management.

The 14-mile wide caldera was the seat of a former volcano.  When this one erupted, it affected the land west of the Rio Grande, which runs north and south in New Mexico before it forms the southern border of Texas and drains into the Gulf of Mexico.  The volcano also spewed out hundreds of feet of ash as far as Kansas and Oklahoma and hardened into a honeycombed rock form called tuff.  Nature acted on the tuff and created caves, the dwellings of the first Pueblo peoples.  For all the violence that went on here before, the caldera was all green and looked like grass.  There was nothing in it, just a vast plain.  We drove over the lip of the old volcano, into the Caldera and then out of the lip again.  The roads, of course, were all switchbacks but nicely paved.  

The West is a fascinating place and the geology alone makes it something worth studying.  I would like to read John McPhee book on the subject titled Annals of a Former World.  

“Slow Travel” Can Provide a More Enjoyable and Sustainable Ride

This article appeared in Energy Bulletin on October 8, 2011

Here I am at the Lamy, NM station waiting for Amtrak's Southwest Chief

Last year I made a goal to take all the major Amtrak long haul lines at least once.  In effect, I had become a rail fan as a result of riding the Empire Builder across the top of the country from Chicago to western Montana and back.  That 32-hour ride (one-way) was such an engaging and fun experience that I had to have more of it.

This year I will add two more lines:  the Southwest Chief, which retraces the old Santa Fe Trail through Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico and the City of New Orleans, which follows the Mississippi River all the way south to the Big Easy. 

In explaining why I find train travel so appealing, my ultimate mission is to encourage others to take the train and thus help grow a constituency that may act as enthusiastic lobbyists for a public long-haul transportation system.  I believe that re-building the rail system we disassembled after World War II in favor of an extensive air and interstate highway network is one of many ways we might steer ourselves toward a more sustainable energy future. 

Beyond these environmental and political concerns, trains can provide Americans with at least one other option to the frenzied and frustrating tangle of our airports and freeways.  And, passengers can witness the fantastic landscapes of our country unavailable to them when they fly 500 miles per hour at 30,000 feet or drive 70 on the superhighways.  They may find that “Slow Travel” is as aesthetically pleasing and romantic as the Slow Food movement has been because it encourages people to notice and savor the landscape. 

Slow travel is not about covering miles to reach a destination but rather about allowing yourself to be transported from one world to another by letting the land speak to you.  This is especially available to passengers on the Southwest Chief.

As the train rumbles, squeaks, rattles and sways, you move from one time zone, one region and one reality to another.  This constant rhythm and sonorous background is soothing to the soul and it engenders a solitude that’s good for reading, writing, thinking, dreaming, contemplating or sleeping.  Of course, a lot of people tune into the Internet, play video games or watch movies to pass the time.  However, if you gaze out the window and study the panorama before you, you open yourself up to a new awareness focused on the “life of the land” and its history. 

As you pass the tall corn of Illinois, Iowa and Missouri you realize how it is possible this grain is so plentiful in our food products (and biofuels), and that the golden brown wheat of Kansas will provide our daily bread.  On the Colorado plains where the buffalo once roamed are grazing cattle that will be meat for our tables.  This state’s forests and rushing rivers are quite a contrast to the eroded hillsides, gullies and dry riverbeds of the desert lands and reveal the important role water plays in these parts.  The flat yellow plains of New Mexico support only a handful of trees while the mountainous areas are covered with fragrant sagebrush, junipers and pinion pines under a clear blue sky.  Big square buttes sit atop humpy mountains.  No wonder the ancient peoples who lived here 10,000 years ago concocted a nature religion.

Throughout the journey in lonely, secluded places TV antennas poke out of small prefab houses or mobile homes while at night their soft, yellow lights capture the essence of home, comfort and tranquility.  Then, the wood-frame farmhouses with their collapsed, sun-blanched roofs confirm that an old way of life has disappeared. 

Everywhere are fences and in key places are tall or short telephone poles with crossbars sometimes crooked by design.  These signify the effort to civilize the land.  What time and energy it took to construct them!  But they are nothing compared to the mountains where sedimentation, uplift, water and erosion have formed them over millions of years. 

Trains go through towns, most of them old downtowns, with late nineteenth century Italianate architecture, a refreshing change from the predictable glass and steel skyscrapers of our modern age.  Worn-off lettering on their red brick walls advertise businesses long gone but not entirely forgotten.  Train stationhouses vary in color, style and materials but the sentiments of the people coming and going there are the same:  broad, happy smiles of welcome to family and friends or tears and somber faces saying goodbye.

America’s junkyards sit along the rail lines in nearly every town with their rusted out cars and heaps of concrete and twisted metal.  They are a pretty dreadful sight!  These remains represent the past, too, the industrial past, as well as the clarion call for a new, more sustainable way of life. 

Wagon Mound is a teeny-tiny town in northeastern New Mexico with a giant-size butte.  Amtrak’s route guide indicates that it served as a landmark for pioneers going westward on the old Santa Fe Trail.  Imagine their relief when they saw it after a six to eight week journey over 600-700 miles from western Missouri.  The butte is a sign for me, too, that my 24-hour journey from Chicago is just about over, only I’ve spent it in a comfortable setting with soft seats, adequate food and water and safety.

In truth, long haul trains are romantic and sensual because other than keeping on schedule, time is not a priority.  For one thing, you are treated to good, old-fashioned service.  As you board the train, the conductor and attendants welcome you, handle your bags and offer you pillows. 

The seats are very comfortable and you have a lot of legroom and a big window to look out.  The lounge car provides an even better view with a clear top ceiling.  It also provides electrical plugs and Internet connections.  The dining car gives you almost a 360-degree view and if you time it right, you can have your breakfast during sunrise and your dinner at sunset.  On my return train I had dinner over the grassy Colorado plains where a bright yellow sun dipped below the horizon as purple mountains stood tall in the background amid the reds, pinks, blues and lavender clouds streaking the sky.  There’s not much as scenic or simple as Nature’s paintbrush! 

Railway workers tend to be jaunty and a little quirky rather than staid and technical like airline pilots. 

“La Junta (Colorado) is the next stop,” says the announcer with an emphasis on the “J” and ending the word with a lilt. 

“Here is beautiful, downtown Princeton (near Chicago),” he says another time.

In the dining car wait staff routinely joke around with each other and with passengers.  Many people who work the rails are avid rail fans themselves, only they are able to play the part.  Dinner is an especially exciting challenge for the servers who must contend with a wobble here and a jerky turn there.  This alone is cause for conversation.

My attendant on the way to Santa Fe must have been a history buff as he shared stories about key points of interest once we reached Colorado and New Mexico.  For example, he told us about the Civil War battle in Glorietta, NM (I didn’t know the war was out there) and alerted us to a particularly scenic spot.  Going through such places make them real rather than abstractions on a map!

Trains are a safe way to travel.  Conductors and attendants pass through the entire train from time to time throughout the trip to make sure all is well.  They help you if you need anything, have a question or just want to talk a bit.  In other words, they have time for you and give it rather freely.

If you book a sleeper, an attendant makes up your bed in the evening and tears it down in the morning.  He also makes sure you have water and coffee during the trip and access to the New York Times in the morning. 

Stretching out on a bed at night is a welcome change from the day’s seated position.  The bed vibrates a little amid the thumping of wheels on tracks, but it provides a better sedative than Sominex. 

Throughout the night but especially during bedtime and morning you hear the occasional slam of compartment doors as well as the low creaks and squawks of train cars rub against each other.  Someone might walk by in pajamas on the way to the bathroom or shower.  This is train culture, too, and it’s a fun diversion from ordinary conventions!

Taking a shower on a train is a particularly unique experience and not just because you are in a moving object.  One shower stall is supposed to accommodate everyone in your car and somehow everyone who wants one gets it.  Actually, this is a rare opportunity to share space and you see that it really works.  The shower is a tight squeeze but the water is hot and the hand-held nozzle gives you greater flexibility to bathe your entire body. 

I’ve slept in coach in my clothes for 34 hours and I’ve taken a shower in sleeper class after an overnight.  The latter is surely better, and I felt clean, refreshed and ready for a new day.  Amtrak provides soap and clean towels.

Riding a long haul train at night has its own special enchantment.  Streetlights and building lamps glow slightly higher than the horizon.  A lonely car moves through a sleepy town.  Red warning lights flash and clang their bells at crossings.  Tall, dimly lit grain elevators rise up in farmlands; they are the rural skyscrapers.  Little red lights blink at the top of communication towers.  Finally, and most importantly, you get a rare view of the stars.

Yes, yes, yes, there are disadvantages to the train.  They’re not always on time.  The aisles are small and making it difficult to walk as the train bounces on the tracks, especially when you must pass people going in the opposite direction.  You excuse yourself, maybe laugh at the struggle, figure out who goes first and politely pass.  Actually, this is an example of what goes on in public space, a phenomenon we have gotten away from as we rely on private transportation, our cars, to get us to where we want to go. 

In truth, trains are among the last public spaces left in our impersonal, high-security, privatized society and they demand a different kind of behavior.  You must interact with other passengers—strangers—in a respectful, face-to-face way.  And, people seem to want—and conductors try to ensure—an environment that is absent the omnipresent cacophony of electronic devices and boisterous talking simply because you all are travelers on the same train.  Of course, the Lounge Car is available for those who prefer more spirited interaction.

As with any public space, trains beckon you to explore them in a number of ways.  You can walk from car to car to stretch your legs, use the restroom or get a snack.  You can go to the Lounge Car to play cards, observe the scenery or just find a new place to sit. You can also go to the Dining Car for a delicious meal at a table that is complete with a tablecloth, cloth napkins, real silverware and friendly, unrushed servers.  Because space is limited and every seat a premium, you are seated with other passengers if you are alone or traveling with one or two others.  This is how you meet some interesting people who are usually willing to share their lives or some stories with you.

And, then you learn something else about public space that is totally unexpected:  the passengers develop a degree of trust among themselves.  In riding with people a long way, you at least recognize them even if you don’t talk to them.  Some you get to know through casual conversation.  That’s when you realize that our more privatized society has actually cut us off from each other and made us more suspicious that some unknown thug will jump out from the shadows to rob, beat or kill us.  The train reminds us that indeed there is another way. 

Finally, the return home after a long cross-country train ride is particularly sweet because the time you’ve spent and space you’ve traversed are now a part of you—and, you’ve traveled it slowly! 

Hiroshima Commemoration: Living Happily Near a Nuclear Trash Heap

Guest Report by Dick Thompson of Time
May 11, 1992

DR. WILLIAM REID WAS NEW TO Oak Ridge, Tenn., and disturbed by what he was seeing. Soon after he joined the staff of Methodist Medical Center in early 1991, he was treating four patients with kidney cancers, an unusually large number for one small area, and a cluster of other people who appeared to have weakened ability to ward off infections. Reid suspected that something in the local environment was attacking the residents' immune systems.

It didn't take much imagination for Reid to figure out possible sources of contamination. For 49 years, federal installations at Oak Ridge have manufactured the innards of nuclear bombs. In the process, the plants have produced -- and carelessly disposed of -- mountains of radioactive material and hazardous wastes. Even the U.S. government admits the Oak Ridge labs have littered the surrounding countryside with everything from asbestos and mercury to enriched uranium. The story is much the same at all the country's now notorious nuclear weapons plants, scattered from Hanford, Wash., to Los Alamos, N. Mex., to the Savannah River plant. The Department of Energy has launched a major clean-up effort, but it might be too late to prevent a host of medical problems in people who have lived in the shadow of the toxic plants for decades.

Could a health disaster be hitting Oak Ridge? Reid was determined to find out.

...Still, Oak Ridge is no ordinary place. Earlier this year a visitor to one of the nuclear facilities accidentally turned off the main road. When he tried to leave, alarms rang, and the government bought his radioactive rental car on the spot. In the reservation surrounding the plants, creatures ranging from deer to frogs and water fleas have all excited Geiger counters. Contaminated trees, which take up nuclear liquids through their roots, have been chopped down and buried lest the autumn winds spread radioactive leaves. And the streams have carried toxic chemicals and nuclear products -- including strontium, tritium and plutonium -- for distances of 64 km (40 miles). Posted along the town's creek are NO FISHING signs and Department of Energy warnings: no water contact.

No one worried much about environmental contamination when Oak Ridge quietly sprang up as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II. By 1944, two years after construction started, Oak Ridge had become Tennessee's fifth largest city, and it was all behind a guarded fence. At peak production, the "secret city" used 20% more power than New York City.

After the products of the Manhattan Project exploded over Japan and ended the war, the mania for secrecy diminished. The fences surrounding the city came down, and Oak Ridge started appearing on maps. But its work was far from done. Once the arms race with the Soviets began, Oak Ridgers hunkered down to help produce an arsenal of American hydrogen bombs. A recently declassified report done for the Department of Energy found that the weapons factories "operated in an atmosphere of high urgency" that resulted in astounding environmental and health assaults.

Between 1951 and '84, the Oak Ridge plants pumped 10.2 million L (2.7 million gal.) of concentrated acids and nuclear wastes into open-air ponds, called the "witches' cauldron," from which the chemicals would evaporate or leach into a nearby stream. Barrels of strange brews and experimental gases, some so volatile that they would explode on contact with oxygen, were sealed and dropped into a quarry pool. A neatly stacked collection of 76,600 barrels and oil drums, filled with nuclear sludge and now rusting, is larger than the main building at Oak Ridge. Millions of cubic meters of toxic material, including pcbs and cobalt 60, were dumped in trenches and covered with soil. In 1983 the Department of Energy acknowledged that 1.1 million kg (2.4 million lbs.) of mercury had been lost. It went up the smokestacks, drained into the soil and flowed into the stream that runs through town. After that revelation, mercury was found at the city's two high schools and in the blood of workers at one of the atomic-research sites. An unknown amount of enriched uranium went out smokestacks.

....The culture of secrecy and concern about job security may have kept information from health investigators. Says Robert Keil, president of the Oak Ridge Atomic Trades and Labor Council: "One thing that kept people from coming forward is that they were afraid they might jeopardize their security clearance by talking about something that was classified."

The end of the cold war provides an opportunity to get at the truth. At Oak Ridge, as at other weapons labs, the threat of a nuclear conflict has been replaced by the threat of massive layoffs. The big job in town now seems to be cleaning up the nuclear trash heap. More than $1.5 billion has already been spent on detoxifying Oak Ridge, and the end isn't in sight. The government is beginning an exhaustive medical survey of the people who live around Oak Ridge, including the women. The Centers for Disease Control has been asked to look into Reid's allegations.

But confident of the outcome, the people of Oak Ridge still sleep soundly. They have lived with danger for decades and see no reason to start panicking now.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975482,00.html#ixzz1TXin2fqo